Chapter 6
Building a driver-focused organization

Many owners of small trucking companies started as drivers. By working for a variety of companies they learned firsthand about good and poor driver treatment. When they started their own company, they vowed to “treat drivers right.”

Once a company grows to 50, 100 and 200 or more trucks, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep those types of promises. Tough as it may be, your company’s future success hinges on its ability to attract and retain qualified drivers.

Creating a driver-focused company requires the following five elements. If one of these elements is missing, you will not achieve the desired results.

Element 1: Commit to a vision
Unless your team knows where it is going, it may never get there. Every member of your team must commit to making the company’s vision a reality.

Recruiting and retaining quality drivers requires taking responsibility for turnover instead of blaming other departments. For example, how often have you heard the head of operations blame turnover on the fact that “they don’t make drivers like they used to?” Or how often does one of you recruiters talk about how operations just ran off another driver?

Such conversations become an excuse to do nothing. After all, if there are no more good drivers left to hire, why change how your company treats drivers?

Most companies’ high turnover is due to a gap in perception:

The difference between how a carrier perceives it treats its drivers and how drivers believe they are treated.
The quality of the drivers a carrier attracts mirrors the quality of the organization. Once you and your management team adopt this philosophy, your company will start to take responsibility for turnover instead of blaming it on the quality of drivers available.
The vision your team develops needs to be written down and communicated to everyone who works in the company. A short, simply worded statement of core values is more powerful than a long list of platitudes that no one believes. Your vision statement should be a challenge for the organization.

Here is an example. Almost all carriers have a goal of being “driver friendly.”
That being said, a vision statement might be:

“At Big Wheel Trucking, we want to become widely known as the best place for our professional drivers to work.”

While this may seem like a good vision, it is not. It says that because the company has a group of long-term drivers who are happy, it must be a driver-friendly company. Those new drivers it constantly hires and fires are just a bunch of job-hoppers anyway.
Let’s try a different vision:

“At Big Wheel Trucking, we want to treat all drivers with such professionalism and respect that even former drivers speak well of us.”

Now we have a real vision. It commits the organization to treating drivers with respect, courtesy and professionalism through every step of their relationship with Big Wheel. If that is done for drivers who leave, imagine how well the company treats drivers who stay.

Regardless of the vision you and your team come up with, recognize that your organization will test to see how committed you are to the vision. Decisions such as what to do with a driver who fails a drug screen will come up. Your reaction will either give the vision meaning or diminish its purpose.

With all of the focus on finding and retaining drivers, don’t forget your other employees. One carrier president who wanted his company to be driver -friendly started every meeting on retention by saying that drivers “were the only ones who performed real work.” While his intentions were good, his non-driving employees resented being told that their work wasn’t real.
In pursuing your vision, be sure to pay attention to office morale.

Element 2: Achieve synchronization
Have you ever heard drivers say, “They have a 55 mph safety department and a 75 mph dispatch?” It’s their way of expressing frustration over being caught in the middle of these two departments.

Synchronization is getting everyone on the same page. If you don’t achieve it, you’ll send your drivers mixed messages constantly.

Lack of synchronization usually occurs when departments are not focused on a common goal of retaining drivers. Instead they focus on their individual goals. Some examples:

• Recruiters hiring drivers in areas where dispatch cannot get the driver home. The message? We say anything to recruit drivers.
• Sales pressuring operations to bail a customer out by hauling driver-unfriendly loads no other carrier will take. The message? Other companies value their drivers more.
• Safety taking away a driver bonus for a log violation caused by the driver running overnight to deliver a hot load. The message? Safety and dispatch are at odds.

Lack of synchronization can occur when departments do not want to work together. For example, lack of cooperation between payroll and operations puts the driver with a pay problem right in the middle.

Getting everyone on the same page takes time. Sometimes conflicts are subtle and only reveal themselves over time.

Element 3: Excel at core functions
We have discussed many of the small things a carrier can do to improve its image with drivers, from opening communications with the spouse to having a football pool for drivers and office staff. But image alone is not enough to retain drivers. There are six core activities at which any driver-centric organization needs to excel.

Securing loads
A carrier is simply the middleman that collects payment from shippers and pays the driver. In effect, company drivers, as well as owner-operators, are small businesses. It is the carrier’s job to get the loads their drivers want.

This view of drivers as independent businessmen goes against the grain of many carriers still stuck in the old school. They view company drivers as employees “who should darn well do what they are told.” Drivers, whose view is the only one that counts, don’t look at themselves as part of a team. Their pay varies tremendously depending on the type of freight they haul. If they do something for the company that results in low pay or extra work without pay, they expect the favor to be repaid. If it isn’t, they fuss if they are asked to do so again, or they eventually go to work for another carrier.

As a business agent for the driver, operations must secure the best possible loads. Most carriers simply book enough loads to keep their trucks moving in the right direction. Carriers who excel at this function book freight according to the needs of the drivers coming into the area. These carriers get a mix of long- and short-haul loads to create a good choice for drivers. They identify special driver needs, such as getting home, and they try to book loads to meet those needs.

Carriers that perform this function poorly usually isolate the person booking the loads from the driver. Typically, such carriers have a fleet manager and a customer service representative. The fleet manager’s job is to sell the loads to the drivers. But all customers have good and bad loads. If the customer service representative doesn’t hear about poor loads from the drivers, it is easy to accept more than their share of the customers’ ugly freight.

Scheduling loads
Proper load scheduling is almost as important as securing the best loads. Good scheduling can make a poor load palatable to drivers. For example, a 750-mile load on a two-day schedule is a tough sell to drivers. Schedule the load so the driver can get the 750-mile load delivered in a day and a half, and it becomes desirable.

At most carriers, load scheduling is done primarily for the customers’ convenience. In contrast, carriers that excel at scheduling have guidelines on when they will schedule loads. Length of haul or origin and destination, are used to ensure good driver utilization. Carriers will refuse loads that do not fit within these guidelines. If possible, they schedule loads with specific drivers in mind. In busy areas, they try to develop a choice of schedules to accommodate different drivers’ needs.

The goal is to have some aggressive dispatch schedules for those drivers who are hungry to run as well as slower schedules for drivers who need some break time. Poor carriers treat all drivers the same with every load delivering at 7 a.m.

Assigning loads
Who gets which load is a major source of contention for drivers and operators. Securing the right loads and paying attention to the scheduling process makes it much easier. Ugly freight usually means swapping favors with drivers to get a load moved. This creates resentment and suspicion.

Carriers that excel at this function think about the driver’s needs before assigning the load. Is the schedule right for this driver? Will it make it difficult to get the driver home? Will it mean the driver does a hand unload for the second time this week?

Poor carriers try to divorce driver considerations from the load assignment process. Every load and every driver are considered equal. An area planner will decide who gets what load based on customer consideration or minimizing empty miles. This takes the load assignment decision out of the hands of the fleet managers, rendering them largely powerless in the eyes of the drivers. Once a driver loses respect for his fleet manager, it isn’t long before he loses respect for the company.

Resolving shipper problems
No carrier likes to hear that one of its drivers was belligerent to a shipper. Unfortunately, this happens all too often if the driver does not believe that contacting his carrier about the problem will do any good.

Most driver problems come from unexpected work requirements, such as sorting and segregating, or being made to wait an inordinate amount of time. In some cases their dispatcher did not tell them the requirements, or they were not fully listening.
Regardless, as the drivers’ business agent, good carriers step in and help solve the drivers’ problems if their complaints are reasonable. Doing so conveys to its drivers that the carrier is on their side. If nothing can be done immediately, carriers explain that fact to the driver and then follow up with the driver. One carrier even has the salesman write the driver an apology along with an explanation of what corrective action is being taken.

Increasingly, carriers are walking away from shippers who are unresponsive to driver problems. They let their drivers know the reasons why. This is a difficult decision to make, particularly if it is a major customer. However, when you do walk from driver-abusive customers, you communicate to drivers and office staff that you are serious about your company’s vision.

Paying drivers
You may not be able to control the weather, road construction or rude people. You do not have total control over the freight you haul. But the one area over which you have complete control is driver pay. There is no greater sin than losing a good driver because he felt cheated out of the pay he deserved. Yet, few carriers excel at paying their drivers.

The best carriers have payroll clerks right on the dispatch floor. This facilitates drivers and dispatchers talking directly to payroll to get problems resolved immediately. At poor carriers, drivers are not allowed to talk directly with payroll. Invariably, this lengthens the time required to get a pay problem resolved and increases the driver’s frustration.

Most carriers’ payroll procedures are geared around the premise that drivers are not to be trusted. If a driver doesn’t include a receipt in the trip envelope for an authorized expenditure, most carriers won’t pay the driver. If the driver puts a receipt in the trip envelope for an expense and there is no authorization, carriers won’t pay the driver. Even worse, carriers won’t tell the driver he is not getting paid. He has to discover it through auditing his paycheck.

Many payroll departments say that following up with a driver to find out where the receipt is or asking why he turned in the receipt with no record takes too much time.

Unfortunately, most carriers’ payroll departments exist to minimize the number of people required to do the work, not to make sure that drivers receive all the pay they were expecting or understand the reasons why they didn’t.

Responding to emergencies
Stress reveals a person’s true character. How a carrier responds to an emergency tells drivers a great deal about the company for whom they work.

There are two types of emergencies a driver may encounter. One is job-related, such as an equipment breakdown, accident or weather-related delay. When a driver experiencing one of these emergencies contacts the carrier, he wants immediate, competent help. He does not want to be put on hold or told to call someone else.

Too often, when a driver calls to report an emergency, carriers engage in a long conversation about what happened to see who is at fault. This is not the time to start an interrogation. Asking too many questions tells the driver you don’t trust him or you believe he is incompetent. If there is someone at fault, the truth will emerge in a few days.

The other type of emergency is of a personal nature, such as a child going to the hospital or the death of a loved one. These are opportunities to be kind to the driver and his family. A carrier that pays to fly a driver home to be with his family in an emergency sends a message that will be talked about among drivers for a long time.

Sometimes a senior driver will request to be sent home without explanation. Too often, his dispatcher will interrogate him about why he needs to go home. When a senior driver who has proven his worth asks to go home, he shouldn’t need to explain. It may be that the reason is too personal. Maybe he doesn’t feel the need to justify the request. Dispatchers need to know who their top drivers are and do whatever is necessary to keep those drivers happy, without asking questions.

Element 4: Measure performance
Almost everyone in business has seen his company start a new program, experience some success and then drift back into old habits. For example, a lot of companies will start a 30-day review process for new drivers, only to abandon this vital checkpoint months later. One of the reasons is that no one measured how many drivers were receiving a 30-day review. As the organization slipped into bad habits, no one sounded the alarm bell.

There is an old saying that a company can only control what it measures. If this were completely true, to improve retention all a carrier would need to do is measure turnover. What you measure will get management focus as long as it is under their control.
In the discussion below, we highlight some non-traditional measuring tools, which attack many of the causes of driver dissatisfaction.

Turnover
Most carriers lump their turnover statistics into one large number. As discussed earlier, it is critical to measure senior driver turnover versus new driver turnover.

Each month, group all new hires together as a class. Every month thereafter, track how many are left through the first year. For senior drivers — those with more than one year of experience — track turnover within a hiring year.

If you are battling high turnover, new driver retention is the first indication of whether you are making progress. Higher-than-expected senior driver turnover indicates that something has upset the senior drivers. If it isn’t dealt with immediately, overall turnover is going to jump.

Do not count a driver in your turnover numbers until you owe him a paycheck for driving. You don’t want to discourage weeding out bad apples during orientation by counting these drivers in turnover statistics.

Speed
If you improve the speed of your operations, drivers will assume the whole company has improved.
Here are three time-sensitive transactions worth measuring:

• Waiting time for load assignments – For drivers and carriers alike, time is money. Driving hours lost through a truck sitting can never be recaptured.
• Resolving pay questions – The longer a pay question from a driver remains unresolved the more frustrated he becomes. Pay questions need to be resolved by the close of the next business day.
• Fixing a breakdown – When a truck breaks down out on the road, few drivers get paid while their truck is in the shop. That’s why it’s critical to get them back on the road as quickly as possible.

Pay
Most small carriers do not have sophisticated information systems. Yet one of the best tools to measure how your organization treats drivers is your pay package. Payroll statistics can tell you the number of layovers or the number of times a driver had to unload a trailer.

How you pay drivers can help control how your organization treats drivers. One carrier promised its new drivers 48 hours at home every weekend. But even with this policy it had trouble retaining drivers. Drivers who left complained that they were pressured to leave the house before the 48 hours were up. A dispatcher would call with a hot load that just had to go.

The carrier implemented a policy of paying the driver $100 if the 48 hours were cut short. Overnight, the incidents of drivers having their 48 hours cut short disappeared.

It is important to understand why this happened. When there was no cost in making a driver leave home early, dispatch did so with impunity. Once a price tag was put on cutting home time short, those hot loads were not so important. Dispatchers would call the customer to have them reschedule. If a driver were asked to leave home early, the carrier made it worth his while. The president of the company received a report of how often this happened.

You can use your payroll system to measure all sorts of driver dissatisfiers, from excess waiting times for load assignments to paycheck errors. Once it becomes a pay item, the systems are in place to accurately capture who the problem affects and how often.

Accuracy of detail
Do your employees trust the information in your system? For example, do they believe the shipper directions in the system are accurate, or do they give a driver the shipper’s telephone number so he can call and get better directions? While good drivers don’t mind calling ahead, such a practice must leave them wondering what all those people in the office do all day.

Another sign that your drivers don’t trust your systems is when they grab an empty trailer whenever they see one, without reporting it. When this starts occurring, they have lost confidence that dispatch knows the location of trailers.

Accurate information makes everyone more productive. Yet no one has time to do it well. New customers are put in with just a name and a phone number. Customers call in with critical information, and it is written on a pad of paper. Sometimes it makes it into the system; sometimes it doesn’t.

To change behavior, start measuring the quality of your information. This means someone must go into customer and dispatch records and audit them for accuracy. Not every record has to be audited, just enough to produce a valid sample.

Accessibility
One piece of information technology even very small carriers should consider investing in is a phone system that can provide meaningful statistics in areas such as:

• Missed calls
• Call length
• Rings until answer
• Hold time
• Transfers
• Number of calls put into voice mail

Small carriers live and die by their phone systems. One of the greatest frustrations for a driver is not getting through to someone with whom he needs to talk. Measuring telephone performance early on will help ensure that, as you grow, your company does not develop bad habits.

Element 5: Develop knowledge and empathy
Why do so few people in companies answer a ringing phone? Or take the time to make sure a driver with a problem gets help? Or simply greet drivers by name? The main reasons are:

• People don’t know what to do – Most of your office employees have never been in a truck. When confronted with a problem, they do not know how to respond. Worse yet, they fear they may make a mistake. Their attitude becomes: It’s better to let the phone ring and hope someone else will deal with the problem.
• People have little empathy for drivers – Few people really appreciate the challenges facing a driver. They do not know what it is like to work all day to run a minimum load, or to have a payroll question which can drag on for weeks without getting resolved. As a group, most trucking managers do not understand how much frustration comes with a driver’s job and how much is created by carriers.
• People do not like drivers – Many people in trucking companies are either scared of drivers, or they simply do not like them. Too many drivers contribute to the problem by creating the appearance of being tough guys who don’t take flack from anyone. Even if all drivers wore suits and ties, there would still be an “us versus them” attitude in most companies. Drivers can sense that attitude in a heartbeat.

A carrier will never become truly driver-centric until it addresses these problems. Here are some ideas:

Train everyone to respond to common driver problems. Most drivers call about a handful of common issues: They are running late, need directions, require an advance or have a payroll question. Develop a list of core issues and train everyone to solve these problems. That way, someone answering a driver call may be able to solve the problem immediately. For example, most people can look up whether or not a driver has been paid for a certain item. For other questions, they may only be able to gather the needed information.

Send everyone out in a truck once a year. Nothing develops empathy for a driver’s life like first hand experience. People quickly discover what it is like to wait on hold, to sit for hours waiting for the next dispatch, or even to find a parking spot in a truck stop. Trips do not have to be a week long. One or two days usually gets the message across.

Break down barriers to drivers. Driver barriers can be physical, such as bulletproof glass or restricted access to dispatch, or social, such as not being included in company activities. While such barriers send a negative message to drivers, they also tell everyone in the company that drivers are different. When drivers have a complete run of the office and are invited to all company functions, people have an opportunity to rub shoulders with them. That is the only way they will start to view drivers as equals.

These suggestions are easy to offer, but difficult to implement. While getting people out in a truck seems basic, people will resist doing so by saying they have too much work to do. They will resist giving drivers the run of the office by saying the distraction will keep them from getting their work done. This is another area in which employees will test your commitment to your company’s vision.

Put it all together
Commit to a vision of excellence, get everyone on the same page, excel at the items which really count, measure how you are doing and get people to help drivers whenever they can. Those are the elements necessary to build a driver-focused organization.

Sound good? Drivers and other employees of carriers who have gotten close to this vision report that they are fun places to work. They also make a lot of money.

In Summary
Creating a driver-focused company requires five essential elements: committing to a corporate vision; achieving synchronization between departments; excelling at core functions such as securing, scheduling and assigning loads, resolving shipper problems and responding to emergencies; measuring your company’s performance; and developing knowledge of and empathy for drivers.