Is Field Force Management Software Spying or Managing?

When working with a team of field executives, it is important to know where they are in real-time through field force management software. Otherwise, how do you track their productivity and reward them accordingly?

However, when the term ‘tracking’ comes into play, the idea turns negative since people assume tracking to always be a breach of privacy. While privacy really is a huge issue, it is important to note that not every kind of tracking is breaking privacy.

Are you using field force management software and are your executives wondering if you’re spying on them? In this article, find out if using workforce management software is managing your team or spying on it!

How Does a Workforce Management Software Track?

The primary purpose of workforce management software is to track executives’ locations in real-time. However, isn’t it confusing to think about software tracking a vehicle without hardware?

Well, it is confusing for good reason. Any software needs hardware integration to take information from vehicles! It is easy to get that integration with field force management software because all you need is your executives’ mobile phones with GPS settings. As long as your executives’ mobile phone is connected with GPS tracking software, you’re good to go!

Because of the accessibility that people have to mobile phones, tracking executives with field force management software is incredibly simple.

Is Privacy an Issue?

Some things are crucial to track from the company’s end when employees are on the field. Here are some of them that cannot be ignored:

• Task completion proof
• Updates for meetings
• Employee supervision
• Attendance records

While these things are crucial to track, there is one doubt that always causes trouble. That is - why do companies need to track employees’ real-time location? It is important to note that when companies track employees’ location, they take away a lot of their breathing space.

To avoid this problem, there are a couple of things that companies can do to make employees feel safer. Let’s discuss them in the next section!

How To Manage and Not Spy?

Any good company will know how unethical it is to track employees’ location when not required. This is a major problem that doesn’t occur if the company you’re working with has strict ethical bounds and uses the right field force management software.

However, regardless of how good a company and software is, here are a few practices that companies should follow to make field force management more about management than spying:

• Ask For Consent: TrackoField will not begin tracking an employee’s location until they’ve been permitted to do so from their mobile phones.

• Separate Office Devices: Your employees wouldn't want to be tracked outside of work hours, right? Offer your field executives office devices to avoid recording their personal information.
• Revoke Consent Option: TrackoField also offers to revoke consent to share geospatial information at all times.

Track Field Executives Ethically

We understand - on the first look, getting someone’ real-time information of movement feels creepy. However, when we think about it, it is a necessity.

As long as you use a potent field force management software such as TrackoField, you will not face any issues. After all, your executives will have complete say on when they are comfortable sharing their tracking information! So, what are you waiting for? Get a demo for TrackoField now!

TrackoBit is the fastest growing Telematics software company based out in India. Our expertise lies in building real-time platforms backed by robust infrastructure that scales on the cloud.