Use your own car for work? I’m watching your every move!

By Kevin Bull, UK commercial director at ABAX

The heading is a little extreme but don’t worry, I’m not actually going to watch your every move, but I needed something to grab the attention of a fellow grey fleet user.

Since the dawn of time the vehicles used most for work has been our own vehicles, which we have then typically claimed back as the cost on a pence per mile (ppm).

In most cases, the vehicle is used to get us from home to work and back again, but lots of us travel.

In actual fact the UK grey fleet accounts for nearly 40% of all the vehicles on the road in the UK.

Think about it, on call doctors, carers, sales reps, engineers the list goes on, but the fact remains that there are more grey fleet drivers than any other vehicle on the road.

Although apps have become more popular, the majority of grey fleet users are to complete their mileage and expenses around the dinning room table, using google map, forgetting trips, checking jeans pockets for receipts – I mean, it’s the 21st century.

Surely there is a better way…

Over the last 10 years I’ve worked in the heart of a technology business from the UK selling, for want of a better word, tracking systems into companies that run fleets.

Fleets of vans, machinery, tools and yes, grey fleets.

There are reems of reasons as to why a business would adopt a tracking solution but the obvious objection that’s raised when it comes to grey fleet drivers is a simple one “you ain’ putting that in my car”.

Whilst in most cases the decision is made by the business, employees have rights.

Let’s take a moment to think about that driver and their thought process to being told a black box is going in the vehicle.

It’s their vehicle, they pay for it, they put the fuel in, they maybe have family, they most likely use the vehicle on evenings and weekends to pick up the kids, to go on trips, first dates etc. – so to be told that a small device is going in to watch its every move… I’d probably also use colourful language.

 But, what is actually happening in that small device? And have we missed the opportunity to explain how it WILL support the driver in so many ways whilst respecting all of their private journeys – remember I said employees have rights.

A real life example (and I have a few) of when this argument was flipped on it’s head.

I was invited in to pitch to a local estate agent who had a mix of company cars and grey fleet drivers.

The business had 3 main concerns.

Firstly, they had employees going into, at times, risky areas on their own with no way of knowing if they made it ok or left on time and for them it was a real worry.

Secondly, the team were terrible at admin and meant that they were, in some cases, even under claiming their own fuel.

Thirdly,  and to top it off they had drivers passing each other on the way back to the office when in actual fact they could be meeting another client a stone’s throw away from where they just were, resulting in a lack of productivity, fuel and energy.

Whilst the common objection of “it’s a tracking system” came up like I was trying to implement some sort of MI5 tool to hunt them down, the team soon realised that the tool is going to work more in their favour than anyone else’s.

Through the use of the system the drivers now had an automated way of claiming mileage, so they didn’t need to sit and think where they had been.

In actual fact all of them had examples where they needed to divert, make an extra trip, meet a customer quickly somewhere else which wasn’t claimed for, resulting in them losing out financially.

All of them agreed that at times they felt vulnerable and would often go with another colleague to risky areas.

Seeing that the boss could be alerted when they got to and leaving from a site visit would give them peace of mind.

And lastly, knowing that they could be given more chances to sell homes, well this was a winner for them.

What I learned from this experience is we cannot simply present a solution, before understanding what problems not just the business faces, but what the employees face too.

With over 12 million grey fleet drivers I can imagine those round the dinning room table expense session would much rather be replaced with time with family and friends.

The beauty of being in the 21st century is that there are solutions designed to make this all happen for you, whilst giving you complete privacy in your own time.

To conclude, for anyone using their own vehicle for work, let technology be your friend.