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Tips to Improve First Year Driver Turnover

Driver turnover costs trucking companies an average of about 3 million dollars every year. While this amount can vary based on things like fleet type, location and driver salary, it’s clear that the impact to the bottom line is significant. Beyond the upfront cost, we must also consider the adverse impact on retained drivers that results when drivers are overworked and overstressed dealing with an increased workload. Turnover is a serious problem that needs addressing, especially when it most frequently occurs in the critical early days of a driver’s tenure. 54% of trucking’s exits left within just their first six months. It’s important to ensure that new drivers are given enough support and attention so they remain and become long-term contributors to the organization.

First Year Turnover

According to People Element’s industry data, first-year driver turnover is at an average of 74%. While turnover among any population is painful, it is especially difficult when it occurs within the first year on the job. With a skilled position like truck driving, the first year consists of a significant amount of training, which means that all of those costs are unrecoverable if the person departs.

72% of driver exits are preventable, proving the opportunity for trucking companies to make changes and improve the driver’s jobs.

Turnover reasons commonly found for this population include compensation and mileage, schedule and off-time, and management. The cost of recruiting and training professional drivers is significant and fleets that want to turn the tides must make a concerted effort to target this population and support the needs of the people within it.

How to Reduce First-Year Driver Turnover

One of the most effective ways to reduce driver turnover is to better develop fleet managers through extensive fleet manager training. This has proved to be successful with several clients including Eagle Transport Corporation. Fleet manager training is not only a cost effective way to make sure your fleet managers and drivers are well trained but it also ensure the two roles maintain a positive and productive relationship. The goal is to continue educating, mentoring, and supporting fleet managers so their new drivers become competent, confident contributors.

Another best practice for retaining drivers is by helping provide a voice and an outlet for feedback on driver satisfaction. During a panel discussion on driver retention at a trucking conference, a highly skilled, tenured driver said that the one thing that would cause her to consider leaving her organization is if she felt that she no longer had a voice and her opinions and suggestions didn’t matter. People Element regularly identifies this as an opportunity for improvement within fleets. If you don’t gather driver feedback, you won’t know that this is an issue in your fleet and you won’t know what actions to take to make improvements.

A third important area to focus on in order to positively affect driver retention is setting clear expectations up front with all new drivers. Expectations not matching reality is a common cause for driver turnover, and there are a few simple processes that can be operationalized in any fleet that will help set clear, appropriate expectations up front. The exact steps and processes are different for each fleet, but knowing up front (through driver feedback) which expectations are consistently not matching the reality of a driving job goes a long way toward building a strategy for managing expectations.

There is no silver bullet for reducing driver turnover. So much depends on each individual fleet’s operations that it’s difficult to create a retention strategy without an acceptable amount of data, including feedback from your driving population to find out what keeps them with you and what causes them to leave. If you’re ready to take the next step toward creating an effective driver retention strategy, People Element can help.

Top Takeaways from the TCA WorkForce Builders Conference

Trucking Conference Blog Image Last month I had the opportunity to speak at the TCA WorkForce Builders Conference. This inaugural event brought industry leaders from across the country to share insights and best practices around the topics of recruitment, retention, and fleet management strategies. The conference was jam-packed with great ideas, especially considering that the event spanned just two days. Here are some of the highlights that stood out as best practices for the trucking industry.

Social media is critical for recruiting.

In the past, social media was a “nice to have” in recruiting. But as digital marketing executive Patty Cox mentioned in her keynote address, social media is now required as part of an effective recruiting strategy. Social media isn’t just for white collar jobs—there are more than 500,000 driver positions posted on LinkedIn alone! She also stated that one in five candidates said that they applied for a job that they learned about via social media.

The number of social media platforms available these days can seem endless, and managing even just the popular ones can seem overwhelming. At a minimum, it’s important to have a strong presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even YouTube. During her presentation, Cox mentioned that after Google, YouTube is the second most used search engine. Some of the most common information recruiters tend to share through social media includes:

What it’s like to work for their company
How they support their communities
Why current drivers choose to work for them

Discover the driver’s voice.

The Why I Love My Job: Retention from the Driver’s Perspective session offered an invaluable opportunity to hear directly from a panel of experienced drivers what makes them stay with their employer. One driver, who has been with her company for more than 25 years and has three million safe miles, answered two questions that illustrated the importance of listening to employees:

Q: What keeps you loyal to a company?
A: I feel like I have a voice. I feel like my company listens to me when I share my ideas.

Q: What would make you leave your company?
A: Not being heard. If I didn’t hear back from them about an issue, I’d go somewhere else.

This driver’s responses weren’t unusual—in fact, they reflect data we see when we conduct surveys for our clients. Indeed, listening to employees is a powerful tool; it can be even more effective when you gather feedback not just from one driver, but from the entire driver population via a survey.

Prevent disengagement before it starts.

In the session, Driver Managers: One of the Strongest Tools in Your Retention Toolbox, Jeremy Stickling, Director of HR and Safety for Nussbaum Transportation, and I shared research and firsthand experience around the role driver managers play in engagement.

On average, driver managers typically manage 40-50 drivers, sometimes more. With so many drivers to oversee, it’s difficult to focus on building strong relationships with individual drivers. In those situations, it’s easy for disengagement to go unnoticed and unaddressed, and as a result drivers decide to leave. One way that Nussbaum Transportation has tackled this issue is by ensuring that managers have no more than 30 drivers to manage. With a smaller group, the fleet managers are now able to coach drivers, help with issues and even empathize with what’s going on with them.

By having a solid relationship with a driver, a fleet manager has more visibility to what might have changed for a driver over time. Maybe a driver has started a family and more home time has become more important than when the driver started. Or maybe a driver is getting more CSA points; a manager has more time to ask questions and learn what might be causing the safety issues. In either case, the manager is more aware of what’s going on with the driver and can prevent disengagement before it starts.

Whether you were a recruiter, a fleet manager, or even a driver, this year’s WorkForce Builder’s Conference had something for everyone. Each session I attended illustrated the many positive changes in the ways we recruit, retain, and train talent in the trucking industry. One thing is for sure: the future holds great potential for drivers, fleet managers, and trucking organizations.

You Have Employee Feedback Data… Now What?

Gathering feedback from your drivers and other employees in your organization is becoming the norm within the trucking industry. Organizations are using this data to make improvements just as they use other metrics, such as safety and performance data. Whether you gather workforce intelligence on your own or use a 3rd party, your job is not done once your people have filled out a survey. In fact, that’s where your work begins! Here are five important steps you should take post-survey in order to get the best return on your survey investment:

Prioritize change
When you analyze your employee data, it’s possible to come away with a list a mile long of possible improvements or interventions. If you try to attack them all, you’ll likely accomplish none. I recommend choosing one to three opportunities for improvement to focus on. How do you choose? Ask yourself and your team the following questions:

•    Which opportunities for improvement align with our organizational goals for the year?
•    Which opportunities will give us the best return on our efforts?
•    Which opportunities will impact employee satisfaction and morale the most?
•   Which opportunities are we fully committed to impacting?

Create action plans
Once you’ve prioritized your initiatives down to the top few that you and your team are committed to, it’s time to create an action plan for each. Creating action plans are beneficial because they provide clarity, reduce workplace stressors, increase work performance, and are motivational. I recommend writing action plans around the idea of SMART goals, that is, checking in as you’re creating action plans to make sure what you have is Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Time-based. There are templates available online to assist you in creating a SMART action plan for each of your opportunities. Strategic Programs also provides an action planning tool and resources to help you through the process of creating SMART goals.

Communicate survey results to employees
If your employees give you their feedback and then hear nothing afterwards as far as follow-up, they’ll be unlikely to give their feedback again and you may lose some trust and commitment. It’s crucial that you communicate your appreciation for their time and opinions, as well as some level of “what’s next” information based on the survey results. The amount of information you communicate regarding next steps is up to you.

Now that we know why post-survey communication is so important, there are a few things you can decide at any point in the process that will make communication post-survey smooth and efficient:

• Who?
Determine who will write and who will send out the post-survey communication

• What?
Decide how much information you’ll share regarding next steps

• When?
Set a timeline for sending out communication. As soon as possible after data is collected is best.

• Where?
Choose a forum for sending out the feedback. (Newsletter, memo, town hall meeting, etc.)

Cascade the data throughout the organization
Again, the amount of data you share and the transparency of the information are up to the discretion of your organization’s leadership. With that said, I highly encourage you to share as much as you feel comfortable sharing, so that everyone in management and leadership is on the same page with your goals and action plans. As with the communication to employees, determine a process for cascading the information to management. Here are a few suggestions of ways to share the post-survey info with your teams:

Option 1
•   What is going well?
•   What is not going well and is important and actionable?
•   What is not going well that we aren’t taking action on right now?
•   Next steps
Option 2
•   What has improved?
•   What has fallen?
•   What has stayed about the same?
•   Next steps
Option 3
•   What can we leverage?
•   What do we need more information on?
•   What can we improve?
•   Next steps

Track your progress
You have the will and the way, now what? During the creation of your action plans, you should have assigned accountability for seeing the plans through. I also encourage you to assign someone to check in on the status of all of the action plans, to help hold people accountable. This can be someone internally, or a partner outside your organization who you trust to check in and hold people accountable. As a consultant, I am frequently asked to partner with clients on accountability after reporting survey results and analysis or facilitating action planning sessions. One of the best motivators for sticking to your plans is to re-survey your employees in 12-18 months, to see where movement has occurred based on your plans and initiatives.

If you would like to hear more on this subject, I’ll be facilitating a workshop at the TCA’s upcoming Recruiting and Retention convention in Nashville, TN February 5th & 6th, 2015. I’ll be speaking in conjunction with a carrier member and sharing best practices from organizations I’ve worked with who have had great success in this area.

Holiday Greetings and a Cheesy Poem

T’was the night before Christmas and across all the roads
The drivers were busy delivering their loads
Service hours ticking as they drove across town
With hopes that receivers are not too bogged down
The families were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of home time danced in their heads
The spouses are anxious, awaiting the call
That their driver will be home soon after all

From the North Pole each year, a most urgent call
To the drivers to deliver the holiday haul
Santa needs help, the drivers are made
to make sure that Christmas isn’t delayed
The drivers alone can’t take on such a feat,
So with help from the office, demands they will meet
Now Maintenance, now Safety, now Payroll and Ops
On Trainers, and managers, and dispatch, the lot
To the top of the ranks for safety and miles
The freight is delivered, ensuring all smiles.

From our company to yours, and from me straight to you,
Merry Christmas to all and a safe New Year too!

Driver Perceptions and POS – It’s not what you think!

According to research done by organizational psychologists (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002), perceptions of favorable treatment and value from an employee’s company (and more directly from their supervisor) should contribute to Perceived Organizational Support (POS). Perceived Organizational Support is an employee’s general belief that their work organization values their contributions and cares about their well being. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard a driver say something along the lines of “All I am is a truck number to them,” I’d be writing this from my own private island. I am not at all implying that companies don’t actually care about their drivers; we’re talking perceptions here. Feeling these negative perceptions can be disengaging and can impact performance, absenteeism, safety, and turnover. On the other hand, high perceptions of organizational support can lead to a driver’s willingness to go above and beyond, in the form of helping other drivers, taking actions that protect the organization from risk, offering constructive suggestions, and gaining knowledge and skills that benefit the organization. With all of these factors in play, I’m proposing that it is important to work toward adjusting these perceptions in order to increase POS.

Yes, I can hear you now. “Great, Megan. Now get your nose out of the psychology books and tell me how I can start to positively impact these perceptions drivers have that my company doesn’t value them and isn’t committed to their success!”

Increasing POS from the top down can directly contribute to a culture of retention. In order to affect change in negative POS, the organization will need to focus on its actions to show their commitment to drivers. Does your company’s mission and website mention the importance of your drivers to your success? When a driver calls in for help, are they treated with respect and in a timely fashion? Does your leadership team refer to “the drivers” or “our drivers?” Are you doing all you can to get feedback from your drivers on their job satisfaction and engagement? If answering these questions leads you to a few small changes you can make, you’re well on your way to increasing drivers’ POS.

The organization will also need to communicate to managers the critical role they play in an employee’s POS, and how their actions are a direct reflection of the entire organization. Communicating to managers the importance of providing support to drivers, along with education on the manager’s metrics directly affected by turnover, is a good start.

Here are a few recommendations that can help your organization to improve drivers’ perceptions of organizational support:

Recommendation 1

Find ways to increase employee voice in the organization. Provide ways for employees to give suggestions for improving their jobs and the organization. Make sure that managers are encouraging employee voice and that both managers and leaders are taking steps to close the loop on communication when suggestions have been made. Communicate what the organization is doing regarding employees’ suggestions. For example, if an employee provides a suggestion for improvement that isn’t feasible to implement right now, make sure you let the employee know that they’ve been heard and why further action is not being taken on their suggestion. Reward employees for offering innovative ideas. Perhaps include a great employee suggestion in an organization-wide newsletter, and highlight how the organization has seen improvements because of the employee’s suggestion. This shows employees that they have a voice and that their ideas are important and valued by the organization.

Recommendation 2

Create new ways for leadership to communicate and show their commitment and loyalty to drivers. Have leaders spend time in employee break rooms or in the truck yards having casual talks with drivers and asking them how their job is going. Increase organization-wide communication on driver appreciation, such as an employee spotlight or a letter from the CEO thanking drivers for their hard work and commitment. Increase the focus on drivers and their importance on the company’s website and social media presence. Create more ways for leaders to show their commitment to drivers, such as an employee picnic where senior leaders cook for them. Make sure that the information that new drivers are told is correct and accurate, so that there is less of a likelihood for new drivers to perceive injustices from the beginning.

Recommendation 3

Ensure that managers understand their role in increasing drivers’ job satisfaction. As discussed earlier, the way the driver perceives their supervisor/manager is often the way they perceive the entire organization. If a manager is managing a large board, make sure they keep notes on each driver, including their name and family members’ names, important dates, and preferred communication methods. Make sure managers are having regular and meaningful check-ins with their drivers. Often in the transportation industry, there is an abundance of focus on hard skills such as driving, loading, and safety skills. Consider manager training on soft skills such as communication and employee appreciation, as well as training to understand each employee’s needs and communication styles.

With increased focus on promoting employee voice, appreciation from leadership, and manager support, we should see improvements in drivers’ perceptions of organizational support. If the recommendations are acted on, I would expect to see an increase in satisfaction around employees feeling valued and feeling like their company is committed to them. These improvements should lead to increased job satisfaction and performance in your company. Higher Perceived Organizational Support is a win-win.

Reference:

Rhoades, L., Eisenberger, R., Perceived organizational support: A review of the literature (2002). Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 87, No. 4, 698–714. doi: 10.1037//0021-9010.87.4.698

Drivers Feel Advancement Opportunities Are Lacking

Data that Strategic Programs has collected from new, current, and exited drivers is telling us that one of the dissatisfiers across the industry is a lack of promotional opportunities. More specifically, there seems to be a lack of communication regarding opportunities for advancement. I’ve met with several clients who have agreed that this is indeed the case, which leads to the obvious conversation – what do we do about it?

We hear from clients that they feel like they’re sufficiently communicating job opportunities. But often the case is that if you communicate a job opening three times in three places, you probably should have communicated it four times in four different places. Career advancement opportunities need to be over-communicated, especially if perception of a lack of career advancement is reason for drivers to become dissatisfied and disengaged. Here are a few of the ways that companies have effectively communicated job opportunities:

Telephone hold message – If a driver has to be put on hold to talk to the right person, why not let them know where they can go to review current job openings while they’re waiting?

Break rooms/terminal lounges – You don’t have to post actual job openings here, but again, let drivers know where they can go to find current openings, as well as how to apply and where to get help and support with the application process.

Social media – Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are highly visible places to post opportunities. I’ve seen plenty of large trucking companies post job opportunities on Facebook, and they’re getting a lot of traction out of it.

Company newsletter – Placed in a prominent location, communication around job opportunities can be a successful way to get the word out to current drivers.

Surprisingly, our data shows that drivers who are the least satisfied with opportunities for advancement are those who have only been with the company 6 months or less. This is also a group that has one of the highest percentages of turnover within the trucking industry, lending weight to the importance of focusing on this group. Many clients ask why drivers who have only been around for a few months are already concerned with promotional opportunities, or blame the lack of satisfaction on the sense of entitlement that the younger generation seems to have. In all actuality, new employees just want to know that there are opportunities for them to advance down the road; that they can have a career, not just a job. It’s a fair concern, and one that should be addressed early with a new driver’s manager.

Having conversations with new and tenured drivers about the opportunities for advancement within the company, when a driver will become eligible for advancement, and what they need to do in order to qualify for advancement can go a long way toward improving perceptions regarding opportunities for advancement.

What Are Drivers Hearing From Recruiters?

One of the current issues facing the transportation industry is the reality of a driving job not matching up with the driver’s expectations of the job. There is not one function or department to blame for this disconnect, but there are things that can be improved each step of the way. In this article, we will examine ways to improve the conversations between a prospective driver and the recruiter.

First, how up-to-date is the info that recruiters are sharing with prospective drivers? There needs to be frequent communication from operations about the experiences that current drivers are having. How many miles are drivers getting on average this month? How much home time are people getting? A few carriers I work with who are doing this well have frequent communication with recruiting, and recruiters are giving accurate, up-to-date information to recruits.

Another recommendation that I’ve shared with carriers is that recruiters follow up with the drivers they’ve recruited after they’ve been driving for a few months. Have recruiters check in with new drivers and ask them if what they’re experiencing matches what they expected and what experiences they’re having. Recruiters can then take those stories back to tell future recruits. Not only does it keep recruiters connected with what’s going on after drivers are hired, it shows prospective drivers that you’re not just a number toward a quota.

Everyone who’s been excited about the prospect of a new job can probably relate to the fact that you might not focus on all of the aspects of the new job. Perhaps you’re excited by the pay, but you don’t focus on the long commute, or you focus on the great work environment but choose to look past the paid time off policy. With this in mind, it’s important for recruiters to make sure prospective drivers are hearing and understanding all aspects of the job so that there are no surprises later.

If you are interested in learning more about how to ensure that a driver’s reality matches their expectations, I will be speaking at the TCA Recruiting & Retention convention in Nashville, January 29-31; Workshop 2 – Recruitment & Operations Alignment: Getting the Driver Relationship Started in the Right Gear.

You Have Data – Now What?

Last month, I talked about what you can do at the manager level with action planning and how important that is. Now let’s focus on 3 simple things senior leadership can do in response to employee feedback data.

I’ve been doing quite a bit of work recently with trucking clients on current employee feedback of a variety of populations – from the entire organization down to just the drivers, and sometimes even specific departments. This feedback provides valuable insights on employee morale and engagement. Whenever I meet with these companies to review their current employee feedback data, I come prepared with recommendations for next steps and action planning. Although each company’s action plan will differ based on their data, resources, and goals, one of the most effective things that senior leadership can do in any organization is to recognize and appreciate that employee feedback, and communicate what will be done with it. Here’s the how and why:

Recognize and value opinions – The response “My opinion is valued” often comes up as a low score for trucking organizations. Acknowledging your appreciation for peoples’ feedback and committing to do something with the data lets people know that their feedback is valuable.
Demonstrate Commitment to Action – People will be much more willing to give their feedback in the future if you do something with the feedback they’ve already given you. A complete plan isn’t necessary to communicate right now, but it’s important to at least touch upon some of the problem areas and one or two things that you’ll look into based on the data.
Show Appreciation – Employees took the time to give their feedback, and a simple “thank you” can go a long way.

A brief memo or letter sent from your organization’s CEO or president that covers these three bases can be an extremely effective way for senior leadership to get involved and make a difference with your current employee population.

Action Planning with Managers

So you have current and/or exited employee satisfaction and engagement data – now what? One of the biggest struggles that organizations have when faced with good data is what to do with it. How do you use the data you have to create important and sustainable changes in your organization?

Here are a few starting points to help you get started and get the most from your data:

Do whatever you need to do in order to get buy-in from managers. Most likely, effective action planning will happen at the Driver Manager or Fleet Manager level. This doesn’t mean that the problems are usually with the managers, but that there is already a relationship there and we’ve seen action planning at this level to be the most effective. If managers don’t understand the importance of employee satisfaction, engagement and retention, then you have some up-front work to do. Managers need to understand that they are not being punished or being thrown more work for no good reason. Let them know that their support and leadership are a key and necessary part of making positive changes. Emphasize the positive aspects of the manager putting some extra work in up front, such as a more productive fleet, less turnover, fewer empty trucks, and increased morale. All of these positives could lead to changes in your bottom line that can make managers take notice; fewer accidents, lower CSA scores, and less customer complaints can mean more profit.
Work with managers to choose the most important and actionable issues to address. Once you have buy-in from your managers, it’s time to choose the action item(s) on which to focus their efforts. Managers might need some help and guidance, and this can be the best way for senior leaders to help. Sit down with each manager and find the issues in the data for his/her fleet or board. Help the manager to determine the one or two things that they feel are important and actionable, based on organizational goals and needs. Again, the manager needs to know that it’s important or you could lose your buy-in, so let them choose.
Help managers to create an action plan. When the manager has identified the one or two most important and actionable issues to work on, an action plan should be created to keep the momentum going. An action plan includes decisions made on the following:
Determine follow-up for measuring the impact of action plans. When will the next round of data be available so that you can measure the impact that has occurred based on manager action planning? Having follow-up data available can help to keep action planning on track and can also be quite motivating if measurable change has occurred in the areas that have been targeted. If there is not a plan in place to gather follow-up feedback, at least have a “state of the action plan” meeting scheduled with each manager to review the timeline and measurable goals.

We at Strategic Programs, Inc. have worked with clients who have had great success with action planning at the manager level. It can help to make large amounts of data less overwhelming and can be just the thing to create positive, sustainable change in your organization.

How to Rehire Your Former Employees

Do you agree with the following statements on rehiring employees?

1) It is more cost-effective to rehire a good employee who already knows what they’re doing than to train someone new. 2) A rehired employee tends to be more engaged and appreciative to work for you if he/she has experienced first-hand what the rest of the job market looks like.

Transportation organizations that use our services for exit interviews agree that one of the most beneficial returns on investment (along with giving employees a voice and being able to get to the root of why people are dissatisfied and/or leaving) is the future potential list. In our surveys, we ask people how likely they would be to return to your organization. If someone tells us they’d be likely or highly likely to return to the organization they left, we ask for their permission to share their contact information with the organization.

All respondents who grant their permission are then provided to you in a list of everyone who would be highly likely or likely to return to your organization. You can then sort the data how you’d like and use it for re-recruiting purposes. Several of our clients who have used the Strategic TurnOver Program™ (STOP) exceed the return on their investment by re-recruiting a few good employees.

So what do you do if you agree with the opening statements, but you aren’t being provided with a list of former employees who would like to return to work for you?

When someone leaves your organization, I recommend coding them as eligible for rehire or ineligible for rehire. If you have the resources, have someone call those who are eligible for rehire after two or three months. Ask people how they’re doing in their new job, and if they would consider returning to work for you. If you don’t have the resources to call everyone who is eligible for rehire, at least give people a “return ticket” when they leave. Let them know that if they want to come back, you would be happy to have them. Some clients have actually made a paper “Return Ticket” that drivers have brought back with them when they returned to work! You could even consider a policy of allowing certain benefits to be reinstated if people return to work within a certain amount of time after leaving.

With the driver shortage not getting any better, having a pool of qualified and experienced employees to call on for rehire can be a valuable resource. Make sure the people you want to come back to work for you know they are welcome back.

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