If you have a micromanaging boss, watch out. GPS Punch! is a new iPhone app that promises to “track employee attendance in business situations.”
And what are those situations? The free app says it can use the iPhone’s GPS to “eliminate slacking off” as employees are on sales trips, since managers can see where their employees are and track their moves. It follows those sales employees on the road, ostensibly boosting sales calls by monitoring location history, so you can’t hole up in a cafe somewhere instead.
Those road warriors can now get the “punch” from babysitting bosses in Japanese and English. (An Android version of the app is next up, they say.)
The pugilistic name of the app doesn’t inspire good faith – at least from where I’m standing. (That’s distracted, slovenly and away from prying eyes in my home office, if you really want to know.)
Just the fact that many employees (not just sales people who travel frequently) are expected to be available via cell phone in what used to be be off hours makes this seem more than a little unfair, though part and parcel of the ongoing trend of employers monitoring our digital footprints.
Then again, maybe I’m overreacting. It could just bee seen as an extension of the Foursquare check-in culture and apps like Reallymet, which provide alibis or the same informal function.
What do you think?
Via GPS Punch!
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
7 responses to “Worst Idea Ever? iPhone App Tracks Employees”
I work for a school district and our IT department is developing a similar app to track field techs. I would HATE this.
There are other apps that have some form of location awareness/tracking/ recording/reporting, in various ways. This is nothing new.
GPS units have been installed in company autos, trucks, and other types of equipment for years already. Anybody having this sort of tizzy about this type of employer monitoring must be completely disengaged with the realities of modern technology and/or afraid of being caught
“slacking off”.
Do you, Miss Martinelli, know what the largest fraud is in the US? Year after year it is employees being paid by for hours they claim to have worked when in fact they were doing otherwise. Companies that begin to employ GPS technologies usually see it pay for itself in less than one year, and sometimes in only months. Labor fraud is that rampant.
Employees honestly doing their jobs day in and day out have no need to worry. All others…enjoy your “slacking off” ways at the unemployment line in this economy.
Worst Idea Ever? That would be the fraudulent employees after the GPS systems have been put into use.
Even disregarding the fraud aspect, there are lots of uses for something to keep track of employees. I know a gardening company that does this for their trucks so they know when someone has arrived at a house to work or if they’re in transit. Being able to see all their trucks on a map also helps them modify the work for the day by adjusting which trucks go where as schedules change or appointments are added/changed.
I don’t see any harm in employers tracking their employees during work hours. I would only be worried if I was going to do something I shouldn’t be doing, but I am not that kind of person anyways. My only concern is whether this would drain the battery on my iPhone.
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