How Digital Attendance Tracking Helps Eliminate Fraud in OOH Advertising?

Digital attendance tracking can increase compliance and prevent fraud in OOH advertising. Let’s learn how!

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising jobs are usually performed by field executives, who operate remotely. Therefore, OOH field teams’ attendance, tasks and other operations have to be managed digitally.

However, without much contact with managers, field employees can be prone to commit fraud like idling, overreporting work hours or buddy punching. Here is when field force management software can come into play.

It uses GPS-based digital attendance tracking to eliminate fraud from OOH advertising, streamline tasks and record all employee data on secure cloud servers. But before you learn how it works, take a look at common types of fraud in OOH advertising.

What are The Common Types of Fraud in OOH Advertising?

Remote work has its challenges. It often results in lack of accountability and poor management, which can drive employees to indulge in unethical practices or even fraud. Here are a few activities that come under the category of fraud in OOH advertising sector.

1. Fake Installations & Missed Visits

It’s one of the biggest malpractices in OOH advertising. Fake installations occur when an ad is put up in the wrong location, a cheaper location or not at all. OOH field executives often put up hundreds of ads in a day and visit various clients. If they skip a few of them and hope the employer won’t notice, it also counts as fraud.

2. Misuse of Remote Work

One of the top reasons why businesses don’t prefer remote work is because field employees often misuse their remote work privileges. Here’s what counts as misuse of remote work:

• Idling or taking too many unscheduled breaks
• Indulging in non-work-related or personal activities during work hours
• Marking fake attendance or buddy punching
• Inflating performance metrics
• Misreporting work hours

3. Falsifying POP Reports

Proof-of-Performance is an essential aspect in OOH advertising. It confirms that the ads were placed as per the guidelines. But employees may click two pictures of a single ad and present them as POP of two ads. Using recycled images, misreporting location data and not attaching timestamps with tasks are also types of false POPs.

4. Overreporting Expenses

Due to the outdoor nature of their job, OOH field executives incur various expenses. This includes money spent on buying food, fuel, water or extra marketing collateral. Since these expenses are reimbursed to the employees, they may end up inflating them to make more money.

Managers may also miss asking for valid invoices to authenticate the expenses properly, allowing executives to get away with overreported expenses.

How Digital Attendance Tracking Overcomes Fraud in OOH Advertising?

Here are 5 ways in which digital attendance tracking software like TrackoField can overcome the most common challenges in OOH advertising.

1. Geo-verified Attendance Marking

You can say goodbye to proxy attendance and over reporting of work hours with field force automation software. It uses GPS and geofencing technologies to manage the attendance of OOH advertising executives.

Software like TrackoField offer remote login feature which allows employees to mark their attendance from anywhere. They don’t have to visit the office or use manual paper punch cards to mark attendance. Geofencing ensures the accuracy of this process. Here’s how:

• Managers set up a geofence around a site, usually the first task site of the day.
• Employees enter the geofence to be able to punch-in and unlock their task.
• Once the task is over, employees can exit the geofence and proceed to the next site.
• Employees can punch out when their work is over. If they miss, they are automatically logged out once the shift ends.

This attendance-task linking foolproof both the field operations and results in a streamlined workflow. Employees can also log their attendance if they are offline. The data is synced as soon as internet connectivity returns.

Moreover, field staff tracking software ensures error-free attendance reporting through the selfie upload feature. It mandates every executive to upload a selfie while punching-in or punching-out. These selfies are geotagged and time-stamped for added security.

All these measures leave little room for any future attendance dispute. Plus, in case of any internal error, employees can even apply for attendance regularization requests.

2. Real-time monitoring of field executives

When field employees are supervised in real-time, it can make them more vigilant. This can be achieved with GPS tracking feature in field force management software for OOH advertising. Real-time monitoring of OOH executives also boosts accountability and workflow transparency.

Using the dynamic dashboard, managers can track employee data like:

• Live location and exact address.
• Precise attendance timings.
• Total tasks completed, pending or rescheduled.
• No. of employees present, absent or unreachable.
• Battery and network status of employees’ devices.

3. Insightful Reports

Most field force management software archive data securely on cloud servers for years. This data can be analysed in various ways to identify patterns of fraud or retrieve historical information.

If a client alleges fraud or disputes your employee’s service, how would you counter it? Well, you’d need a record of all client visits your executives made. This is the scenario where reports can be helpful.

You can retrieve the attendance history, check the mark-in timings and total work hours, and review the productivity of employees. Reports also allow you to check your executive’s entire travel history, total distance travelled, routes taken, tasks completed along with proof of performance.

Some useful reports that TrackoField offers are:

• Attendance and task reports
• Geofence reports
• Target vs achievement reports

4. Optimized task management

Thanks to digital attendance tracking, managers can better optimise employees’ shifts and work hours. They can ensure equal work distribution by allocating tasks based on employees’ availability and proximity to clients.

Managers can also attach specific instructions in the task description related to timings. They can even attach media files to better explain the tasks to OOH executives. Moreover, field employees can upload time-stamped and location-tagged media files as proof-of-performance while completing their tasks.

5. Accurate expense management

OOH executives incur various expenses, and they have to be reimbursed in a timely manner. However, it’s important to verify the expenses first to prevent budget issues. Managers can use digital attendance tracking features to do so. Here’s how:

You can track the exact whereabouts and activity status of the employee when he claimed the expense occurred. You can check if he was present in the geofence, away from the location or unreachable. Moreover, you can use the distance calculator synced with the odometer readings to calculate precise mileage and thus the conveyance charges. This way you can eliminate expense overreporting.

Conclusion

Time theft, inaccurate attendance, misreported work hours and fake ad installations are common issues plaguing the OOH advertisement industry. But as we learned from this blog, all these challenges can be overcome using digital attendance tracking.

Be it streamlining your OOH ad teams’ attendance or monitoring them in real time, field employee tracking software like TrackoField can do it all. Moreover, it can also manage your workforce’s tasks, expenses, and payroll. So, what are you waiting for? Schedule a walkthrough of TrackoField today and learn how it prevents fraud in your OOH advertising business.

FAQs

• How can digital attendance tracking help eliminate fraud in OOH advertising?

  Software like TrackoField uses digital attendance tracking to manage OOH ad executives’ attendance. Using geofencing, managers can ensure that all employees -
  - Reach task sites on time.
  - Stick to their shifts.
  - Complete their work hours.
  - Easily mark their attendance.

• Can digital tracking solutions work in remote or rural locations?

  Yes, digital tracking solutions work in all locations. Using GPS technology, the field employee tracking software can monitor OOH ad executives even when they are offline. Therefore, in remote locations, employees can still mark their attendance and carry on with ad placements. The data is synced back to the server once the connection returns.

• What are the features of field employee tracking software that help in preventing OOH advertising fraud?

  Digital attendance tracking software like TrackoField uses the following features to tackle fraud in OOH advertising.
  - Geoverified attendance marking
  - Real-time OOH ad staff activity and location monitoring
  - Efficient task allocation and client visit tracking
  - Insightful reports on offline activity and OOH field teams’ productivity