RunningWithBulls.com - The curse of Sanfermin

An Australian junk-mail delivery company is proudly proclaiming to be “the first business in the world to use GPS technology in this manner and that it allowed the company to demonstrate to its customers that all their pamphlets were delivered on time.”

Indeed. Congratulations.

The funny (in an unsettling sorta way) is the company, PMP, expected some backlash, and issued their staff with information packs on GPS usage, and also included a resignation letter. Way-to-go with the employee relations.

From Techdirt:

Down in Australia, a firm that hires teens to deliver junk-mail pamphlets to houses has decided to make their processes a bit more efficient by forcing the kids to wear a GPS device that records all their moves — making sure they visit the houses they were assigned and do so in the order prescribed by the company.
Some of the kids aren’t particularly happy about being spied on this way, and apparently the company expected that. With the information pack about the GPS devices, they included a simple resignation form for those who weren’t happy about the idea. Again, it seems like this is a modern attempt to bring back Taylorism, the idea that all workplace activities can be scientifically monitored and made more efficient — as if people were machines.

There’s nothing wrong with working on ways to make employees more productive, but it needs to occur with the recognition that they’re human beings and constantly spying on them and making them feel inadequate tends to hurt productivity more than it helps. It certainly doesn’t make for particularly loyal employees.
Perhaps that’s fine for a business such as a junk-mail pamphleteer, but there is still a cost involved in hiring and training new people, while being able to fill in for those who quit. It’s one of those things that sounds good to management (oooh, efficiency! productivity!) but whose consequences aren’t carefully thought out.

Of course, the firm responds to such charges by including the standard line that no one who is actually a good worker should be upset about being tracked, since it’s only designed to spot the bad workers.

And from the Sydney Morning Hearld:

Junk-mail company tracks staff by satellite

October 30, 2006

The humble leaflet drop has taken a high-tech turn, writes Nick O’Malley.
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IT USED to be such a simple job.

The 14-year-old girl would pick up the pamphlets at a warehouse in Artarmon and deliver them around Lane Cove.

Not any more. Last Saturday she turned up at the warehouse to find that she would have to strap a global positioning system around her waist.

Her employers would be able to track every step she took, ensuring not only that she visited every house she was paid to, but that she followed the route devised by management to save time, and that she did the deliveries within the set time frame. Instead she quit.

By the end of next month every delivery person, or “walker”, handing out flyers in Sydney for PMP, the country’s largest distributor of unaddressed mail, will be tracked by satellite.

The walker who spoke to the Herald, who did not want to be named, said she felt as though her employers did not trust her.

“Both my parents think its stupid. They think it’s bad that a tracking device has to be issued just for delivering pamphlets,” she said.

John Robertson, the secretary of Unions NSW, is so angered by the use of GPS to track workers that he has called for the NSW Government to amend the Workplace Surveillance Act to have it outlawed.

“It’s outrageous that the first experience a child has of earning a dollar is to be treated like a criminal,” he said.

The State Government has recently announced a move to track serious offenders with similar GPS technology when they are released from prison.

Cameron Murphy, the president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said the move was a “disgraceful attack on people’s right to basic privacy at work”.

He said overseas groups feared such technology could be misused, giving predators detailed information on the whereabouts of vulnerable children.
“People deserve to be treated with more trust and respect,” he said.

In a sign that PMP predicted some staff would leave, the information package given to the walkers with the tracking devices - chirpily entitled “GPS Is Here!” - included a resignation form.

“Under the process I feel I no longer wish to walk for PMP Distribution and herewith terminate my position,” it says.

But yesterday the company’s managing director, Brian Evans, said most walkers supported the move.

“The professional people who do this job are happy they can now prove they have done a good job,” he said.

Mr Evans said PMP was the first business in the world to use GPS technology in this manner and that it allowed the company to demonstrate to its customers that all their pamphlets were delivered on time.

He said new processes were introduced in tandem with the GPS that included completing and sorting the pamphlets for the walkers.

“We’ve cut the amount of time it takes to do their job by 40 per cent and we are still paying the same rate,” he said.

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