How to track a mobile workforce
The Growth of the Mobile Workforce
While technology has helped facilitate the mobile workforce and increased business efficiency, it has also increased the need for companies to be more precise and effectively competitive amongst each other. Empowering employees with more control over where and when work is completed increases employee satisfaction and engagement, improves business efficiency, while also making more efficient and effective use of all business resources. Mobile workforces allow businesses to reduce overhead expenses, such as the reduced need for physical office space/resources and less reliance on complex IT infrastructures as more data and processes are migrated to cloud platforms.
Importance of GPS tagging
When managing a mobile workforce, businesses might need to be able to track workers in multiple locations, including some staff who may be working outside the company’s offices.
Geolocation tagging or GPS tagging, is highly convenient for those employees who work out in the field or at remote locations. You may want to know which jobs staff are on or validate that they are actually on location and not down the road at the pub when they clock in or out.
How GPS tagging works
Geolocation tagging uses any one of several tools for tracking an employee location. With geolocation, a smartphone, tablet or PC uses the software and hardware installed on it combined with its settings to capture location data. At any given time and for various reasons, it may choose to use GPS, cell tower triangulation, WI-FI positioning, or even the device’s IP address to determine coordinates. Geolocation will work better on some devices and at certain times and places than others.
Modern mobile time tracking
Manual paper timesheets are becoming outdated and have less of a place in today’s modern, mobile work environment. Businesses that rely on these manual processes are subjected to inaccurate data due to human error and potentially fraudulent reporting due to unethical reporting practices by employees. This manner of reporting can make auditing a difficult if not impossible process.
When employees know that their location is being tagged, they are more likely to follow the rules. Even with the occasional presence of a low-accuracy entry, employees know that their location is known, overall, and that they can’t get away with clocking in and out from unapproved locations.
For this reason, companies are increasingly looking towards cloud-based time and attendance solutions to better manage time tracking of mobile workers. Mobile time tracking is highly efficient and has many advantages that makes it more accepted both by the employer and employees.
Maintaining accurate records
Any business can be subjected to auditing of their time and attendance records, especially if or when a labour dispute arises. Therefore, it is essential that companies maintain accurate records of time and attendance, locations, assignments, jobs etc. For businesses with a mobile work environment, cloud-based time tracking is essential to facilitate accurate record keeping as well as greatly simplifying the production of reports in the event of an audit.
The Solution
The BundyPlus cloud-based mobile time and attendance application is a great solution for businesses wanting to expand and stay streamlined with modern technological practices by improving business efficiency, enhancing employee engadgement and accurately tracking employee time and attendance.
If you're not ready for a cloud solution, there are other options. For example, a hybrid solution may be a better fit. BundyPlus TimePlus and BundyPlus Studio have been the workhorse for Australian manufactures for over 25 years. With the BundyPlus flexible solution architecture, you can link BundyPlus Live (Cloud) to your BundyPlus Studio or BundyPlus TimePlus via the free ClockComms Utility. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you have questions about tracking your workforce better.