Hiring truck drivers is a difficult task – agreed. But what’s more hard is to retain good truck drivers. With annual driver turnover nearly 100 percent, a driver shortage, and the Covid-19 outbreak, fleets are scrambling to keep their trucks moving.
Many truckers change their employers for better compensation, perks, and hours. But what’re other ways to retain a driver other than raising pay.
Employee engagement is an answer to all your questions. If you are a truck recruiter, you can’t save yourself from this tiresome work of building your company’s retention policies. Here are some ways that will help you in retaining that good trucker who always complains about pay but you can’t help it as a recruiter.
Build Your Policy Around Safety
One of the topmost priorities of a truck driver on road is safety. Showcase your company culture to truckers in a way that emphasizes safety culture. Invest in compliance and coaching rather than paying regulatory fines. Connecting the dots between drivers’ safe behavior and the fleet’s reputation and bottom line can help.
Celebrate Performance
Appreciation & reward is the best retention policy. Psychologically, appreciation releases happy hormones in our body. To motivate and incentivize drivers, you can tie performance to data-driven, objective measures such as:
- Consecutive collision-free days
- Coaching effectiveness scores
- Safe miles driven
- Number of positive customer reviews
Another option is to reward drivers for improving unsafe habits:
- Reducing distracted driving
- Idling less
- Minimizing downtime
- Reducing following distance
Consider a “driver of the month” or year program to recognize top performers. And make sure positive customer feedback makes it to drivers (and their managers).
Ask for Drivers Feedback and Act On It!
Truckers are the most important force behind the operations of a trucking company. Their voices need to be heard. Try to take their feedback, they better understand the problems. Take their feedback into consideration and improve the overall company culture.
Build a True Team
Build a truck driver community . Understand their career goals and interact daily. Consider integrating new drivers with existing teams, and pair each new driver with a peer who has some tenure. Create groups of drivers with similar roles (e.g., cargo types, geography, etc.) so they can swap experiences. When setting performance goals, blend individual and team metrics to inspire some friendly
We hope this article will help you in improving your overall retention experience. If you or your company follow some other strategy, do share & help others!
