Drivers quit their jobs over money issues more often than for any other reason. No surprise there, despite what some people have thought — and at least one major study reported — about the importance to a driver of things like ‘being respected.’ Still, I’d guess there are carriers with turnover problems in spite of what they see as pretty good mileage rates compared to the competition. The thing is, it’s not quite that simple, and I wonder if the average fleet manager really understands the nuances of driver compensation.

Nothing’s ever simple in this game, of course, and that’s illustrated in a piece of research I came across recently. The Department of Management in the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas surveyed top managers of 326 small trucking companies across the U.S. in a paper published last year. Some 56 percent of companies in the sample were truckload carriers, while 27 percent were specialized-commodities fleets and 17 percent were less-than-truckload outfits. Dispatchers handled about 40 drivers each, and the 326 responding companies had an average of 97 employees.

Data were obtained on many driver management practices, though drivers themselves weren’t surveyed directly, so their opinions are filtered through management eyes here. And these are all American drivers, of course, but I think the main lessons apply here too.

The turnover rate amongst these fleets averaged about 28 percent, by the way, which seems very low even when compared to Canadian turnover stats and much lower than the 100-percent-plus U.S. average.

“The major reasons reported by drivers for quitting were pay and benefits, the nature of the driving job, and the relationships with supervisors/dispatchers,” the report says. But let’s stick with pay.

Nearly everyone said “better pay elsewhere” is one of the three primary reasons for drivers quitting.

“Virtually all respondents (96.7 percent) reported this being an issue that they encounter at least some of the time,” the report says. “A related reason is ‘better benefits elsewhere,’ mentioned by 83.6 percent of the respondents… This is perhaps because pay levels are not increasing at a high rate. In any event, a significant key to reducing quit rates may lie in an examination of the pay and benefits package offered to drivers.”

Not surprisingly, the research found that higher pay is related to lower quit rates among drivers. But the key isn’t how much the average driver is paid, but how much the best-paid driver gets. In other words, if the ‘ceiling’ is high enough, drivers will tend to stay. If maximum earning potential is seen to be lower than at other carriers, that’s a reason to move on.

“Interestingly,” it goes on, “another issue is ‘not enough driving hours/runs scheduled,’ listed by over 75 percent of the companies. The pay and benefits concerns may be attributable to this problem — it is not that drivers are not paid enough per mile. Rather, it is that drivers are not scheduled for enough miles to make an acceptable pay rate.”

As my buddy and highwaySTAR editor Jim Park says, nothing damages a driver’s commitment to the company more than excessively long layovers in distant ports or inconsistencies on the bottom line of the weekly pay statement — $1,100 one week, $800 the next, etc. The two complaints are often tied together, of course.

The point is, it’s no good having a great mileage rate if the miles simply aren’t there. That layover can be tough to avoid, I’m well aware, but it’s clear that efficient routing and dispatch has to be a real priority.

Another reason to fly the coop, according to the Arkansas research, is the lack of a pension plan. It’s often an issue with drivers I talk to, and the survey found that pension plans are not universally offered.

On average, 65.7 percent of carriers had a pension plan, with TL carriers most likely to have one. TL and SC carriers contribute an average of five percent of a driver’s salary into the pension plan; LTL carriers an average of four percent.

The implication here is that an ageing driver population is looking more seriously at retirement than in the past.

I can’t leave this without mentioning Coastal Pacific Xpress in Cloverdale, B.C., which recently said it’s paying its 475 employees and owner-operator drivers a total of more than $400,000 in bonuses to recognize their role in helping the company generate revenue of $100 million for the fiscal year. That figure represents a 41 percent increase over the $71 million in revenue posted in fiscal 2005.

Wonder why?

If you’d like a copy of the Arkansas study, e-mail me —
rlockwood@newcom.ca — and I’ll happily send it your way. I think you’d find it useful.