GPS Busts City Official
Chicago’s superintendent of sewers took a break from his workday and hit the links, but his whereabouts were traced through a cell phone, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. Winston Cole has been placed on administrative leave with pay after he was tracked to a suburban golf course when he was supposed to be on the clock at the Water Management Department’s South District headquarters. When GPS-equipped cell phones were distributed to city employees and tracking devices were installed on city trucks, the stated goal was to increase employee productivity. Sounds like it’s working.
I could go on for days on this one. One of my first clients was county government. They bought a few vehicle units for a test and proof of concept. They installed them With the Knowledge of the Employees (something I always recommend) on the county-owned cars of several supervisors. What do you think happened the very first week of operation? Yep! One of the supervisory officials (who, remember, knew this was on the car) went to a golf course for an afternoon — while on the taxpayer’s’ clock! Amazing.
Another client was in the alcoholic beverage distribution industry. Obviously, they are even more interested in the prevention of drunk driving and substance abuse of employees than many other industries.
I sent a letter to the company president offering to make presentation to him on the advantages his company could realize by using GPS tracking for his company vehicles and he took my up on an offer to track one or more of his trucks as a trial. He took me up on the offer.
The vehicle he chose was a pickup that was assigned to one of his key supervisors. In this case he didn’t inform the employee and we installed the unit in a covert manner. In fairness, the president did hold a meeting the same week we installed the test unit to emphasize the company policies on drinking and driving and proper use of company vehicles. Should have been a clue, no?
Well the first week’s data showed that the night of the day of the safety meeting the ‘tracked’ supervisor went to a bar after work and traveled to three other bars where he spent his time … perhaps drinking only soft drinks? … until 4 am and then apparently took a nap in the bar parking lot (the bar he was at closed at 4 am) and then reported to work at 6 am the following day. All those hours at various bars, tow hours maximum of sleep and then back to work on busy streets in a company vehicle! Just how stupid was this guy?
You should not assume the worst about your employees. The vast majority are hardworking, dedicated and truthful. But the number of ‘bad apples’ out there certainly has amazed me … GPS Tracking is one of the better, faster, cheaper ways to separate the whet from the chaff.
