Does IT work? Monitoring staff requires care

Does IT work? Monitoring staff requires care
By Stephen Pritchard

Published: December 9 2009 16:29 | Last updated: December 9 2009 16:29

New devices and faster networks are driving up productivity by giving mobile workers direct access to corporate e-mail and applications on the move.

Analysis by Research in Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, found improvements in productivity in field service and sales of more than 20 per cent – the equivalent of an additional customer visit each day.

But managing an increasingly mobile workforce poses challenges for businesses.

Tools for managing the mobile devices themselves, such as the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM), or LogMeIn Mobile are now reasonably mature and give strong levels of control over device content management and security. But managing the staff using the devices is more complicated, and more controversial.

Smartphone and personal digital assistant technology allows businesses to monitor where employees are, at any time, via GPS (global positioning system) chips.

With more smartphones and PDAs now offering GPS to support mapping and navigation software, businesses can tap into the data via specialist software that reports employees’ locations by linking location data to a business application, or through fleet management and tracking systems.

Businesses can also monitor their employees much more accurately by looking at the workflow information produced by mobile versions of CRM, salesforce automation, or other enterprise applications.

Monitoring technology, though, raises concerns about employee privacy, as well as the impact such data collection has on workforce autonomy, incentives, and management practice.

Although the technology exists to track exactly where someone is, if not what they are doing, it is often a poor substitute for supervision by experienced foremen and managers.

“Workforce tracking is a natural outgrowth of knowing where your assets are,” says Kevin O’Marah, chief strategy officer at AMR Research, an analyst company that specialises in technology for vertical markets such as retail, distribution and manufacturing.

“Tracking [individual] people is much more sinister, but the technology makes it very obvious where people are. Most of the value in track-and-trace comes from tracing assets such as trucks, and from areas such as speed monitoring. You can find out if a truck has been racing along at 85 miles per hour, and then the driver took a long break. Companies care because of fuel efficiency.”

Drivers of vehicle and industrial plant – often with price tags of $250,000 or more – accept a certain degree of monitoring as part of their jobs. And, according to Bob Walton, president of Qualcomm Enterprise Services, the potential downsides can be offset by providing services the drivers value, such as the ability to complete paperwork and training via an in-cab console.

Use of tracking systems does become more contentious if employees are expected to carry monitored devices outside the cab; extending the technology further, to an individual’s BlackBerry or iPhone, is even more likely to raise concerns.

“It is being done, especially monitoring where people are, in order to route them to the next job,” says Nick White, telecoms director at Deloitte, the professional services firm. “But there is absolutely an issue about privacy.”

Much depends on the degree of autonomy that different types of worker need, or expect. “If you try to control a salesforce to the nth degree, you will get resistance,” says Mr White. “If it is engineering, you want the workforce to be focused on the task, not worrying about what the next job will be.”

Some people will even appreciate a degree of monitoring, for example if they work alone in potentially hazardous or dangerous areas. Lone worker monitoring has already proved popular among groups including taxi drivers, and health care workers, who appreciate the improved sense of safety it brings.

Then there is the question of making up lost time, especially for employees who work on commission.

“People cancel appointments, so a salesperson wants to know who is the next best person to call on, who are the nearest customers or perhaps, those who recently ordered from the competition,” says David Perry, a director at Cognito, a specialist mobility vendor.

Mobile device user Mitie Pest Control uses device tracking to allocate employees to jobs, to monitor how long jobs take and also to ensure customers sign for any work carried out.

Although the company does use the technology to track the productivity of individuals, managing director Peter Trotman stresses this will not work if the result is simply heavy-handed management. There has to be feedback and training for staff who perform less well.

“There was some scepticism and resistance initially, as with any technology,” he says. “But because it replaces tedious paperwork and provides more accurate information, our staff have found it helps. They accept it as a useful tool, not an inconvenient management oversight.”

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