When the core of your construction fleet revolves around transportation, it is vital to have a detailed understanding of your fleet’s needs, shortcomings, and whereabouts. But old-school registers and Excel sheets are too time-consuming to be efficient. This is where GPS tracking comes in.
It offers numerous benefits like higher productivity, lower fuel expenses, and employee safety, making it an essential tool for construction fleet management. In this blog, we will delve into the purpose of GPS tracking in detail and then look at the legal aspects of GPS tracking in Switzerland that you need to know. Let’s get started.
Employee GPS tracking comes with numerous benefits for your fleet including improved safety, and understanding of your employee behaviour. In this section, we’ll explore the purposes of employee GPS tracking in the construction industry.
Within a construction fleet, unsafe driving is a big risk factor. A single accident could cost a fortune, whether it causes damage to a person or a vehicle. A moment is all it takes for a mishap. This is where GPS tracking can help.
By installing GPS tracking into your vehicles, you bring more awareness and a safety-conscious approach to driving. Your employees will be aware that their actions are monitored. This will automatically compel them to drive safer. Further, it would be possible to detect unsafe practices as they happen. Instead of doing guesswork, you can make employees accountable.
Construction fleets involve lots of driving—even if it means moving from site to site, gathering equipment, driving waste, and even lunch breaks. Although every employer trusts the information their employees give them, it can’t always be true. A few Swiss Francs here and there add up to a big amount in the long term.
A GPS monitoring system helps reduce this wastage. It will push employees to prevent wastage. And it can track fuel consumption to give accurate data to the employer. Equipped with this data, you can plot strategies to minimize losses while keeping them updated about their fuel consumption.
It is fine if employees have breaks now and then, but if there are too many breaks during the work hours, it will bring down their productivity significantly. Such lapses add up and hinder the smooth functioning of your entire fleet.
Meanwhile, with GPS monitoring for employees, you can track their work hours and delays. You can keep tabs on their work and hence get the most productivity from your team.
Ever since their inception, GPS systems have progressed a lot. Today, fleet owners can not only locate the positions of their fleet but also track them and optimize them for the best performance.
The leading cost of any construction fleet business is payroll and fuel. GPS tracking systems let managers track unnecessary moves and reduce fuel expenses. This will also increase the life of the vehicles.
With 2313 cargo theft incidents reported across Europe in 2023, it's crucial for employers to track their vehicles and secure their assets. With GPS systems you can monitor your vehicles and detect unusual activity in real time.
Protecting employee privacy is crucial since company vehicles can also be used for the private needs of employees. Logifleet’s Business/Private feature allows employees to disable vehicle tracking while using it for personal purposes. This way, the platform reports only the number of private kilometers without disclosing any details of their movements, activities or schedules.
In short, GPS fleet tracking can help keep your costs low while ensuring the safety of your fleet.
Companies use monitoring systems to boost efficiency, optimize systems, and scale workflows.
But, you can’t just start monitoring employees; you have to pay attention to the legal side. Monitoring employees without their permission is never okay. So employers should define their policies according to Swiss law.
Employers are allowed to track their company vehicles using GPS tracking under certain specific conditions. Let’s check out what these are:
Data privacy in Switzerland comes under the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP). The law states a few guidelines for GPS tracking on business vehicles which is applicable to construction fleets as well. Here are some of the best practices you can follow to stay in line with the instructions.
Employee privacy must be ensured and consent acquired before tracking their location under different criteria such as:
Work-related monitoring
Procure employee consent for GPS tracking by clearly communicating the motivation of the company and its objectives during an employee information session. Obtain signed documents from each employee acknowledging that they have been informed and accept the system, to ensure complete transparency and accountability.
If you’re looking for a customizable information document to implement GPS tracking in your company, contact Logifleet today.Note that the Data Protection Act mandates monitoring to be transparent and proportionate. Tracking systems can be used to verify working hours or prevent abuse, but only on a one-off basis. Real-time monitoring of employees is not allowed.
This is where Logifleet’s Business/Private feature comes in. You can protect your employees’ privacy using this feature by allowing them to disable vehicle tracking during personal use.
A GPS fleet management solution brings many advantages to employees including efficient navigation of construction sites, easy access to equipment and materials, and transparent tracking of working hours. Providing personalized access to the mobile app is a growing trend among companies nowadays.
GPS tracking has become an indispensable tool in construction fleet management. As we saw, it brings numerous benefits such as reduced fuel costs, increased efficiency, and better safety. But it is important that you comply with the rules and regulations for GPS tracking in Switzerland, including obtaining employee consent, laying out policies clearly, and using GPS tracking responsibly.
Logifleet offers a complete solution for GPS tracking and fleet management solution that assists construction fleet owners in optimizing their operations and achieving greater efficiency. Our team not only helps customers set up the system quickly and access it from anywhere but also guides them in defining their objectives for their GPS fleet management project and presenting it to their colleagues. This step is crucial in implementing a successful GPS fleet management solution.
You can set it up in a flash and access it anywhere. Try it today and optimize your construction fleet.