Friday, July 26, 2013


Maaya (name changed) is a 22 year old recent graduate from Bangalore. Bold and outgoing she’s exactly the typical youngster you would expect, ambitious and confident. Recently she came across an opportunity with an organization, and got offered exactly the kind of role she was looking for. All good, going perfectly well for her, except the timings of her work. The night shift. Dreaded night shift. It being a US process there is no way they can put her into a different shift, her parents being concerned, worried, apprehensive Indians, aren’t comfortable with her shift timings. 

You cannot blame them, there have been reasons for Indian parents to be worried about. 706 rapes were reported in Delhi alone last year. Call centres have been here for over 15 years with their night shifts, but have still failed to impact a ‘shift’ in terms of acceptance. A shift in comfort levels of the people (read parents) involved.Maaya has had to let go of the opportunity, she’ll get another one perhaps. That is not a problem, however, it is surprising the companies haven’t done much more than providing cab services to ease the ‘shift’. (Pun intended).

And on many an occasion, the cab itself has turned out to be a problem. They have tried to sort this issue with making it mandatory to drop a female employee in the presence of an escorting guard. But that hasn’t helped! Not only is it an ineffective solution, but it also is a cumbersome one. Checking out the roosters and charting route maps in such a way as to ensure a girl isn’t dropped last, and if she is, she must be escorted, it is a solution indeed. But it is not scientific. 

So what is a simpler solution to this?? The company could employ a fleet tracking solution. Fleet tracking solutions make life much easier for many companies dealing with cabs for their employees. Leading telematics companies have come forward with a very effective solution for this fleet tracking issue. Take for example, assettrackr, a gps vehicle tracking solution provider, has come out with comprehensive fleet tracking solutions. 

Had the company adopted AssetTrackr’s fleet tracking solution, they could have monitored Maaya’s entry into the cab, her exit. Apart from monitoring the employee’s pick up and drop,  the service enables the companies to track the location of each of their vehicles/cabs real time. They can set up geo fences along the prescribed routes and any deviation from And also set up a geo fence, which alerts the system about any deviations from this route intimates the authorities.  Not only this, it even tracks and intimates the authorities about unauthorized stoppages and the estimated time of arrival. 

Basically, right from the time the employee gets in, till he/she gets out, the vehicle is under the scanner. The room for error being absolutely zero. When the cab is nearing the employee’s location, it sends alerts to a nominated member from his/her family. There is no doubt about more and more companies adopting this in days to come. What we are talking isn’t even futuristic, since its already happening successfully. 
Here is a link about what we just discussed.