Tracking employees/IC's
  • patblaneypatblaney

    I started my pet sitting business less than a year ago as a 2nd career after 20 years in the corporate world.  I have invested energy in building good relationships with other pet sitting and pet services businesses.  That has paid off in many ways, most notably when the owner of a small pet sitting service was ready to get out of the business.  We were able to connect and I have been able to negotiate a deal that will allow me to buy the book of business that will in effect allow me to double my business.  I currently have 3 IC's and with this acquisition hope to have the one that is with the other business join my team.  During discussions with the owner of the business that I am acquiring, the subject came up about tracking the people who work for you.  This owner had done some research on handheld tracking equipment that would allow the office to keep tabs on when and where the IC was and when as long as the equipment was on. 

    My first reaction to the idea of tracking people was not good.  My years in the corporate world taught me about building relationships and encouraging team members in order to create trust and good work product.  Of course, my team in the corporate world came to an office every day and I could see and monitor their work activity.  Pet sitting is a completely different type of work and although I meet with my team regularly and communicate with them via phone and email more often, there can be many days or even weeks that go by without me seeing them.  I do periodically check their work and follow up on their visits.  I also check in with clients to ensure that my team is meeting their expectations.  I guess I am pretty lucky that I have really dependable people but I would like to hear from others about their thoughts on electronically tracking the movements of their employees/IC's, specifically if you actually do that and what your experience is with it.  Thanks!

  • Pet+Sitter+BiblePet Sitter Bible
    @patblaney
     
    Thanks for posting and wow, sounds like you are really doing a great job with your company!

    re.: We were able to connect and I have been able to negotiate a deal that
    will allow me to buy the book of business that will in effect allow me
    to double my business.

    Wow that's really impressive, so smart, nice one.

    re.: handheld tracking equipment that would allow the office to keep tabs on
    when and where the IC was and when as long as the equipment was on

    I hear you this is a tough one, I've been thinking about it myself. Personally I'd only want to have my employees use a check in type app (maybe a hack of Foursquare's API) that showed them checking in and out at get tagged location, that might be nice, and the walker would be aware etc. But these app's out there that constantly track the employee I personally and I think you feel too are a bit invasive and would turn off a lot of employees who love this job partly for the freedom they feel.

    Great post thanks!
  • KirstenKirsten
    Hi Pat,

    re.: handheld tracking equipment that would allow the office to keep tabs on
    when and where the IC was and when as long as the equipment was on
    I recently started using a scheduling system called LeashTime.  With in the system in order for the payment to be recorded the visit needs to be checked off.  This can be done thru a smart phone with the app they have and the bonus is that it has a tracking tool that documents where on earth the employee marked the visit complete! http://www.youtube.com/user/Leashtime is their YouTube page.  or www.LeashTime.com is the web site which may provide more info if your interested!
    That said, I have no intention of sitting at the computer all day checking that my sitters are where they say they are, however I think its a fabulous tool to reference if needed!  And I also think it a great selling point to client to let them know that we were there when we said we would be there, to ease any worries a new client may have!
    Also, after 15yrs in business myself, I have tried 4 scheduling tools (well 5 if you include the hand written time sheet -haha) and by far Leash Time is the best I've used and the developers are handy if you need help.  Just my 2 cents of course!
    Good luck with your growth, that's super exciting!!
    Kirsten
  • Pet+Sitter+BiblePet Sitter Bible
    @ Kirsten, thanks for your comments and I definitely think LeashTime is ambitious, I actually have my own pet industry software in the works so I respect how tricky software can be, but I don't love their user interface or user experience for the client or office side. I feel they're very web 1.0 and are trying to cover so much ground that they wind up doing a lot of things okay vs great. For now I personally would prefer using Quickbooks for billing and payroll and my own online schedule forms plus iCal or Google Calendar for reminders (and evernote for keeping my info in sync.) Definitely happy it's working out for you but I feel our lives could be made so much more easy and organized from a powerfuly dynamic scheduling/billing software and hopefully myself or someone will bring one soon.

    Just a reminder to everyone I'm inviting you all to take part in my custom pet service software project. If you're interested please CLICK HERE
  • adogwalkeradogwalker
    I once talked to a dog walker in the street who said that her boss gave everyone a cellphone that had GPS. It tracked their whereabouts all day and if they stayed in one place for more than 5 minutes, an alarm sounded on his computer or cellphone to warn him that an employee might be slacking! Great idea, but then again I'm not sure how it would affect employer/employee relations. 

    As for the scheduling and billing, I have found that Microsoft Outlook, linked to Google Calendars via the Outlook/Google sync tool (a better version if you pay $50/year) is absolutely perfect for my needs. I have all of my employees calendars on my iPhone, and can make changes on the fly when I'm out and about, and they're immediately synced to Google, which syncs to my desktop when I start Outlook. Quickbooks is best for billing, especially as you can just bulk send all of your invoices by email automatically from within the program. 

    I thought about using an online service but do worry about what would happen if the company went out of business and you lost your entire system overnight. 
  • Pet+Sitter+BiblePet Sitter Bible
    @adogwalker Completely agree about employee relations being soured by stealth tracking. I could see a check in system where they check in through gps at the location but if you want to really track the workers I feel you send someone out in person to track them, NOTHING will ever give you a better picture of your workers' performance.
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