Big Brother or a key to efficiency?
By Michael Schroeder, The Journal Gazette (Fort Wayne, In)
When Verizon Communications Inc. first began installing GPS equipment in the vehicles of its Indiana service technicians in 2003, employees were assured that the move was designed to improve efficiency of operations.
Despite fears of Big Brother, “it wasn’t established as a punitive measure,” said Jane Howard, a spokeswoman for the company. Rather, it is a tool that technicians and the company use to monitor fuel costs, ensure productivity and improve efficiency, she said.
That’s not to say GPS can’t be used to monitor employees and provide documentation for possible disciplinary purposes, which is what happened at the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, where half a dozen workers resigned or were fired this month.
On occasion, a Verizon supervisor may have a conversation with a technician related to GPS information, but Howard says that no company employees have lost their jobs as a result of GPS findings. A union official, however, disputes that.
Regardless of Verizon’s stated intentions for installing GPS, the technology has also been used to police employees, including in one case that ended in an employee’s termination, said Bruce Getts, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 723, which is based in Fort Wayne. And that dismissal hasn’t set well with the union that represents the company’s employees.
“You can’t dispute the right of the company to have (GPS) in their own vehicles,” Getts said. He would not provide specifics of the termination case but said that the union is appealing.
What Getts takes issue with is his perception that the technology was sold to the employees one way, namely to improve efficiency but used for another – a discipline mechanism. That debate has been central to the use of GPS equipment by businesses around the country.
The technology is more commonly used by delivery and trucking companies, although it is catching on in other areas as well. While some local employers are embracing it as a good addition to improve efficiency in operations, others who also have employees frequently hitting the road see it as unnecessary, too expensive or potentially problematic for employer-employee relations.
Nationally, an estimated 8 percent of employers use GPS technology to track the movement of workers. In addition, the use of video monitoring to prevent theft, violence and sabotage rose last year to 51 percent of 526 employers surveyed by the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute.
That compares with 33 percent that were using such monitoring four years earlier.
At the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, the recent in-house investigation led by Mindy Waldron relied on GPS equipment secretly hidden in cars to track workers’ movements. The investigation began after Waldron heard comments from the public that some of the department’s employees weren’t where they were supposed to be. The probe’s findings led to the firing or resignation of six workers. Two other workers were suspended without pay and the department late last week was taking steps to fire another worker.
Unlike the health department, most employers who use the technology do so in full view of their employees. That means they must sell employees on the technology that some construe as an electronic baby sitter by showing other aspects of its usefulness, including safety.
“I think initially your thought is OK, another Big Brother kind of thing,” said Steve Smith, a truck driver for Alvan Motor Freight. But any initial hesitancy to the equipment, which was first implemented in the company’s cell phones about two years ago, quickly faded for the self-described straight shooter.
“It confirms to the company that you were doing what you say you were doing,” said Smith, who works out of Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Alvan Motor’s business operations in Fort Wayne.
If Smith had a busy day and worked through lunch, his superiors know. If he’s delayed at a drop-off point, his superiors know.
The latter gives management an opportunity to work directly with customers to make sure that they can minimize delays, said Mark Leslie, the company’s vice president of operations.
In addition, “it allows us to view where each of our drivers are in relationship to where our customers need us,” Leslie said. The system has also helped improved accountability, but Leslie said that employees are on board and resistance to using GPS was “very minimal.”
Where discrepancies are found when comparing employee reports with GPS information, it’s usually an honest mistake on the part of man or machine, he said.
“Very few (discrepancies) are actual drivers goofing off somewhere,” Leslie said. Overall, he said the system has kept the company’s 450 or so drivers – including 18 in Fort Wayne – on course.
“We are more effective, definitely,” Leslie said. He didn’t disclose the amount Alvan Motor invested in GPS technology but said that the company has come out ahead.
One added benefit and the primary reason the company bought the equipment is safety, according to Leslie. A truck broken down on the road could be more easily located with GPS, he said.
In addition to Alvan, Lutheran Hospital is beginning to use GPS in courier cars that make deliveries between labs – the technology is in only a few cars now with plans to expand that number. While the systems have the capability to track employee movement and include some video-monitoring equipment, spokesman Geoff Thomas said the intention is not to check up but to improve safety and efficiency.
The technology can be used in dispatching drivers to determine which drivers are closest to which labs and determine the best routes, he said.
While the technology may work for some, it would not be the right fit for LaBov & Beyond, according to Jeremy Pettet, an account executive in public relations. Pettet says that the majority of the 65 or so employees working for the Fort Wayne-based full-service marketing and advertising agency travel for business.
To aid them, the company has several floating GPS navigational systems that it can use. But the systems don’t have capabilities that would allow LaBov & Beyond to track its employees, Pettet said. That kind of “micromanagement” could undermine creativity and trust in a culture where employees already go the extra mile to get their work done, he said.
“In my opinion, it would make our people feel (like they were) not trusted or like we were suggesting that they are not basically making the best use of their time.”
Nancy Norris of the bank company Chase said she doesn’t know of any instances where the banking company used GPS to track employees.
“We don’t see a need,” she said matter-of-factly.
The spokeswoman who covers Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and the western half of Ohio, said the majority of those traveling are higher-level management who are trusted to be accountable for their time and travel. Even so, Norris said, she wouldn’t be offended by the introduction of GPS, even if it were to track her own travels for Chase business.
“I expect privacy in my personal life,” Norris said. “I don’t expect privacy at my employer.”
Only a fraction of employers – typically larger ones – use GPS at all. Of those, many use it for purposes that have nothing to do with employee surveillance.
“We have quite a hodge-podge of different client needs,” said Joel Holloway, operations manager for Innovation Mapping in Huntington.
Most Innovation Mapping clients use GPS to locate utilities, Holloway said, a far cry from keeping tabs on employees. The company is in the development stages of its own automated vehicle location system, he said. But he admits that it may be a hard sell.
“Employees perceive it as they’re just watching me to see how long I’ve been at this point,” he said. Smaller employers are also inclined to view it as an expensive addition that may or may not be worth the hassle, Holloway said.
Costs vary widely from basic units in the hundreds to others costing well into the thousands. Unions also tend to resist additional oversight of employee members, he said.
Getts, the union official, said his and other unions don’t want employers to misuse the equipment, but he added that it can also be used to show an employee was doing the right thing. He advises employees to get used to the increased surveillance and to follow a simple credo.
“Be where you’re supposed to be.”
When Verizon Communications Inc. first began installing GPS equipment in the vehicles of its Indiana service technicians in 2003, employees were assured that the move was designed to improve efficiency of operations.
Despite fears of Big Brother, “it wasn’t established as a punitive measure,” said Jane Howard, a spokeswoman for the company. Rather, it is a tool that technicians and the company use to monitor fuel costs, ensure productivity and improve efficiency, she said.
That’s not to say GPS can’t be used to monitor employees and provide documentation for possible disciplinary purposes, which is what happened at the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, where half a dozen workers resigned or were fired this month.
On occasion, a Verizon supervisor may have a conversation with a technician related to GPS information, but Howard says that no company employees have lost their jobs as a result of GPS findings. A union official, however, disputes that.
Regardless of Verizon’s stated intentions for installing GPS, the technology has also been used to police employees, including in one case that ended in an employee’s termination, said Bruce Getts, business manager of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local Union 723, which is based in Fort Wayne. And that dismissal hasn’t set well with the union that represents the company’s employees.
“You can’t dispute the right of the company to have (GPS) in their own vehicles,” Getts said. He would not provide specifics of the termination case but said that the union is appealing.
What Getts takes issue with is his perception that the technology was sold to the employees one way, namely to improve efficiency but used for another – a discipline mechanism. That debate has been central to the use of GPS equipment by businesses around the country.
The technology is more commonly used by delivery and trucking companies, although it is catching on in other areas as well. While some local employers are embracing it as a good addition to improve efficiency in operations, others who also have employees frequently hitting the road see it as unnecessary, too expensive or potentially problematic for employer-employee relations.
Nationally, an estimated 8 percent of employers use GPS technology to track the movement of workers. In addition, the use of video monitoring to prevent theft, violence and sabotage rose last year to 51 percent of 526 employers surveyed by the American Management Association and ePolicy Institute.
That compares with 33 percent that were using such monitoring four years earlier.
At the Fort Wayne-Allen County Department of Health, the recent in-house investigation led by Mindy Waldron relied on GPS equipment secretly hidden in cars to track workers’ movements. The investigation began after Waldron heard comments from the public that some of the department’s employees weren’t where they were supposed to be. The probe’s findings led to the firing or resignation of six workers. Two other workers were suspended without pay and the department late last week was taking steps to fire another worker.
Unlike the health department, most employers who use the technology do so in full view of their employees. That means they must sell employees on the technology that some construe as an electronic baby sitter by showing other aspects of its usefulness, including safety.
“I think initially your thought is OK, another Big Brother kind of thing,” said Steve Smith, a truck driver for Alvan Motor Freight. But any initial hesitancy to the equipment, which was first implemented in the company’s cell phones about two years ago, quickly faded for the self-described straight shooter.
“It confirms to the company that you were doing what you say you were doing,” said Smith, who works out of Kalamazoo, Mich.-based Alvan Motor’s business operations in Fort Wayne.
If Smith had a busy day and worked through lunch, his superiors know. If he’s delayed at a drop-off point, his superiors know.
The latter gives management an opportunity to work directly with customers to make sure that they can minimize delays, said Mark Leslie, the company’s vice president of operations.
In addition, “it allows us to view where each of our drivers are in relationship to where our customers need us,” Leslie said. The system has also helped improved accountability, but Leslie said that employees are on board and resistance to using GPS was “very minimal.”
Where discrepancies are found when comparing employee reports with GPS information, it’s usually an honest mistake on the part of man or machine, he said.
“Very few (discrepancies) are actual drivers goofing off somewhere,” Leslie said. Overall, he said the system has kept the company’s 450 or so drivers – including 18 in Fort Wayne – on course.
“We are more effective, definitely,” Leslie said. He didn’t disclose the amount Alvan Motor invested in GPS technology but said that the company has come out ahead.
One added benefit and the primary reason the company bought the equipment is safety, according to Leslie. A truck broken down on the road could be more easily located with GPS, he said.
In addition to Alvan, Lutheran Hospital is beginning to use GPS in courier cars that make deliveries between labs – the technology is in only a few cars now with plans to expand that number. While the systems have the capability to track employee movement and include some video-monitoring equipment, spokesman Geoff Thomas said the intention is not to check up but to improve safety and efficiency.
The technology can be used in dispatching drivers to determine which drivers are closest to which labs and determine the best routes, he said.
While the technology may work for some, it would not be the right fit for LaBov & Beyond, according to Jeremy Pettet, an account executive in public relations. Pettet says that the majority of the 65 or so employees working for the Fort Wayne-based full-service marketing and advertising agency travel for business.
To aid them, the company has several floating GPS navigational systems that it can use. But the systems don’t have capabilities that would allow LaBov & Beyond to track its employees, Pettet said. That kind of “micromanagement” could undermine creativity and trust in a culture where employees already go the extra mile to get their work done, he said.
“In my opinion, it would make our people feel (like they were) not trusted or like we were suggesting that they are not basically making the best use of their time.”
Nancy Norris of the bank company Chase said she doesn’t know of any instances where the banking company used GPS to track employees.
“We don’t see a need,” she said matter-of-factly.
The spokeswoman who covers Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia and the western half of Ohio, said the majority of those traveling are higher-level management who are trusted to be accountable for their time and travel. Even so, Norris said, she wouldn’t be offended by the introduction of GPS, even if it were to track her own travels for Chase business.
“I expect privacy in my personal life,” Norris said. “I don’t expect privacy at my employer.”
Only a fraction of employers – typically larger ones – use GPS at all. Of those, many use it for purposes that have nothing to do with employee surveillance.
“We have quite a hodge-podge of different client needs,” said Joel Holloway, operations manager for Innovation Mapping in Huntington.
Most Innovation Mapping clients use GPS to locate utilities, Holloway said, a far cry from keeping tabs on employees. The company is in the development stages of its own automated vehicle location system, he said. But he admits that it may be a hard sell.
“Employees perceive it as they’re just watching me to see how long I’ve been at this point,” he said. Smaller employers are also inclined to view it as an expensive addition that may or may not be worth the hassle, Holloway said.
Costs vary widely from basic units in the hundreds to others costing well into the thousands. Unions also tend to resist additional oversight of employee members, he said.
Getts, the union official, said his and other unions don’t want employers to misuse the equipment, but he added that it can also be used to show an employee was doing the right thing. He advises employees to get used to the increased surveillance and to follow a simple credo.
“Be where you’re supposed to be.”
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