What is geofencing and how can I use it to track time at work?

26 of February, 2021

Remote work is becoming more and more common nowadays. Indeed, the technological progress made in recent years, as well as the current situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, have popularised this practice. But with employees deserting the office, how can you make sure that they are where you expect them to be and actually working during work hours? Well, geofencing provides a solution to this problem. In this article, you will learn about the way geofencing works and how it complements time tracking.

What is geofencing?

Geofencing is used by companies to track remote employees. It uses the GPS technology to enable you to keep track of your remote workers’ location. That way, you can always know in real time where your employees are once they have logged into the system.

Geofencing is called like that because it creates a “geofence”, that is a virtual boundary, around the location of your choice. When you enable the geofencing feature of your time tracking system, employees must find themselves within the limits you set in order to clock in and start working.

The technology required for geofencing is not new. But it is in recent years that it was adapted to the needs of businesses and included in time tracking software. Nowadays, geofencing is a common practice for companies that employ remote workers.

What are the benefits of geofencing?

Geofencing is a useful feature to add to your time tracking system. If your workers have to work at a particular location, you can configure the time tracking app so that it is possible to clock in only when the employee is physically located within the boundaries. That way, if a worker is late and tries to clock in on his way to work, the system will not allow them to start their shift as long as they’re not on location.

You can also set up geofencing to make sure your employees don’t forget to clock out at the end of their shift. When a worker crosses the geofence, they get a notification reminding them to clock out. This way, you minimise the time managers have to spend checking and fixing errors in time sheets.

How does geofencing help with time tracking?

With traditional time tracking, you control only one of the four main dimensions of our universe. Geofencing enables you to control the 3 remaining ones. So by combining geofencing and time tracking, you can get accurate information about what your employees are doing when and where. Geofencing is important because as an employer, you don’t want to just check that your workers clock in at the right time. You also need to make sure that they are at the right place when they do.

This is why Sesame’s time tracking software includes the geofencing feature. When your employees use the Sesame app, they can clock in and out from their mobile phone. And when you activate geofencing, they have to be within certain physical limits when they do so. Sesame can also notify you every time one of your employees crosses the boundaries you set during their work hours.