Employee surveillance gone too far?

Why did he take a company phone on his day off to a job interview?

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Thoughts?

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He should turn his work phone off when taking PTO.

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His previous job ended badly when he was confronted by the owner and his boss asking why he spent 3 hours at a competitor's facility.

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He told you this? Dumb dumb stupidhead didn't even learn.

My previous employer tracked our phones, cars, land line phone calls, computers and building movements.

Yeah this is fricked up. If it were on company time, I could see the issue. Did he have something in his contract preventing him of doing so?

As for people asking why would he need his phone, that's a bit silly. When I'm on vacation my work phone is always with me, even if I don't pick up the phone I like to keep up instead of having to come back to a lot. I'll be traveling to Dallas for an interview next week and I'll have my work phone with me (obviously off during the interview).

I think OP's employee is not telling the full story.

When I worked for a large corp I refused a company phone. I know they listened in on calls and watched us on Computer cams and had hidden cams installed along with listening eqpt in and around gathering places, i.e.: lounges and water fountains.

He did it on his own time so I am not sure why the boss at his previous employer was upset? I would have handed him his phone and quit on the spot when confronted ,because being tracked after taking a vacation day is not right. It would be one thing if the guy took the interview while on the clock ,but taking a vacation day to do it is perfectly fine. I don't understand people who think that loyalty is owed to anyone in the business world. If someone gets another offer they should at least listen.

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Thoughts?

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Why the frick would he take a company vehicle to a job interview?

As for as surveillance going too far.. Its the company's truck, they can do whatever they want with it. If people who are issued a company vehicle use it as they are allowed to use it then there really isn't a problem.

Even if it didn't have GPS tracking it, someone could have easily passed and seen that vehicle parked at the competitor's facility.

How common is it for people to use their company vehicle for personal use? I worked for a company years ago that had a lot of work going on and as a result, there were more people with company issued vehicles on the road. There was an increase in vehicle accidents involving company vehicles so I created a database to track all events that went through safety and most of the accidents involving company vehicles took place during non-work related situation.

I remember someone got in a wreck right after picking their kid up from school, in a company vehicle. We noticed people were getting into wrecks (most of them were minor, but it was still a safety event) on the way home from work. Once that was discovered, they changed the work schedule. The people in the field were working 7 12s and after seeing all the safety events and the time range most of them were taking place, they decided to go to 6 10s. That made the numbers drop, there wasn't really a huge drop off in production and of course, less injuries, etc means paying less workers comp, etc..

Anyway, I don't think he even has an argument. When you use the company's vehicle for personal reasons, you pretty much have to take responsibility for anything that happens to it.