Everything you need to know about employee monitoring systems

What is a lone worker tracking app?

Employee tracking systems allow businesses to know where their employees are when they are working away from a fixed base – through a mobile app, smart device or wearable technology. Lone worker tracking apps are developed specifically to monitor the safety of employees when working alone so that they can get help quickly in an emergency. 

Despite the safety benefits of using lone worker apps, many employers and employees express concerns around privacy. As a provider who specialises in lone worker safety, we completely understand these concerns.

At EcoOnline, we respect employee privacy, without compromising on safety. 

Our lone worker safety app and monitoring system gives employers visibility of employee locations – but only when employees start a period of lone working in the app. Employers cannot track their employees whereabouts without them knowing. We also have Privacy Mode, so that employees can choose to only show their location in an emergency.

Why use an employee monitoring system?

Lone worker trackers are designed to help employers monitor the safety of their workers and provide employees with extra assistance should they need it. 

Keeping track of your employees’ location can be used for a range of operational and safety reasons including:

Management

• Keeping track of delivery route and progress
• Moving mobile employees between sites and assigning close-by jobs
• Overtime management
• Auditing

Accountability

• Keeping track of whether employees are working the correct hours
• Ensuring employees aren’t breaking road laws, such as speeding

Remote and lone worker safety

• If employees work remotely or alone, tracking their location is critical for managing their safety.

Who can use a lone worker GPS tracking system?

Any business that hires remote or mobile workers could benefit from using a lone worker tracking system, including:

• Drivers, such as HGV drivers, couriers and taxi drivers
• On-call employees, such as engineers, inspectors, and repair and maintenance personnel
• Mobile employees, such as salespeople, security personnel, surveyors and park rangers
• Lone workers, such as estate agents, community staff, social workers and engineers

What are the benefits of an employee tracking solution?

Employee tracking systems can increase business efficiency as well as remove admin, time and cost burdens. Most importantly, they ensure your workers can get quick assistance should they need it. In addition, employee safety monitoring can help you to meet your legal duty of care to remote and lone workers.

How does our GPS tracker work?

GPS stands for Global Positioning System, which comprises of 27 satellites orbiting the Earth. These satellites transmit signals to GPS-enabled mobile devices at regular intervals to measure the receiver’s location against the location of the satellites. The distance between the phone and each satellite will determine an accurate location.

Most smartphone operating systems, including Android, iOS and Windows, have GPS capabilities, which can be turned on and off by the user.

Once a location is recorded, it can then be stored on the user’s device or transmitted to another device, such as a computer, using SMS, Wi-Fi or data connection. Our lone worker app is a GPS tracking app and uses this functionality.

How do employee monitoring systems work?

The most common location tracking system is GPS. Formed of 27 satellites, GPS broadcasts radio signals from space. Smartphones and devices containing a GPS receiver will gather and process these signals to create a location. Each device can then send its location to an external database, system or monitoring station that can track the location data as it comes in.

What are employees’ privacy concerns?

Some employees may have concerns about employee tracking software and how this will affect their privacy.

However, employees using our lone worker app have full control over when their location is visible to their employer. Locations are only visible in the monitoring hub when an employee starts a period of lone working within the app. They will only be tracked whilst in one of these sessions, or if they activate the panic button. 

At the end of each period of lone working, GPS tracking will cease. Employers cannot track an employee’s location without their knowledge. We also have Privacy Mode, where employers can give their employees the option to only show their location in an emergency.

Whilst the user’s routes are stored within the Hub, the only people who have access to this information are hub administrators.

How does EcoOnline use GPS tracking?

Once a period of lone working is started in our lone worker app, the GPS data transmitted from the employees’ phone is used to determine their location. The data is then sent to the monitoring hub and displayed on a map. If the employee travels whilst in a session, the GPS will continue to update and the map will display their journey. This means that if something were to happen, the business would have clear, accurate information on the employees journey and their current location.

Location tracking will also begin if a panic alert is triggered outside of a session on the app. This means that assistance can be sent directly to the lone worker’s location in an emergency.

The Lone Worker Hub uses Google Maps to show employees’ locations, so the Hub is easy to use, accurate and works globally in real-time. If employees are likely to work in remote areas, where there is no Wi-Fi or data signal, EcoOnline offers satellite solutions which would enable employees to be monitored wherever they work.