Catch Your Employees . . . Doing Something Right!
GPS fleet management systems help identify good performance.

"Whatever Happened to the Good Old Days?"

The "Good Old Days" were a fabled era when employees took pride in their work, represented their companies with distinction and went that extra mile for customers.

In these cynical times, many employers might think that such a responsible workforce is a thing of the past. But a GPS fleet management solution can help provide proof positive that the Good Old Days are alive and well in your business.

A Spotlight on Employee Performance
"You can't improve what you can't measure" is a time-tested truth of management. It's common knowledge that superior GPS fleet management systems offer a variety of tools, including automatic tracking reports and easy-to-read graphs, that let you quickly identify operational trouble spots and areas for fleet improvement. However, it may come as a surprise that an employer can use these same tools to shine a spotlight on excellent employee performance.

The following examples highlight how some companies have discovered and taken advantage of GPS tracking to identify, improve and reward good employee performance.

Identifying Dedicated Employees: An alarm company on the West Coast sent a new employee to a school construction site about an hour away from the corporate office to make some minor adjustments on a fire system. The employee was expected to return to the office by midmorning but did not appear until late afternoon. The employee related that he had discovered damage to some of his company's wiring--damage that had been caused by other trades at that job site. With no way to reach his office while in the field and being sensitive to how this damage would reflect negatively on his employer, this employee spent more than 4 hours repairing the damage. After consulting his GPS fleet management "service time" reports, the owner of the company had proof that this story was true and that this dedicated employee was motivated to go the extra mile for his company's success.

Role Models for Excellence: A landscape business in suburban Chicago ran a graph identifying maximum vehicle speeds within a four week period. In late July, he shared this graph with all employees, highlighting those drivers who faithfully followed company policy. It was clear to everyone present which drivers were reaching speeds in excess of 80 mph in violation of this policy. Instead of reprimanding offending employees, the owner held the model employees up as examples of excellence and launched the "Sixty-five & Alive Club".

This "Club" provided a bonus to any driver who would adhere to company policy for the month of August by limiting their top speed to 65 mph on highways and 30 mph on residential roads. Model employees automatically qualified for this bonus and served as inspirations for their peers. In August, the owner compared the previous months fuel use vs. current usage. As a result of the competition and incentive for reward, speeds were reduced and substantial fuel savings occurred. The owner ran a maximum speed graph at the end of August. Those drivers who went under the 65 mph speed limit were awarded a monetary "bonus" that equaled 20% of the fuel savings between July and August.


Protecting Good Employees from Unfair Accusations: A Pool Servicing company scheduled an early morning service call for one of its technicians. The technician arrived shortly after 8:30 am and rang the customer's front doorbell. No one answered. After waiting for a significant period of time, the technician called in the no-show to the home office and continued with his schedule for the day. Later that afternoon, the early-morning customer telephoned the company's office with a bitter complaint. "I've been waiting all day for your service technician and he has not shown up," he exclaimed.

The customer was informed that the driver had been to the location that morning and had left a business card. The customer was indignant and insisted to speak with a manager. The General Manager answered the call, and the customer proceeded to demand that he be given a deep discount or free services as compensation for the employee's incompetence. The General Manager immediately dispatched a new technician to the customer's location. The manager then requested time to research the customer's complaint before the end of the business day.

Within the hour, the morning technician returned and a detailed report of his activities was generated using the FleetBoss GPS fleet management system. The report displayed a stop-by-stop trip log of the vehicle's activities for that day. The customer was called back and was told that the company utilizes GPS vehicle tracking on all of its vehicles, and a GPS unit recorded a stop at his location at 8:34 am. The report could be faxed to the client as proof that the service stop had occurred. Faced with irrefutable evidence, the customer was forced to admit that he had been in the shower when the technician arrived. As a result of the FleetBoss report, the driver was exonerated of wrongdoing, the customer apologized for his accusation and the company was paid in full for the service call.

© 2004 FleetBoss Global Positioning Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.