OTTAWA, Ont. — Fleet owners, executives, managers and supervisors in Canada’s trucking industry have access to a new set of tools designed to help guide their efforts to recruit and retain professional drivers.

Your Guide to Human Resources: Practical Tips and Tools for the Trucking Industry has been unveiled by the Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council (CTHRC) along with Human Resources Essentials, a related three-hour interactive seminar that will be hosted across Canada.

“These resources offer practical answers to the recruiting and retention challenges that emerge every day,” says Linda Gauthier, executive director of the CTHRC. “This guide is for the person who wears many hats in an organization, including human resources. They do not need to be a human resources expert to apply the lessons.”

The content of the guide and seminar addresses topics such as: the way driver turnover affects profitability; the importance of “fit” when recruiting drivers; effective recruiting strategies for hiring the right people, the first time; and, how to incorporate driver retention strategies.

Each guide also includes a CD “toolbox” packed full of checklists and sample HR forms that can be customized for use in any fleet, while the practical application of the lessons is explained through stories that involve a fictitious company known as ACME Trucking.

Those who attended Human Resources Essentials at the Ontario Trucking Association convention Nov. 15-16 in Toronto, received the first copies of the guide it and gave very favourable reviews, CTHRC reps said.

Content for the guide and seminar was developed by Alison Cunningham, vice-president, people solutions at MultiNexus Corporation, and extensively tested in real-world environments. Cunningham was an advisor to one of Canada’s 50 Best Managed Companies in the transportation sector, and teaches industrial relations and negotiation skills at Queen’s University’s Industrial Relations Centre.

Visit www.cthrc.com to order a copy of the guide ($75 each) or watch for Human Resource Essentials seminars being offered in conjunction with provincial and regional host organizations.