Tech Minute Video: Why Are You Spying on Me?

Javier here again with a new Rastrac Tech Minute…Today’s Tech Minute is about how to work with the number 1 employee objection to fleet management automation.

Over the years, we have found one employee concern about fleet management that stands out from all the rest. That is, if you implement fleet tracking, employees feel like you are spying on them; possibly trying to catch them doing something wrong. Fleet management systems have been utilized by employers across a wide variety of industries for many years and the number of organizations using them continues to grow. This is not some sinister plot to spy on employees, but rather a method of improving the efficiency of the fleet and keeping the fleet vehicles, drivers and operators safer, which benefits the entire company.

A way to address this concern as a fleet manager is to communicate openly with your employees about fleet management systems. The kind of information you can share includes:

• Benefits to the employee and employer of a fleet management program. Expectations and accountability lined out so everyone knows how to do their job and what good performance looks like.
• How it improves fleet efficiency and decreases overhead costs. The company benefits financially, so everyone benefits from company’s success.
• What is being tracked. Vehicles and assets are being tracked to promote more effective utilization and to provide data for decision making.
• When the tracking device is active or reporting information. Inform your employees that the program is for monitoring the company vehicles during working hours, and making sure they are safe and secure when not in use.

You can even use fleet management to improve your employee’s value to the company and have them take pride in their performance by utilizing the driver report card feature. Maybe even tie it to rewards of some kind…Driver of the Month, Employee of the Week, Most Valuable Employee, etc.

We have found that the employees most vocal about you spying on them are usually the ones that you need to keep an eye on. With fleet management automation, good employees typically get better because they want to, and you’ve given them a better way to understand what you want from them. This is where a set of policies and procedures comes in handy and we can help you with that too.

We often advise our customers they are wasting thousands of dollars per month for an easily dealt with issue. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap…call Rastrac and we’ll design a system that you can use effectively and have your employee’s buy-in too.