What’s the most important consideration in managing field employees? The answer is GPS tracking. The reason being frequent travelling and a lack of direct contact of field executives with their managers.
With GPS tracking, you can monitor your mobile staff in real time and streamline field operations. Imagine how easy task assignments would be if you knew the precise location of your employees, their availability status, and their proximity to the client site.
That’s why it’s necessary to use an Employee GPS Tracking App to monitor your field staff. But you can’t just choose any app. You have to consider factors like your workforce size and industry type before selecting the right employee GPS tracking software.
Choosing the Right Employee GPS Tracking App for Your Business: What to Consider?
There are some essential components in all GPS employee tracking solutions. Sure, an integrated map and live location tracking are immensely useful. But to fully leverage their potential, you also need dedicated modules for task, attendance, and order management. This can help to:
- Improve employee productivity
- Reduce resource wastage
- Cut operational costs
- Ensure faster customer service
- Prevent workload disparity in the workforce
The following are the 6 must-have features in employee GPS tracking software.
Real-time employee monitoring
The foremost function of any employee GPS tracking app is ensuring complete visibility into employees’ day-to-day routines. This includes their accurate location, activity status, task status, and performance. You can also use real-time monitoring to:
- Check employee availability, along with their accurate locations and addresses on the integrated map.
- Display the network and battery status of employees’ GPS devices.
- Track your staff’s attendance and task status (complete, pending, rescheduled).
- Monitor employees even when they are offline or out of the network area.
- Check the total value of all orders and expenses per employee.
- Use the Route Distance Calculator For Employee to playback routes or cross-check fuel expenses.
- View the top performers of the day and week on the dashboard.
Attendance and leave tracking
Time theft is a prevalent issue in field businesses. You have to enforce strict guidelines and ensure accurate attendance logging. It can be challenging due to the remote nature of fieldwork. But with employee GPS tracking apps, managers can:
- Assign specific shift timings to employees or teams.
- Establish geofences to ensure locational verification while attendance logging.
- Demand visual proof with attached location coordinates and time stamps for higher accuracy.
The leave management process is also simplified. The software lets you:
- Upload a yearly leave calendar.
- Allow employees to request leave in advance.
- Cap the number of leaves per executive.
- Create custom categories of leave—full day, half day, sick, marriage, etc.
Task Management
This feature is important for industries that are dependent on quick and efficient customer service. For instance, companies in logistics, sales, or FMCG sectors need to ensure the right orders reach the right customers in a timely manner.
Plus, managers have to consider their employees’ strengths while assigning tasks. This requires careful planning and can be easily handled by employee GPS tracking apps. Here’s what you can do with it:
- Allocate tasks based on employees’ proximity to the customer site.
- Check employee availability in real-time and adjust the priority of tasks.
- Create ad-hoc tasks and upload them in bulk.
- Let employees self-allocate tasks.
Sales order management
If you work in the retail, publishing, or pharma industries, you must understand the importance of sales. Field executives carry out sales tasks, and their success depends on timely and personalised customer service.
And since sales is a time-sensitive job, field agents need quick access to order inventory and an easy-to-use order processing platform. Field employee GPS tracking apps can be integrated with CRM software or provide a sales management platform. It allows you to:
- Create multiple order categories and maintain an updated product inventory.
- Adjust prices and offer custom discounts.
- Sort orders as per different categories.
- Create orders on the go.
Reports and Analytics
Employee GPS tracking apps record huge amounts of data daily. It’s stored securely on cloud servers. This data can be retrieved by managers to find specific details about customers or employees. The app itself performs automatic analysis and can generate reports like:
- Target vs. achievement reports
- Distance reports to crosscheck fuel expenses
- Task completion rate
- Employee efficiency reports
- Actual vs. completed work hours
- Stoppage reports to review employee’ halts
Managers can use these reports to spot trends and identify any discrepancies. Plus, the data comes in handy during audits.
Expense and Payroll Management
Mobile executives incur expenses for food, fuel, or stationery. These charges are often unavoidable and have to be reimbursed by the company. However, proper authentication of the expenses is necessary.
And there have to be defined guidelines for expenses and how they will be paid off. As such, employee GPS tracking apps usually offer a module to manage payroll and expenses. Managers can use it to:
- Create custom expense categories as per your business needs.
- Let executives easily upload bills and invoices with attached visual proof, geotags, and timestamps.
- Set a limit for the expenses to prevent overspending.
Managers can consolidate the data from other modules or integrated third-party platforms too. This data is used to calculate accurate payroll after factoring in employees’ attendance, missed deadlines, completed tasks, expenses, total sales, etc.
Conclusion
Whatever industry you work in, if you employ remote workers, you need a GPS-based staff tracking app. Other ways of managing your field employees are time-consuming, uneconomical, and ineffective.
We have covered 6 must-have features of employee GPS tracking software and the benefits they offer. In addition, the software can also improve customer service, prevent downtimes, maintain workforce morale, and reduce employee burnout.
Employee GPS tracking apps are convenient for both managers and field agents. It streamlines field operations, letting managers focus on larger tasks like strategy building and HR planning. Plus, the apps simplify field employees’ daily tasks, allowing them to spend more time with customers and work without worrying about administrative burdens.
On that note, we wrap this article and suggest you check out TrackoField, one of the best employee GPS tracking apps in the industry.
