GPS technology tracks employees
Pastor Dale Morgan
GPS technology tracks employees*
By Tom McGhee
Denver Post Staff Writer
Larry Overley, president of Landtech Contractors, doesn't have to wonder
whether his employees are where they are supposed to be during the work
day. Global Positioning System transmitters in each of the 50 trucks the
landscaping company operates let him know where they are.
"It cuts down on guys leaving the job site. It helps us with our payroll
costs because guys can't fudge on their time sheet. We know when they
get to the job, and we know when they leave the job," he said.
The system, in use for six years, cut labor costs at the Aurora-based
commercial landscaping company by about 3 percent in the first year.
The company is one of a growing number using GPS to keep track of
workers, said Chad Orvis, an attorney with the Mountain States Employers
Council, which advises businesses on human-resources practices.
Employers who use the technology, developed by the U.S. Department of
Defense, rely on it to track employees who are off site, help lower fuel
costs and increase productivity, Orvis said.
Beside GPS, companies track other work-related functions - e-mail and
Internet use, for example. Radio-frequency identification technology is
used in ID tags that make it possible for an employer to know when a
person walked through a security door. Chips using the technology can
even be inserted into a human body - but that's unusual and used
primarily in high-security environments.
The growing use of the technology causes concern among some privacy
advocates.
There are no statutes on the books to stop an employer from routinely
tracking an employee, said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"I think that legislation is appropriate. From a privacy perspective,
more could be done to safeguard GPS users," he said. "This is a
marvelous technology, but the key, particularly as phone-based
technology becomes more sophisticated, should be that users are able to
use it to locate where they are, not so that others can locate them."
"Americans hate being spied on"
The issue gets particularly thorny when the person being tracked can't
turn off the GPS device at the end of the day, said Philip Gordon,
chairman of the privacy practice group at the Denver law office of
Littler Mendelson.
"There might one day be a claim that the tracking is so pervasive that
it was something like stalking, but there is no case law so far
advancing that theory," Gordon said.
Both he and Orvis advise employers who plan to track their workers to
let them know they are doing it, to tell them the reasons and to be sure
that it doesn't go on after work.
"In some industries, employees are going to react negatively to finding
out that location tracking is going on," Gordon said. "The bigger issue
is employee morale. The issue is Americans hate being spied on or
feeling that they are being spied on."
James Smallwood, a landscape maintenance manager who joined Landtech
more than a year ago, said he had a hard time with the GPS tracking at
first. But Smallwood, who drives a company-owned 2006 Silverado with a
small GPS transmitting antenna attached to the rear window, now finds
the system useful.
During peak seasons, he said, he supervises 50 employees and oversees up
to 20 trucks.
"This helps me regulate my crews and how they are routed," he said. "It
used to be a concern. I thought it would be a huge micromanagement tool.
But I am an honest guy and I am not out to rip off the company or sit
under a tree and go to sleep."
In most cases, GPS is used to increase productivity, said Orvis, of
Mountain States.
Plumbing company Roto-Rooter, which has 1,500 service technicians
throughout the country, started providing techs with GPS-equipped
cellphones more than a year ago, said Steve Poppe, the company's
Cincinnati based chief information officer. Roto-Rooter technicians in
Denver will be getting the phones in 2007.
The system is now used by about 390 of the employees in a number of
cities. It assures the closest person to a customer who has called is
the one dispatched. Drivers can also use it to find the location.
Many Roto-Rooter employees work on commission and don't get paid when
they are driving to and from a call, Poppe said. The system helps them
maximize their pay.
Roto-Rooter's GPS system is linked to mobile printers used to generate
invoices at client sites.
When a technician begins generating an invoice, the system notifies the
dispatch center.
The high-tech dispatch system has resulted in a 20 percent increase in
service calls.
Many of the workers were leery of the gadgetry until they used it, Poppe
said.
"It is a change going from pencil and paper to some electronic wizardry.
Once they get their hands on it most of them like it. We are really
trying to best serve our customers and we have to know who is where."