Location-based updates are essential across field service businesses. It offers a seamless way to monitor and manage workforce activities without the need for manual efforts. Geofencing technology is one such tool that has automated various aspects of field service business. 

Before we delve into what is geofencing used for, and how it can automate workforce management, let us understand what is a geofence.

A geofence is a virtual perimeter established around a specific geographic area. In the context of a field service business, a geofence can be digital boundaries around job sites, customer locations, or other important areas.

For example, a home healthcare company might set up a geofence around a client’s property to monitor when technicians arrive and leave. This helps ensure that employees are on-site as scheduled. It can trigger automatic alerts or actions, such as sending notifications to the back office or prompting technicians to clock in or out. 

For field service businesses, location-based technology, such as geofencing, can be the foundation of effective workforce management. Simply having real-time visibility into your workers’ whereabouts may not be enough. Here’s how geofencing becomes all the more relevant for field service businesses-
 

• Improved Workforce Management: Geofencing allows businesses to monitor employee movements in real-time, ensuring that workers are where they need to be. It slims the chances of buddy punching or time fraud.
  
• Increased Operational Efficiency: Geofencing automates routine tasks such as clocking in and out. This way, you end up reducing administrative overhead and ensuring employees are focused on their work.
  
• Ease of compliance: Field service businesses must navigate a complex landscape of compliance requirements, from worker safety to prevailing wage laws. Managing these regulations becomes significantly easier when you have cloud-hosted data that tracks employee locations, payroll, and more. Geofencing, combined with other allGeo features, provides valuable workforce data that helps ensure your business remains compliant.
  

How does Geofencing Technology Work?

The simple yet effective technology allows you to precisely track your field technicians’ whereabouts, ensuring they are at the correct service locations. Beyond improving transparency, geofencing technology also helps prevent issues such as time theft or punch time edit requests.

Knowing what is a geofence and its applications is important in the context of your business. Here are a few examples of how geofencing technology works and can benefit field service businesses-

• Trucking companies can reduce wait times at loading docks by using alerts that provide advance notice of an impending arrival, whether for shipping or receiving.
  
• Construction sites can combat the theft of time by receiving geofencing alerts whenever an employee leaves the jobsite before time. 
  

• Energy, oil, and gas companies can enhance operational transparency by monitoring the arrival or departure of field crews from remote locations.
  

Geofencing and its practical applications can serve as the gateway to automating workforce management for field service businesses. Whether you’re a business owner, a field service manager, the benefits of geofencing trickle down to every person involved in the sequence of operations. 

If you want to experience the benefits yourself, you can learn how to implement geofencing by scheduling a quick demo. 

Benefits of Geofencing Technology

Geofencing is an adaptive and easy-to-use tool that adds a lot of value to the overall business. There are many aspects of your workflow that it can automate. allGeo allows configuration to meet individual business needs. 

For instance, a safety attestation form can be automatically triggered on the employees phone as soon as they are logged out automatically after exiting the geofence. This ensures adherence to labor laws as well as employee well-being. 

There are many other benefits of implementing geofencing technology. 

1. Automatic Punch in and Punch Out

Challenge: Timecard swipes are easy to miss. This leads to a lot of manual efforts on correcting the punch time. Similarly, paper timesheets are not only easy to manipulate but also require to be uploaded manually to process payroll. 

Solution: With geofencing technology, employees have the convenience of automatic punch-in and punch-out as they arrive at and leave the job site. This feature eliminates the common issue of employees forgetting to punch in or out, ensuring precise and reliable time and attendance tracking. 

With a “zero-touch” approach, the app uses job site geofencing to seamlessly record work hours and site attendance, requiring minimal effort and no additional training for employees. This low-hassle solution not only simplifies time tracking but also enhances accuracy and reduces administrative burdens for the business.

2. Accurate Invoices and Payroll Billing

Challenges: Manual timesheets are often prone to errors, leading to overpayment or underpayment of employees. This can result in dissatisfied employees and increased expenses for the company.

Solution: Geofencing technology, however, can eliminate these issues. With it, employees can automatically record their working hours at the client’s location through a geofence time clock app.

By accurately tracking the exact time employees enter and leave a worksite, geofencing ensures precise payroll calculations. This accuracy leaves no room for incorrect payments, as every minute worked is recorded and billed correctly. Additionally, geofencing can manage overtime pay by setting conditional logic based on the crew or employee’s work hours, automatically calculating any extra hours worked. This not only ensures fair compensation but also helps businesses control labor costs more effectively.

3. Configured for Your Business

Challenge: ‘One size fit all’ approach doesn’t work in the fast-paced world of field services. Simple geofencing technology that offers only automatic time punch does not suffice all business’ requirements. Further, it may restrict scalability. You will have to switch vendors as and when your business needs change. 

Solution: allGeo’s geofencing technology offers a high degree of customization. You can tailor monitoring, tracking, geofencing alerts etc. based on specific operational needs. Enhance your field operations by automating business workflows with a customizable IFTTT (If-This-Then-That) rules engine. 

With allGeo’s Geofencing features, you can track employee arrivals and departures even at multiple job sites in one comprehensive report. Real-time geofencing alerts can be set up for notifications, and reports based on any event or exception involving people, places, and time (e.g., late arrivals, early departures).

Receive preset alerts, reminders, and notifications for-

Employee Not Clocked-In

You or the reporting manager can receive exception reports and alerts for employees (or groups) who haven’t clocked in by a specified time. allGeo supports both on-demand and scheduled reporting.

Smart Reminders and Notifications

If employees forget to clock in or out, you can set up reminders based on their work schedules. Examples include reminders for not clocking in or when the app is turned off.

Late Check-In and Early Departure

Get alerts when employees are running late or leaving work early. allGeo supports two-way notifications (via email, text, or call) for both managers and employees.

Conclusion

Whether you’re a small business owner or part of a large enterprise, understanding what is a geofence, how geofencing technology works and implementing it can give you a competitive edge. 

If your technicians still rely on paper-based route maps and work orders, you need to reconsider your strategy. It is increasingly inefficient and time-consuming in today’s fast-paced field service environment. A geofencing-enabled workflow that uses it for attendance management, real-time updates etc. can address these challenges effectively. 

This advanced software operates in the background of your field technicians’ app, keeping both customers and the back-office team informed of real-time changes in the technician’s location. By continuously comparing the technician’s location with the pre-defined geofence of their next service site, the system can detect potential breaches.

When such instances arise, administrators can be triggered via notifications to take immediate action, ensuring that service disruptions are minimized and customer satisfaction remains high.