company car tracking

[Ollie1981]

If they have nothing better than to micromanage your every pee break, they have bigger problems than what you're up to.
Time to look for another situation.

-I

Well the company with the trackers was a previous employer, an employer that almost completely folded a couple of years ago (undoubtably due to market forces rather than the lack of my considerable talents but there you go ).

In my experience, the micromanagement decline starts by holding all techs accountable for the misbehavior of a few. This leads to a sense that management hold techs as a whole in contempt as an "expense" that needs to be constantly monitored, rather than individuals that need to be managed as such.

As you say, technology itself is not the problem, it's how it's used. If it is used as a tool constructively to improve service provision then it's good, problem is my experience has shown that they are most often used as yet another stick to beat you with.

[Ianizer]

Well the company with the trackers was a previous employer, an employer that almost completely folded a couple of years ago (undoubtably due to market forces rather than the lack of my considerable talents but there you go ).

In my experience, the micromanagement decline starts by holding all techs accountable for the misbehavior of a few. This leads to a sense that management hold techs as a whole in contempt as an "expense" that needs to be constantly monitored, rather than individuals that need to be managed as such.

As you say, technology itself is not the problem, it's how it's used. If it is used as a tool constructively to improve service provision then it's good, problem is my experience has shown that they are most often used as yet another stick to beat you with.

I'm with you, Ollie.

The long and short of it is, from a management perspective, micromanagement simply isn't effecient. And what does it really accomplish? Really? Confirms that there are some who just aren't too keen on the whole Work Ethic bag.

You've now dealt a (in some cases, mortal) blow to morale, and expended enormous amounts of energy confirming what you already knew.

If not GPS or LoJack, then some poor schlub gets the duty of ambushing you at your first and last scheduled stops.

Inspect what you Expect to a degree, but I've maintained that a certain amount of integrity has to be assumed with a skilled field tech. I'll repeat, if you can't assume that, you've a whole nest of problems greater than the guy that takes the occasional 105% lunch...

The behavior of the guy who wants to play games will come out in the wash. Without micromanagement, it may take a bit longer, but has the added benefit of allowing him or her greater lenth of rope with which to hang themselves in the end.

I was a young tech. I've played the games. It's exhausting. I've been busted for it, too. I've learned that a good work ethic is not only less strenuous, but the rewards are far too great to ignore.

-I

[Ollie1981]

You've now dealt a (in some cases, mortal) blow to morale, and expended enormous amounts of energy confirming what you already knew.

If not GPS or LoJack, then some poor schlub gets the duty of ambushing you at your first and last scheduled stops.

Years ago when I first started as a field tech repairing domestic goods (televisions, VCRs, washing machines etc) for a rental company my first manager gave me these words of wisdom:

"Always remember that to the company bigwigs you'll always be looked on as a necessary evil, the very fact that they have to employ you is an admission that sometimes things go wrong, customers are unhappy and time and money has to be spent in retaining their buisness. To make matters worse, unlike sales where it's a simple matter of checking till reciepts to find out how much money they've brought through the door, it's virtually impossible to work out how much money you've saved the buisness verses the cost of employing you. Bear that in mind at all times with senior management and above all watch your back."

This has had an absolute ring of truth for every large buisness I've ever worked for. Salespeople who can get customers' names on contracts get allsorts of sweet incentives and even have "team building" days going paintballing paid for by the company on company time. Whereas in service there's hardly ever a "carrot" approach to anything, it's always been "Achieve x or face getting fired", this has a bad effect on morale when a saleman is smugging it up about how he spent the day go carting and got paid more than you for it whilst you loaded 50 broken, stinking washing machines into a truck and drove them to the city dump.

[skynet]

Some of our field service guys would complain about the way calls were assigned to engineers.

Fred is sent 50 miles to a location near Mike, 10 minutes later Mike is sent 50 miles to a location near where Fred was.

Management called all the engineers together and introduced the tracking system saying it will revolutionize the service call system and enable the call controller to place engineers calls much more efficiently.

Afterwards..

Fred is still sent 50 miles to a location near Mike, 10 minutes later Mike is sent 50 miles to a location near where Fred was.

[charm5496]

you have to have a good dispatcher in place who knows how to make good decisions...that being said the techs also need to communicate clearly when they expect to finish a call and move on to the next.

[gwaddle]

you have to have a good dispatcher in place who knows how to make good decisions...that being said the techs also need to communicate clearly when they expect to finish a call and move on to the next.

The first company I worked for, I'm pretty sure didn't own a map. Based on where they sent us at least. You're right you need a good dispatcher who not only has a map, but can read it.

[RRodgers]

hellodoes anyone have trackers fitted to their company cars ?if so what are the pros and cons to them ?and what info can be obtained from them ?thanks

Used it to get out of a speeding ticket once. The company owns the car, let them do what they want to it. Don't like it? Work someplace else.

[seniortech]

Mate of mine has a GPS jammer, renders the tracker his employer fitted in his car useless

[Ianizer]

Years ago when I first started as a field tech repairing domestic goods (televisions, VCRs, washing machines etc) for a rental company my first manager gave me these words of wisdom:

"Always remember that to the company bigwigs you'll always be looked on as a necessary evil, the very fact that they have to employ you is an admission that sometimes things go wrong, customers are unhappy and time and money has to be spent in retaining their buisness. To make matters worse, unlike sales where it's a simple matter of checking till reciepts to find out how much money they've brought through the door, it's virtually impossible to work out how much money you've saved the buisness verses the cost of employing you. Bear that in mind at all times with senior management and above all watch your back."

This has had an absolute ring of truth for every large buisness I've ever worked for. Salespeople who can get customers' names on contracts get allsorts of sweet incentives and even have "team building" days going paintballing paid for by the company on company time. Whereas in service there's hardly ever a "carrot" approach to anything, it's always been "Achieve x or face getting fired", this has a bad effect on morale when a saleman is smugging it up about how he spent the day go carting and got paid more than you for it whilst you loaded 50 broken, stinking washing machines into a truck and drove them to the city dump.

Was it you who said, [to loosely paraphrase], 'It's all the same junk -- Service is the real product'?

Let's face it, Ollie, we bring in the dollars on the back end. Only a profoundly short-sighted executive staff would see us as a liability... And yet, that is quite the tendency. It's really only natural, if you think about it, if an executive staff is sales oriented. And it is the rare outfit bless with a Salty Old Service Rep. as an Exec. V.P. Even then, the diamond-forming weight of time and emmense corporate pressure lends itself to a gradual orientation to the immediate gratification of front end sales... Like little boys playing with firecrackers, they want to see the pop! If you'll excuse the analogy...

It's largely a thankless job because it is true: Our very existence is a grudging admission that the box is not a True Glory of Grand Perfection. At the End Of All Things, they're just manmade machines. And like most things we men devise, something eventually goes terribly, terribly wrong. We are the unsung heroes who make them look good...

And I'm okay with that. Either we develop a thicker skin and do it for the abhorence of All Things Broken, or we spend our careers in search of the Perfect Bonus Program to give us a sense of self worth, resenting every sales retreat to the Camens. Indeed, as I've read it here, if you're in it for the money, you're definately smoking something green and oily.

I had an epiphany about the annoying and noisy Rah-Rah sales meetings we have every morning in our office, shattering the peace of an otherwise tranquil work space. They need that meeting. They have to have that meeting. Sales is brutal. It's a back biting, dog-eat-dog world fraught with treachery, rejection and uncertainty. If they need the occasional parasailing trip to Kuai to keep their sanity, let them have it. If nothing else, it's compensation for wearing a tie every day...

Service is a much clearer path. We see the enemy, choose our weapon, and attack. True enough, some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the freshly washed car... But, by in large, our objectives are tangible sets of machine malfunctions, problems requiring solutions, or customer expectations in need of fine adjustment.

To me, the trade-off is clear and the choice obvious...

Besides, it's better than shovelling manure.

-I

[Ollie1981]

I had an epiphany about the annoying and noisy Rah-Rah sales meetings we have every morning in our office, shattering the peace of an otherwise tranquil work space. They need that meeting. They have to have that meeting. Sales is brutal. It's a back biting, dog-eat-dog world fraught with treachery, rejection and uncertainty. If they need the occasional parasailing trip to Kuai to keep their sanity, let them have it. If nothing else, it's compensation for wearing a tie every day...

Service is a much clearer path. We see the enemy, choose our weapon, and attack. True enough, some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the freshly washed car... But, by in large, our objectives are tangible sets of machine malfunctions, problems requiring solutions, or customer expectations in need of fine adjustment.

Yeah, I've seen those kind of sales environments, where head office expect "10 conversions minimum from everyone this week or one of you will get fired" and that kind of pressure cooker isn't where decent conscientious staff thrive, that is basically where borderline psychopaths thrive, the kind of person who'll sleep soundly at night despite the fact that he's just caused an absolute nightmare for everyone else involved in that deal, but hey the contract is signed, the commission is in the bag and his job is done. Everyone else can just kiss his ass.

Problem is, that kind of person tends to go far. They always deliver the figures, they drive a nice car, they wear a £1000 suit and always have the latest corporate bullshit buzzword right of the tip of their tongue. To the board they come across as driven and motivated, compared to service staff who tend to be less concerned about personal advancement (out on the tools is far from the path of least resistance to career advancement) and wear considerably cheaper clothes (I have to dress in "business attire", but there's no way in hell that I'm spending more than discount store money on clothes that are going to get covered in toner on a daily basis) and live firmly in the real world (not the weird world created by sales and marketing where silly things like only having 24 hours in a day, a limited customer base and limited resources are no obstacle to unbelievable success).

I know I'd rather be up to my eyeballs in copier parts trying to get some POS working than sweating in a cubicle, with a constant sinking feeling in my guts that it I don't close three more sales by 5pm, I might not be able to pay my mortgage this month.