Truth and Time go Hand in Hand
I believe strongly that over the past few decades we have done ourselves a significant injustice in this industry by not paying attention to the changes that happened around us as they relate to where our drivers and Owner Operators were being recruited. As our rural based second-generation driver pool started to dry up we continued to treat the new entrants to the industry as though they had the same work ethic and aptitude for equipment as we had experienced for the decades prior. This is not a new train of thought and in fact has been broadly accepted as the major reason for our abysmal record of turnover for quite some time.
The results of our indifference have been played out in the public eye for all to see for far too long now, 100% plus turnover rates and a new cottage industry whose entire service offering is to train us how to treat our own people, it is a sad commentary to a great industry. I believe that the basis of all good Human Relation efforts is really quite simple and goes like this “people stay in situations they like and feel comfortable in and they leave those that they do not like and feel uncomfortable in” think this statement to simple, well let me tell you that there is nothing more illusive than an obvious fact my friends, you can build an entire retention strategy around that simple quote. In fact if you’re not building a strategy around that very thing you are probably ignoring it all together and see the consequences in your turnover numbers and your bottom line. Or you might be one of the companies who think you are being clever by suggesting that you are capitalizing on the turnover situation and have figured out how to win at the game by simply rebranding your failure, success built on human suffering is not the kind of success that this industry wants or deserves.
The fact of the matter is that we have cost ourselves greatly by our shortsighted actions both in terms of bottom line dollars and human suffering. What do you think the cost of having five to six drivers in a truck over its lifecycle is compared to having one or two, what is the effect on that assets value. Consider the maintenance cost when so many different folks are in and out of the vehicles, deficiency reporting that is more a blame game exercise than make sure the equipment is ready to go. What is the efficiency cost to a trucking company when a dispatcher has to retrain their entire workforce over a year as compared to normal attrition, which is maybe five percent, or less? What is the cost to your operation of additional personal to constantly be hiring because of the churning, or additional personnel to be continually plating and UN plating Owner Operators while your fleet stays the same size? What cost to safety, it’s a known fact that a company with high turnover has more accidents incidents and workers comp claims, orientation is continually educating people administration never settles down because everyone is new at the paperwork process and your reputation for service to your customers, how can a company that is retraining an entire workforce over a twelve month time frame provide dependable service, I don’t think it can be done. I think the companies who work this way attract their customers with predatory rates and probably churn their customers in a similar way they do their drivers. The human suffering is an intangible that boggles the mind people don’t want to fail they don’t want to be jumping jobs and have to go home and tell their significant others that their decision to work at a given company didn’t work out, that is some serious stress. Does anyone want to take a stab at how many people in North America have been behind the wheel and earned their CDL’s but are no longer in the industry, my guess is that for every 3 AZ licensed driver 2 are still driving for a living!
So what’s next, will we do the same thing we have always done and end up where we have been for the past three plus decades with our drivers? I ask you to stop and think this one through, if you focus on quality and integrity and make it a cornerstone of your operation you will get quality and integrity, don’t settle for less. You might not get to be the biggest in the shortest amount of time, but was that ever the good goal? Turnover can be managed and beaten it does not need to be looked on as unavoidable evil of this industry, this is a disgusting theory that we have talked ourselves into, we need to start treating this industry and the people who choose to spend their lives in it with a great deal more respect than they have seen from us during our most recent past.
I believe the effect on margin dollars and of turnover in the trucking industry is astronomical and that in fact the industry is losing huge amounts of cash and people because of it. If the cost of turnover could be recovered and split with the drivers half to them and half to the companies bottom line any rational person would make that deal without hesitation, and in reality that deal is sitting squarely in front of many companies and they just don’t see it. Well my friends there is an old saying that goes “Truth and Time Go Hand in Hand” the companies that are trying to do it right and truly understand that their people need to be treated with respect and treated to opportunity to grow and prosper will win the day. Those who continue to keep their heads in the sand and are the primary cause the reputation that we have today time will run out on and their truth will be revealed!
Safe trucking YT
RJH
CEO Transrep Inc
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I will be out of trucking in less than two years from now, my age is 52 and trucking long haul with the same team buddy for the last 14 years. What can you say about an industry that keeps pushing for electronic logs, and hasnt given us a raise for the past 12 years? It frickin’ sucks man. My team buddy retires at age 65, in about two years, and he has to depend on a Canada Pension plan monthly payment of just under $800. Who can bloody live on that in this country? The cheapo trucking industry guarantees that every company driver
has no supporting pension plan when he/she retires here in Canada but had my team buddy had the foresight long ago to work for a government employer like Purolator Courier or Canada Post as a company truck driver,he would be guaranteed a healthier lifestyle in his retirement years with a decent pension. The death knell for truck drivers in Canada will be the requirement for electronic logs. So be it. Who cares? Obviously.
Hey Ray…bulls eye as usual! I see Jeremy’s comment and it reminds me I hear similar lament all too frequently.
So often our success is predicated entirely on the monthly OR. Don’t get me wrong, it is a very useful monitoring tool for fiscal success however we can end up suffering from short term “profit an loss hypnosis” if we rely entirely on the statement for decision making. And it can affect our ability to forecast or even to plan long term.
Not so many years ago, a recruiter was an anomaly known primarily to the Armed Forces. A recruiter did his or her best to inspire individuals by offering greater opportunities for education and achievement while serving an inherent patriotic interest. It was generally a career choice offered to people and it worked well! Our industry should have taken the personnel shortfall hint a couple of decades ago and looked deep into the systemic issues that would lead to our current haunting! Instead, we chose to “motor” along believing we were cleverly adapting to the ever changing business environment. The one thing we took for granted (and still do) was the most valuable resource in our industry, the professional driver. And now we scramble to find them.
Our latest “solution” is a recruiter; a most resourceful character we look to for a silver bullet to end this “lack of professional drivers” misery we currently endure! The recruiter is held accountable for keeping up with the currently stated 99% (US) turnover rate amongst drivers, constantly churning the masses, looking for more and more bodies to fill the still-warm driver seats. Hopefully we can recruit our competitor’s best professional operators (good luck cuz’ they ain’t movin’)! If we were able to understand the true costs of professional driver replacement, we would have realized the long term benefits of proper industry training programs driven by our own companies and pension considerations for our employees that would have helped in a stabilization of this work force. There was a time we did not need advertising budgets or recruiters for this industry since the word on the street kept the trucks full. Remember the old days when the companies boasted averages of 24 years service amongst their ranks?
So all those commonly exercised “rate wars” and settling for cheap backhaul over the years, just to maintain a revenue stream (operating at a loss) have caused us to sacrifice our driver’s future and our industry’s well being. To recruit people to make career choices in this business I believe we should follow the example of the military. The military handles their own training. Our industry needs to do the same. Inspire potential candidates by offering education (industry training), challenge and reward while assuring them long term security. And we really need to understand our current and future work force. The prairie farm boys are going the way of the polar bear, only faster! Let’s understand the folks who will be driving the trucks in our future, inspire and provide them with all the tools they need (including the EOBRs) to be safe, legal and efficient. But….it will take industry wide commitment.
Hey Dave
Thanks for the comments and they are right on the mark, I do recall the first time I ever had to pay for an ad to recruit drivers, it was sometime in the mid 90″s as I recall. Up until then word of mouth did the job quite nicely. I agree that we need to take responsibility for the training of the entry level drivers into the industry, the government won’t and really hasn’t ever been overly concerned with what level of competancey they authorize with the simple road test they perform.
I cringe a little reading Jeremy’s comments, I must admit, I believe drivers should be making upwards of 70-80 thousand, to qualify that I am talking about long-haul drivers with 120,000 miles a year under their belt. That being said there is an element of education and budgeting that needs to be given to all drivers. By that I mean making 50K a year and spending 60K is always going to leave a driver broke, making 75K and spending 80K is the same thing of course. The clock is ticking on us all and looking at Canada pension to support our older drivers as they come off the road after a life of trucking is just an ugly scenario.
Maybe the Blue Ribbon task force should include this element into their strategic plan?
Thanks Again Dave!
Ray
You hit the retention issue right on the head Ray!