Thoughts on GPS tracked work vehicles

[hickslawns]

For several reasons I think its a bad idea.

From a morale, even a roi stand point I don't think it makes sense.

You may be better giving the 1,200 to your foreman or guys in some sort of incentive program, (they probably feel under paid anyways).

My buddy tried the "repairs will be deducted from check" bullshit once. He backed off that one really quick.

Don't we all feel underpaid? Thanks for your input.

You know how much money a company could loose in a year just in the workers negligence in taking care of their equipment? I don't but I could only imagine. It has to be outrageous and if it's a small business it could put that company under real quick.

Yes. I do know how much it cost our business. While not all repairs or negligence puts a business under, they do add up. There is a definite reduction in profit big time when you have several in a year. This comes down to the old saying "Keep track of your quarters and the dollars will take care of themselves." I try to keep a good balance of employee raises along with equipment purchases. Employees generally see raises at least once a year. Other times there is a free lunch or other incentives are offered. In order to do these things and continue to grow, it is essential to keep track of all operating costs, and billable goods and services pretty close. The more you grow, the more rewards can be offered to employees. It has to go both ways though. If this saves the company money, it comes at the cost of having GPS in the vehicles. TANSTAAFL.

 

[Shoulder Blade]

It sounds like you are well balanced. From what i have seen around here It can be hard to find good employees in the landscape industry that care. If you got them, keep them. They may save you more money than the gps, but you seem to get that.

As far as your fuel, the 30-35k you spend on fuel, is that total or just for the three trucks u want to track? If those 3 trucks are a third of your fleet, it could take you 3x as long to recoup the cost of the units and monitoring, perhaps longer if you only improve fuel economy marginally.


Slip/fall: I may be missing something but I dont see where this could prove/disprove an event or liability. Maybe there have been cases where gps data was admissible in court. Too many variables i think.

Not trying to come across as a dick just offering opinions.

My buddy owns a company and a large crane with some 80 feet of boom. The rig was fully setup and boom extended over the front of the crane. My buddy gives the operator the sign to "fold it up". Ass hat throttles up and jams the outrigger controls all the way in. Again that is with the boom still fully extended. Have you ever seen a crane catapult before? Did i mention it was between 2 houses and jacked both up with powerlines arching all over the crane and house connections?

He thought he had a huge case against the crane operator but other than firing the guy and docking his pay for the ins deduct, he couldnt do much cause it was HIS employee that did it.

It was unfortunately the cost of doing business in his field. He has made hundreds of thousands before and after that. The law of averages.

 

[hickslawns]

Wasn't sure how to respond to you SHoulderblade. So, I tried not to say anything. lol

We have multiple operators and vehicles. Fuel consumption is not just these three vehicles, but they see the most miles and stops. Employees? Most of our guys have been around at least a couple years. There is always a flow of seasonal help. My main guys aren't always the ones on the job sites. Usually at least one of them, but not always. You are correct though. Lawn/landscape guys don't generally stick with a company for years. Then again, my foreman has been with me longer than most of the local "mowing contractors" have been in business.

Slip/fall: I may be missing something but I dont see where this could prove/disprove an event or liability.

Not sure if GPS has assisted in court or not. We generally see at least one claim a year. I have provided info to our insurance company in regards to contractual information, and times/dates of service and services performed. I pay for two different weather services which provide me historical weather data as well as post snow event summaries. I save them in my computer AND print them off for my records. GPS proof of our times of service in conjunction with weather data would be one more piece of data to aide my insurance company. We are contacted, on average, once per year for slip and fall claims. The bigger we get, the more this will become an issue. We have not been found negligible on any of them, but it is still a pain I have to deal with every year. The worse the economy gets and the morals sink into the gutter, the worse I anticipate this to get.

 

[Shoulder Blade]

Well it sounds like I may have been taken the wrong way. It's a bit of an uphill battle around here if you aren't one of the group. For instance what if I made the post in ur other thread saying your yard looked like shit? I would have not gotten a free pass.

My main points were it may be harder to quantify a return then originally thought and that these things could impact morale depending on the type of employees you have and their perceptions of you.

I will say in your slip/fall example gps data could lend support and disprove negligence. If all you need is to disprove negligence, then it could pay for itself.

 

[hickslawns]

Well it sounds like I may have been taken the wrong way. It's a bit of an uphill battle around here if you aren't one of the group. For instance what if I made the post in ur other thread saying your yard looked like shit? I would have not gotten a free pass.

My main points were it may be harder to quantify a return then originally thought and that these things could impact morale depending on the type of employees you have and their perceptions of you.

I will say in your slip/fall example gps data could lend support and disprove negligence. If all you need is to disprove negligence, then it could pay for itself.

I disagree. My lawn does look like shit. Huck got a pass for commenting on it because I don't care about my lawn. I believe I simply mistook what you typed. I try my best to take care of my guys. Don't care about my lawn, but I do care about my guys and my customers. My apologies if I ruffled feathers or got defensive on you. Wouldn't have happened in person. Stupid keyboard loses something in translation at times.

 

[Shoulder Blade]

I wasnt offended in any manner so no apologies needed whatsoever.

 

[Hoytmania]

Phil sorry I didn't see this sooner. Give me a call sometime about this. We instituted this email n our van fleet about ten years ago. To much to type it all out. We run a fleet of ten vans, all carry a GPS tracking system.