Sure, everyone in corporate America has been there, an employee calls in and tells you that they are sick, but they will do that spreadsheet, graphics project or other side project that they never have time for at the office. Most employers take advantage of this by letting the employee get paid for the day and getting those necessary projects done while they are out of the office. Unfortunately, most of the time, the employee spends about 45 minutes doing that project and then heads out to the mall, or lunch or another fun excursion on the companies dime. This gets us thinking about services meant for families, but not just limited to them.
Employee tracking has been around for some time, usually used by dispatchers to route delivery trucks or cab companies to route drivers, but has been applied in many ways. Smartphones have now brought software to the average company that normally wouldn't be able to use such features due to the cost of hardware and software. Today we are going to look at employee off-time productivity and how to make it more efficient.
Taking Work Home:
Taking work home is one of the most argued subjects on the planet. The nice part is that if you are cloud based - like Google Docs - you can have people all over the world simultaneously editing each others documents online and collaborating. The EVO's web browser does a great job with Google's mobile site for this and the GDocs app has even more power. The other nice feature about working this way is that documents are always backed up online - so if your hard drive fails after you've been editing for hours, you work isn't lost.
The other advantage to outfitting the office with EVO's is the wireless hotspot feature which allows your laptop to access the internet and share it's 4G connection with anyone around. Office work party at the park? Sure, why not...
Locating Services:
Finding out where employees are on their off time is a bit sketchy, but finding out where they are when they should be at work isn't all bad is it? If an employee decides to telecommute to the office for a day or two, shouldn't the employer be able to see them at home? It makes sense in our minds, and frankly, it should make sense in the employee's mind as well. With free software like Lookout, you can locate a users phone with the click of a mouse from the Lookout website. With Latitude, you can live track your employees everywhere they go - this feature works great with Google Business Email through Gmail.
You can also use this service to find the fastest responders for sales calls, repairs or trouble shooting issues. If you have a client that needs something yesterday, you can have your closest rep to the shop pick it up immediately and run in over to them faster than having their regular guy come back to the shop from 2 hours away and get it to them.
Meetings and Maps:
How many times have we been out and about and just hit the GPS button to find the closest Starbucks? This works great for client meetings as well. If you are on the way to the client's location and give them a quick call only to find out that they are at a meeting at a coffee shop on Pine, can you find them? Of course you can... Simply pop in coffee shops, Pine Street and see what comes up. Chances are the client won't mind if you offer to meet them at the same place they are at instead of missing out on seeing them for a few weeks.
The map feature on the EVO is very powerful. You can track friends, remember places and even navigate straight to them from the device. Saving your contacts will let you know exactly when and where to find them through the map program. There are even some 'location aware' apps that can send you reminders to visit clients or distributors when you are in their area.
Time Tracking:
Nothing kills the boss more than wasted time. Time management is one thing, but actually tracking the time you use for certain projects is even more important. TimeClock for Android gets our nod for this app for a few reasons. First, it is tablet compatible - which is great for those that are doing the whole Smartphone and Tablet thing. Second, export to spreadsheet is amazingly simple. Third, it has one touch access to punch in and out. And lastly, it's only $3.99 a license which for the amount of billable time you will start saving as a company will be paid off in about 6 minutes in most cases.
Not enough can be said for how much the EVO can do for your business and your employees. In the age where productivity is everything, there comes a point where the boss needs to have a little 'big brother' in them and we aren't talking about the CBS reality show here. Make sure you continue to check out our Evo Business guide as we will keep adding to this until Sprint EOL's the EVO.
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