Many companies operating fleet who introduce a vehicle tracking system for the first time would, of course, be concerned in the impact on their employees when installing mobile workforce tracking or a GPS vehicle tracking across their entire operation.

The rise of commercial vehicle tracking across the relevant industries dependent on running the most cost-effective and efficient fleet they possibly can has meant many changes of working practice, not least for the vehicle drivers.

Introducing change of an employees working conditions, obviously requires great care to be taken, not least from a legal point of view and how it affects their individual contracts of employment.

Essentially, there are two key differences to be determined when instigating mobile workforce solutions:

Business use only or – Business and Personal use.

Business Use …

Fitting a vehicle tracker into a vehicle to be used only for day-to-day, strictly work related business, e.g. delivery van, it is recommended that employees driving the vehicle should be informed not only that the system will be fitted, but also why it is being fitted, how it works and exactly the nature of the data to be collected and what its use will be and how it is intended to benefit everyone at the company.

It is important that employees fully understand and appreciate all the objective reasons for wishing to obtain the information that will be provided from the system and why it is needed to help with business efficiency and improvement. Concerns and objections raised by employees obviously need to be discussed to reach agreement on fitting the system but legal advice should be sought if agreement cannot be reached.

Business and Personal use…

Essentially, the same considerations as in business use only but with the addition of taking into account that the system will provide data on the vehicles movements outside working time. Concern may be raised by employees that this data could be used to obtain information about their private lives and if so, could be seen as an infringement of their human rights.

Once again, it is strongly advised and to be made absolutely clear that the data collected by the system will only be accessed for data relating to working hours only, unless the vehicle is stolen or in an accident. Employees need to know as to who will have access to the data and its use for business.

Company contracts of employment should be redrawn so there should be clause which allows for the fitting and/or use of the system in any vehicles provide for company/personal use.