Opinion: Elevate Drivers From Second-Class Citizens

This Opinion appears in the June 5 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

For the past nine years, we’ve been running the annual Best Fleets to Drive For program in partnership with Truckload Carriers Association. Every year, we learn what fleets are doing for their drivers. We interview fleet management and survey drivers. We learn what works and what doesn’t. And we see trends.

The Best Fleets to Drive For companies have one thing in common: They treat drivers with equality — they’re not relegated to second-class status. I have no doubt that every fleet wants to treat drivers as equals, but there are subtle things that can undermine that, leaving drivers feeling disconnected and less important.

Jazrawy

Many drivers naturally see themselves as separate from the company since they’re on the road much of the time. That’s compounded and reinforced when companies treat them as such. For example, some companies separate drivers from their co-workers by walls and locked doors. Companies may talk about an “open-door policy,” meaning that drivers can talk to anyone in the office. But if they have to get buzzed in to see those people, it can undermine the openness the company is seeking. The fact that other workers — including part-timers and interns — have full access to those same offices doesn’t help. If the primary revenue generators for the business have difficulty getting inside the business, it’s hard to argue that there’s open communication and everyone is valued equally.

To address this issue, we’re seeing many Best Fleets adopt open plan workspaces that give drivers easy access to the facilities. If drivers can come into the building and interact with their co-­workers in different departments, communication is improved, and drivers feel much more like part of the team. As one Best Fleet driver put it: “No driver window and no locked doors. If you have a question, you go talk to them directly.”

Technology is another place where it’s easy for companies to inadvertently send mixed messages. Here’s a simple test: Do your drivers have access to the same corporate communication tools as your office staff? The most obvious place we see a “class separation” is with corporate e-mail accounts. Almost every office worker will have one set up immediately upon hire, but in many cases, drivers never get them. That means that drivers have no way of engaging in corporate communication when they’re not in their trucks. Sure, they can provide a personal e-mail address and have messages sent there, but no one else is expected to do that, reinforcing that drivers aren’t in the same class as other workers.

But we’re seeing change. More companies are providing company e-mail addresses for drivers, creating dedicated mobile apps to enable communicating within the fleet and, in many cases, providing tablets and phones for their drivers. All of these things reinforce the core objective of communication by making it easier for drivers to do so, without having to use personal accounts. One fleet spelled it out directly in their interview: “Every new sales rep gets a laptop, cellphone and e-mail account, so why not do the same for drivers?”

These are only two of the many places where we’ve seen Best Fleets address discrepancies in treatment between drivers and office staff. Others can include things such as benefit policies (office staff getting more vacation time or better health insurance than drivers) or executive engagement (office staff having a VP of HR looking after them, while a lower-­level manager handles the same tasks for drivers). And what about business cards? They’re inexpensive and show you’re proud the driver is working for you. In all these cases, fleets tell us that they’ve seen a world of difference by identifying the issues and addressing them, and the results we see in their driver surveys back that up as well.

Want to do even more?

Instead of just making sure drivers are treated as well as office staff, take it to the next level and provide special drivers-only perks. Some Best Fleets have created concierge services that handle paperwork and vehicle maintenance and, in some cases, will even do odd jobs around the house when drivers are away. Those kinds of perks help streamline a driver’s day and can do wonders to relieve stress as well.

And we’ve seen Best Fleets make an effort to welcome drivers home by putting signs out when they’re scheduled back to the terminal. Thanks to technology, old manual signs are being replaced by integrated systems that know who’s arriving in the yard, flashing customized messages on overhead signs when they arrive. Some fleets have set up internal notifications as well, so office staff can go out to greet them directly.

Combined, those two ideas create a sense with the drivers that they’re the star players on the team — which is exactly how you want your primary revenue generators to feel.

Are there places in your fleet where drivers might be getting mixed messages about their importance? If so, what can you do to balance that? What can you do to make your drivers feel extra special? These are ongoing questions that a fleet needs to embrace and answer. If they do, good things will happen.

CarriersEdge provides online safety and compliance training tools for the North American transportation industry. Jazrawy has been a leader in education and performance improvement for more than 25 years and, through Best Fleets, works to promote positive and diverse workplaces in the trucking industry.