Business Bytes
Jul 13, 2010

Employee Location Tracking = Big Brother?

 

Minda Zetlin recently wrote an article here at the Inc Technology website about keeping tabs on your mobile workforce. She mentioned a mobile technology application that can tell managers exactly where workers are at any given time. It also has a time tracking component. Employees don't generally like to track their time in the first place, and having the boss track their whereabouts will probably not go over well either. Companies have to tread lightly in order to make use of this technology without exposing themselves to liability. Personally, I feel that the possibilities are endless for mobile technology, and my company, Journyx, is working to provide mobile apps that are location-aware in order to simplify the process for tracking time to specific projects. (For example, every time you are at a particular client's site, your time is automatically tracked to Project A.) The solution is to have this sort of data provide an input to the worker to enable his ability to track time, rather than enable his boss to spy on him. The right answer is to provide this data privately to the employee and allow him to alter or repair the data before anyone else sees it. After all, automated systems are often wrong. Human intervention is the fix.

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Curt runs Journyx, who provides timesheet and project resource management software.


Curt Finch has more than two decades of software development and distributed workforce management experience. In 1997, Curt created the world's first internet-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offering. Curt has a B.S. in Computer Science from Virginia Tech. His book, All Your Money, is available on Amazon. @curtfinch