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By Greg Bartlett

New York City has implemented the use of GPS tracking devices to monitor the actions of all of their building inspectors. In the last month, the city-issued cell phones of all 379 building inspectors for New York City were updated to include GPS tracking.

Tracking Employees

These GPS tracking devices allow supervisors to watch the movements of the inspectors over the internet. The information from the tracking devices can be viewed on a map or chart or in a text report form.

GPS tracking devices like these that are used to monitor employees can show the faithfulness of any particular employee. Those who slack off will either be discouraged from wasting time by the knowledge that they are being monitored, or they will be caught and punished for their lack of work.

Not only will these devices insure that the inspectors are where they are supposed to be, but they will also provide an accurate record of each work day that can be compared to time cards and the employees’ reports.

Although building inspectors may not think that their job is vitally important to people’s safety and be tempted to file some false reports, these GPS tracking devices will most likely discourage that from being done. These devices would have been very beneficial last year when one of the city’s crane and elevator inspectors made a report for a crane that was never inspected. Less than two weeks later, the crane collapsed and seven people were killed.

GPS tracking devices could prevent these kinds of accidents because it would be very clear to a supervisor that the employee never visited the site to make the inspection.

There are a few disadvantages to this system, however. Some of the inspectors are cautious of this new program because they are worried about it invading their privacy and their home life. However, the GPS tracking capabilities will be turned off after work hours.

The main disadvantage to New York City’s new system is that cell phone tracking does not work as well as vehicle tracking. The battery life is shorter and more susceptible, the signal that is sent is weaker, and the device is also easier to tamper with. Since these inspectors are already driving city vehicles, it might have been a better option to equip the vehicles with GPS tracking devices instead, but only time will tell if the city of New York will be happy with their new GPS tracking program.