Fleets Must Alter Operations to Attract Younger Drivers

This story appears in the Oct. 15 print edition of Transport Topics.

LAS VEGAS — Trucking fleets must accept some blame for the current driver shortage and be willing to adjust their operations in order to attract younger talent, two truckload executives said last week.

While federal regulations and demographics are taking a toll on the driver pool, the industry

also must do more to promote its own image and fight for funding to train drivers, said panelists Derek Leathers, president and chief operating officer of Werner Enterprises, and Kevin Burch, president of Jet Express.

They spoke at a panel discussion during American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition here.

The panel was moderated by Howard Abramson, publisher and editorial director of Transport Topics Publishing Group, who noted that some studies show that hundreds of thousands of truck driving jobs will soon be available.

“When the economy picks up, the shortage could worsen dramatically,” Abramson said in framing the discussion for the panel.

The fleet executives were joined by Kenny Vieth, president and senior analyst of ACT Research, and Lou Spoonhour, former chairman of the association that represents driver training schools.

Leathers said truckers “need to get paid more than average Americans because we are asking more of them.” However, success in retaining and recruiting drivers has required more than just pay increases.

“You can’t pay anyone enough to be on the road two, three weeks, or longer, at a time,” he said.

Werner has altered its schedules to get 71% of its drivers home at least one night per week. That is up from about 38% a few years ago.

Burch said the industry’s demographic statistics mean the driver shortage will worsen, even without an economic uptick.

With the industry’s average driver being 48 years old and less than 10% of drivers under the age of 30, it illustrates “there is a lack of interest from the next generation,” he said. “No one wants to get into our business until they are 35 to 44, and that is part of our problem.”

Burch stressed the importance of mentoring and training programs, which can give people ages 18-21 valuable experience in the years before they are allowed to drive solo in interstate commerce.

“If you don’t train, you don’t gain,” Burch said.

Spoonhour, who is president of Driveco Truck Driver Learning Center, said that, in the past, too many trucking fleets have been unwilling to give younger drivers a chance.

“If you all want experienced drivers, how is anyone ever going to get started in the industry?” Spoonhour asked the crowd. “Entry-level drivers are . . . going to be part of the solution.”

Spoonhour — representing the Commercial Vehicle Training Association, whose members have 200 campuses throughout the United States — also requested the assistance of the trucking leaders to join his fight to tell lawmakers how important it is to increase funding for truck driver training.

“In about four to eight weeks, we can train entry-level drivers to move into the industry and make $40,000 in his or her first year and be tax-paying citizens of this country,” he said. So we need to ask them, ‘Why are you eliminating these funds?’ from the federal budget.

Leathers agreed, saying it is difficult to ask people to accumulate $4,000 to $6,000 in debt while not having any income during training.

He and Burch said drivers who come through their own training programs — and do not leave within the first month — often stay with their companies a long time. In addition, incentive programs for safe driving or becoming a trainer offer ways to increase overall pay.

Burch said truckers also need to express “the gravity of the situation” of not enough drivers to insurance companies that are hesitant to cover younger truckers.

But successfully attracting younger drivers involves adjusting to their changing lifestyles in a more technologically connected world, they said.

For example, Leathers said, if a driver is at a truck stop waiting for a load or routing instructions, Werner makes an effort to send that information straight to a cellphone, rather than having the driver worry about checking a communications device in the cab.

Even more important, he said, is to create an environment that allows drivers to remain connected to their families, regardless of how far away they are.

Besides home time, younger drivers often have greater expectations of benefits than in the past, Burch said, such as more sick time and a 401(k) retirement account.

“You need to try to find the right benefits and nuggets to keep them interested” in staying with your company, Burch said.

However, Vieth said data indicate that, in the end, pay may be the key issue.

He cited Labor Department statistics showing that in 1981, entry-level drivers were being paid four times as much a year on average as food-service employees. However, in May 2010, that ratio was down to 1.9 times.

Over that time, “driving didn’t get easier, but pay — at least in relative terms — was halved in relation to food-service workers,” he said.

He also questioned whether the issue was really driver churn.

“When you see 100% turnover, it shows that finding drivers is not really the problem — retaining drivers is the problem.”

The panel session was sponsored by Freightliner Trucks.