The tech behind employee location tracking: what business owners need to know

Advanced communications systems like GPS, RFID Bluetooth and more, are now being used to implement employee location tracking within everyday businesses.

As we’ve mentioned in other articles, employee location tracking is not meant to be a big brother activity, but rather an ethical, employee location monitoring best practice designed to boost workforce productivity and worker safety.

Employee location tracking can also help to ensure the health and safety of the workforce, and is particularly relevant to higher risk factory work, large complex indoor environments and field workers who are out of the management line of sight.

The practice of employee location monitoring is supported by the UK data protection authority who offer friendly and easy-to-follow guidance on how to ensure your employee location monitoring is legal and ethical.

Several interlinked technologies underpin employee location monitoring

Several pre-existing technologies link together to make this next-generation employee location tracking possible. Pinpointing the location of employees is often achieved using GPS devices, RFID devices and location tags which sense or measure employee movements.

These act as beacons (sending a periodic signal) or transponders (sending a response signal when triggered by a reader) and communicate location information to a receiving device.

This location data is then encoded and channelled to specialist software which can process this information into actionable reports to assist management decision-making.

Pinpointing your employee’s exact location

Two of the main technologies used for pinpointing an employee’s exact location, are RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and GPS (global positioning system). These technologies have been used to track assets historically, but they are now increasingly being used in employee location tracking.

RFID for example has been used in asset and railcar tracking for some time, but it is now taking the form of RFID badges which can be attached to an employees’ uniforms to enable employee location tracking. RFID badges use radio waves to track the location of the badge holding employee.

RFID badges can be active or passive; active tags include beacon tags which periodically broadcast location and have a longer read range.

Passive RFID badges (transponder tags that require no battery) tend to be used for employee location awareness tracking. They are less expensive than active tags and work well in indoor facilities or places with low ceilings as they don’t need long-range readings.  Passive RFID devices are more practically sized for employee location monitoring as they are typically smaller than a business card, compared to active RFID badges which are the size of a small smart phone.  

GPS is the more well-known employee location tracking app and has been until now used for navigation and in sports performance tracking apps like Strava.

And then, of course, for that next-level of indoor location accuracy, tools like Sense can support this with dedicated devices built especially for the workplaces.

Geo-fencing

Geo fencing is a popular employee location tracking system which at its simplest level can help organisations effectively monitor the inward and outward movement of employees in their business.

Using GPS or RFID tracker data, geographic boundaries are established by the geofencing system which will trigger alerts if breached by employees. This can track the inward and outward movement of employees from your workplace to ensure they are complying with their contractual working patterns, e.g. lunch breaks, coffee breaks ad start and end time. If implemented appropriately geofencing apps could potentially signoff and automate timecards.

Indoor positioning systems can go further than tracking the inward and outward movement of workers. By strategically placing location transmitters and receivers in pertinent areas of the building IPS can track the movement in an out of monitored areas, such as a restricted zone or a specific work zone

Geofencing can also be used by businesses to implement the increasingly popular hybrid working model. It does that by using employee location tracking to ensure that employees are working at home or the office in line with their hybrid working contract.

Managing workers in the field more effectively with employee location tracking tech

Another legitimate purpose of geo-fencing is tracking field worker’s time on jobsites because the system can track the time an employee enters and leaves a specific job-zone, (once a geofence is established of course)

GPS based employee tracking systems are being used for more effective driver and fleet management. These days, GPS-enabled tracking units can be wired into the actual vehicle to prevent tampering to track driver performance against KPIS such as fuel-efficient driving and timeliness.

CCTV with inbuilt facial recognition could eventually become incorporated into employee location monitoring and geofencing. But this security grade surveillance is highly intrusive, and arguably only justifiable in high risk working environments where safety, crime and theft are significant hazards.

When used proportionately and legitimately these location tracking and analysis technologies can support an effective employee location tracking programme within your business