NEWS Having your boss know where you are every minute of the working day is most employees' worst fear - and one company is offering bosses the chance to do just that for less than £1 a month.
MobileLocate has launched the tracking service to enable businesses to track workers in the field via their mobile phones, with locations either displayed on a map via the user's PC or texted to a nominated mobile.
The service will be available on Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange and 02 and costs under £1 per month per phone. MobileLocate also runs the recently launched ChildLocate, a similar service aimed at parents who want to find out where their children are.
MobileLocate MD Jon Magnusson said the service can be used in two ways: "Small and medium-sized companies... can check staff are attending jobs and compare their timesheets [for example]. We've also started to see companies and institutions using it to try and locate phones and PDAs."
It's an area of technology tracking that Magnusson expects to grow with the widespread use of smart phones, mobiles and PDAs for teleworkers to help businesses recover expensive hardware as well as the often valuable data they hold.
With the birth of several similar services, some staff may be concerned, either due to privacy fears or worries their work patterns may be uncovered - Stephen Hurcom, European MD for fellow staff-tracking service Autodesk Location Services said: "Monitoring means you can check someone isn't sitting in a lay-by reading the paper for two hours."
Mobile operators and tracking providers have got together to create a Code of Practice for the use of locating services - staff can't be tracked without their knowledge and have to consent to the tracking.
"My feeling is that it's like any new service - people are concerned. It's like when we first had the issue of the content of emails being tracked... people were concerned it was Big Brother," said Magnusson, adding that tracking companies have to prove staff have consented to be tracked.
"At the end of the day, you can turn your phone off" if you don't want your bosses to track you, Magnusson said.
Comments
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1. anonymous
I like the comment "staff can't be tracked without their knowledge and have to consent to the tracking". As if this is a really meaningful statement. It just means that the staff will know it's happening. Can you imagine the conversation.
Boss "We want you approval to track you"
Employee "No"
B "If we don't get it you don't have a job"
E "Okay then".
Not that it would take long for clever individuals to find all the ways round it that are possible anyway.
2. anonymous
But what about people who would be put in danger if their location is known? Those fleeing spouse abuse, child victims, stalker targets, those who have been threatened?
3. Roger Huffadine
Paranoid Managers with vestiges of Victorian Work Ethic.
As a director I employed managers who had these faults and they drove me nuts.
If your managers can't manage employees without tracking systems then fire the managers and get proper ones.
Treat Adults as Responsible Adults and discipline them if they rip you off - but this tracking thing is nonsense - unless it is being used for safety of individuals in dangerous jobs - then it could be justified.
4. Mark Hudson
How is this news? There have been companies offering this service for over a year now (fleetonline et al).
I'm suprised services like this aren't used by parents to keep tabs on their kids!
5. anonymous
Won't happen to me. My mobile is owned by me, not my company, and I get reimbursed for business phone calls.
They want to track me, fine, but give me a company mobile, which I will accidentally allow the battery to run out every day.
Fine tracking you when you are supposed to be working, no problem, but what about your free time... Nothing at all to do with your employer...
EG... I wonder where [name] is, he said he was going somewhere tonight, but was secretive about it.. OH, thats where he is.. the spanking club in Kings Cross... Very naughty.
6. Peter Rendall
Your leader ‘Don’t police your workers’ (October 14 2004) and ‘£1 to track your staff via their mobiles’ (October 15) confirms how little progress has been made by bosses and managers since the 70s and 80s when a common sight in factories was managers and supervisors perched on high monitoring workers’ every move. Millions rebelled against being treated as irresponsible children.
Now clipboards and stopwatches are replaced by technology, but it doesn’t lessen the humiliation and therefore the probability of further rebellion. You quote MobileLocate MD Jon Magnusson saying the service can be used in two ways: "Small and medium-sized companies... can check staff are attending jobs and compare their timesheets [for example].”
How ironic if new technology in the hands of incompetent managers turns the clock back 50 years and resurrects our troubled past. Probably not strikes this time but something worse, more insidious and much more costly – rocketing absenteeism.
7. anonymous
Divert you works mobile to another number and leave your works mobile at home.
8. anonymous
please Johnny could u tell me how to track my ex husband? love the show...... unhappy from Nottingham
9. Karen Meidl
Yet another example of man's abuse of technology. What an abhorrent idea! Companies like these should be fined for promoting their products with the specific aim of violating people's personal space. It's bad enough that we are now being MADE to carry company mobile phones so that we can be contacted day and night. Nowhere to run - nowhere to hide. Remember - caged animals usually attack!
10. Karen Meidl
Never mind about tracking "staff". Can staff have an opt-in/opt-out condition on employment that says that they get to track "management"? Where are they when you actually need them?
11. anonymous
Yeah, FleetOnline does it all and this one seems to be a simple copy of Childlocate. Try to buy now....hahaha
12. anonymous
What a fantastic idea! Pssst don't tell those civil liberties namby pambys about this though. Catch the cheats red handed! Sack 'em! At last a really useful way to control the masses!!! Room 101 here I come ....
13. Adrian
An implied mutual term of every employment contract is a duty of trust and confidence. Tracking without consent, or obtaining consent under duress could well create circumstances entitling the employee to resign and claim constructive dismissal.
Still, at a pound its much cheaper than a keylogger like "Employee Watcher", or hiring a private detective to video staff who are on sick leave.
14. James Lewis
and what about a service to inform you if you are being tracked?
15. Chris
Sweet, now I'll know whenever my boss comes by my desk.