Know if someone working alone leaves their assigned site, or is somewhere they should not be at the end of a shift.
Lone worker safety is a legal duty in most jurisdictions, and geofencing is one small, specific part of meeting it. It is worth being precise about which part, because this is an area where overselling a tool causes real harm.
Geofencing tells you a boundary was crossed. It does not detect a fall, a medical emergency, an assault, or someone unconscious inside the site. Those need dedicated lone-worker devices with man-down detection and panic buttons.
What it does well is the location half: knowing someone reached the site, knowing they left it, and knowing at the end of a shift whether anyone is still somewhere they should not be.
Site arrival and departure. A zone per work site, active during shift hours. You get a record that someone reached site and when they left, without anyone having to check in.
Territory boundary. For staff moving between locations, one wide zone covering the area they work in is more useful than a dozen small ones. It stays quiet during normal work and flags a genuine anomaly.
End-of-shift check. If someone is still inside a site zone after their shift window closes, that is worth a look. Geoblip’s schedule-end notification exists for exactly this shape of question — see recovery alert for how open alerts are closed when a window ends.
Everywhere else on this site, a time window is a way to reduce noise. Here it is a legal and ethical requirement.
Tracking an employee outside working hours is, in many jurisdictions, unlawful regardless of what they signed. Set the zone active for shift hours only, and nothing else. Geoblip records positions but sends no alerts outside the window, and the window is set per device and per zone.
If shifts vary, set the widest plausible window rather than leaving it always on.
This is the part that matters more than any configuration.
Employees must know they are being tracked, what is collected, when it applies, and how long it is kept. In the EU and UK this is a GDPR obligation with a required legitimate-interest assessment; other jurisdictions differ in detail but rarely in substance.
Practical points that keep this proportionate:
Covert tracking of staff is a fast route to a dispute you will lose. It is also not what this tool is for.
Workers inside buildings, plant rooms, or basements will have poor GPS or none. A tightly-drawn site zone will report exits from someone in the building.
Extend at least 50 metres past the site boundary, and expect gaps where there is no sky view — see GPS accuracy. If someone works mostly indoors, geofencing will be unreliable and a check-in system is the better tool. Honest limitation rather than a configuration problem.
Track plant, tools, and deliveries across a site that changes shape every month — with zones you can redraw in seconds.
Automatic arrival and departure records for every drop, without drivers stopping to tap a button on a phone.
Get told immediately if someone living with dementia leaves a safe area — including overnight, when wandering is most likely and least likely to be noticed.
Draw the zone, add the device, choose the hours. Seven-day free trial, cancel any time.