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By Greg Bartlett

A car tracking system can be as useful to the employee as it is for the employer. These systems are not just for checking up on employees to make sure that they do their job properly or don’t exceed the speed limit and waste unneeded fuel. The systems can also work for the employee and even protect them.

Busy traffic is something that people have to deal with every day. Rush hour is a fact of life for much of the country, even in the smaller cities. An employee that is sent out to delivery something could take twice as long as expected if he catches the wrong traffic. This extra time on the clock might make his boss angry and the employee might even be accused with making a personal stop. What can he do? It’s easy to prove that you stopped somewhere. You get a receipt or take a picture or have someone sign a form. But it’s impossible to prove that you didn’t make a stop.

Or is it? With the technology of a GPS tracking system, you can track the movements of a vehicle. So if the employee’s vehicle has one of these tracking systems, he can show his boss a map of the route that he took and prove to his boss that he really was stuck in traffic the entire time.

Another way that a GPS tracking system works for the employee is in tracking mileage. If an employee turns in a lot of fuel receipts, his employer might be hesitant to repay him for all of the fuel he claims to have used. The employer’s reasoning is valid. If the employee fills up his car on Monday, he drives to work and for work business and then he drives home on company mileage. However, whatever driving he does Monday night should not be reimbursed. Since it’s all in the same gas tank, there is no way to distinguish the fuel. But if this employee tracks his business driving with a GPS tracking system, he will be able to turn in an accurate report of all the mileage driven for the company and receive his reimbursement easily. This would make his boss happy, because perfectly accurate records help the company’s records as well as the employee’s pocket.

Clearly employees should not fight their company’s decision to integrate GPS car tracking systems to improve their records. It will also be a beneficial switch for the employee.