Can Field Staff Fake GPS Attendance? How to Build a Verifiable Proof-of-Visit Workflow

A sales guy checks in at 10 AM at his clients office. He has the correct GPS location. The time shows he checked in. And his boss is satisfied.

Did he speak to the client though?

GPS check in can be deceiving. While you can tell where someone may have been. You can’t know if they actually performed the task at hand.

There are many benefits to having an employee attendance tracker for your business. Whether you’re managing sales people, technicians or executives. Just know that gps check in isn’t always accurate.

Can Employees Spoof GPS Check Ins?

Yes. There are ways that employees can spoof their location when using certain phones and apps.

Many cell phones have the ability to change their location under developer settings or use apps to help.

They can also encounter other issues.

• An Employee using another employee’s phone to check in.
• The employee may have had a bad gps signal and checked in somewhere else.
• Customer address may be incorrect.
• Check ins coming in late due to no signal.
• Employees came to customers’ locations but did not perform tasks.

Just be aware of these situations when managing your team. Don’t assume every check in that seems off is an employee cheating.

Using a GPS Attendance Tracker App will help. But you want to implement steps to make sure your employees are performing the tasks at hand.

How To Know If Your Employee Attended A Customer

Say you have an employee who needs to go to a warehouse and inspect something.

He arrives at the warehouse and checks in. His gps location is correct.

He never inspected the item though.

You know he was at that location at that time. But you don’t know if he did his job or not.

Its important to know that your employees attended the location and did what they were supposed to.

• Have your employee check in at their assigned location.
• Make sure the time is accurate.
• Ask them to take pictures or provide information that shows they completed their task.

This can help ensure your employee visited the location and performed the task at hand.

Implementing Steps To Make Sure Your Employees Visited Customers

You want to make sure you can verify that your employee went to the customer’s location and completed the job. Here are some steps to follow.

Give your employees the correct location for each visit.

If you provide the wrong address to your employee. They will check in at the wrong location and cause unnecessary confusion.

Allow your employee to check in with an employee attendance tracker.

This will show when they arrived at the customers location. Be mindful of gps signal when using a GPS Attendance Tracker App.

Ask your employees to provide information about the task they performed.

Pictures of completed install. Customer verifying that the employee came to their location. Job info. Etc. Only ask for what you need to verify your employee completed the task.

Verify that your employee completed the task at hand.

Checking in at a location doesn’t mean they completed the job. Use the information provided by your employees to verify they did the task at hand.

Review any missed visits or jobs that seem off.

You don’t have to manually check every job that comes in. Just review ones that seem incorrect.

How Can You Verify Employee Check In Using Geofencing?

Geofencing allows you to create a radius around a specific location. Some GPS Attendance Tracker Apps will use this to verify that an employee is in that location when they check in.

If you set a geofence around a customer’s location. You can flag any check-ins that fall outside that area.

Keep in mind that GPS signals can be inaccurate at times. So an employee may appear to be outside the geofence even if they are inside.

Also know that you can’t verify an employee spoke to a customer or did work just from geofencing.

What To Do If You Find An Employee Cheating On Check Ins

First off, don’t jump to conclusions. There can be many reasons why an employee check in seems off.

If you notice an employee checking in that is 500 feet away from the customer’s location. Look into the address you provided to your employee. See if there is any gps error or if the employee can provide information about the job they completed.

Have rules in place if you find your employees not following procedure.

Steps To Make Your Employee Check In Process More Effective

Having a good process in place will help you ensure your employees are checking in and doing their jobs. Make sure you have your rules in place and know how to spot false check-ins.

Know what information you are gathering from your employees and what you’re using it for. Make sure your employees know how to handle if there is an issue with their GPS check in.

Look for an employee attendance tracker that will allow you to gather all the information you need to verify your employees completed the task at hand.

Build Better Visibility Into Field Operations

Reliable field management requires more than a location pin on a map.

Aditi Tracking offers ClickTask as part of its business solutions portfolio. Organisations exploring a GPS Attendance Tracker App can contact Aditi Tracking to understand its available field management capabilities and suitability for their operations.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can GPS attendance be faked?

Yes. Some devices can report simulated locations. However, unusual GPS records may also result from technical errors.

2. Does geofencing prevent fake attendance?

Not completely. Geofencing can help check location boundaries, but it cannot independently confirm that an assigned task was completed.

3. What is proof of visit in field management?

Proof of visit is supporting evidence that an employee attended an assigned location and, where required, completed the scheduled activity.

4. Can employees mark GPS attendance without the internet?

Some applications support offline attendance recording and later synchronisation. This depends on the application’s features.

5. How can managers verify field employee visits?

Managers can review location records, timestamps, task notes, photographs and customer acknowledgements, where these are available and appropriate.