Even the best-run fleets with the greatest workplaces and driver programs are not immune to the cyclicality of the trucking industry.
When times are tough, winners of the Best Fleets to Drive For program, like other carriers, have to make difficult decisions. But those speaking at the American Trucking Associations’ Management Conference & Exhibition shared that they try to involve drivers in those decisions to the greatest extent possible, while also looking for ways to reward drivers who help them achieve cost controls.
Best Fleets update
The Best Fleets to Drive For program, now in its 18th year, has been around through several industry cycles. Its objectives are to recognize carriers who offer exceptional workplaces for drivers, to share their success stories, and to provide a way for trucking employers to benchmark their programs against others in the industry.
This year, 118 companies were nominated by their drivers, 65 participated all the way through the program, and CarriersEdge, which runs the program, conducted more than 5,300 driver surveys. Mark Murrell, president of online training firm CarriersEdge, invited Michael Lasko, assistant general manager and vice-president of Boyle Transportation and Dale Decker, CEO of Decker Truck Line, to discuss how they continue to offer exceptional workplaces to drivers even amid what many have dubbed the longest freight recession on record.
Involve drivers in decision-making
“There comes a time sometimes, when we have to make some pullbacks,” said Decker. “One of the things we try to do is, we try not to just use [a downturn] as an excuse to be able to cut programs and benefits to drivers. We try to slowly roll things back if we can and mitigate the effect on the driver.”
Decker Truck Line first looks to cut areas that won’t directly impact the drivers’ quality of life and income. It also ensures the pain is shared across the entire organization and isn’t loaded disproportionately onto the drivers.
“If we’re going to cut something for the drivers, we’re all going to feel it,” insisted Decker. “We’re doing it across the board.”
He also said clear communication as to why changes are being implemented is crucial. Such communication must also be transparent. Decker said he writes a quarterly business update for all drivers and office staff that delves into market conditions and broader economic issues, so staff know why changes are required.
“They know what’s going on and it’s not just, ‘Well, it seems like my miles are down’,” he said of this approach.
Boyle Transportation also involved drivers in deciding where cuts should be made.
“We had a pretty liberal hotel policy for our over-the-road drivers,” Lasko said. “In retrospect, it was much more liberal than it ever should’ve gotten. We were spending a ridiculous amount of money every month on hotel stays.”
The company brought that concern to its driver committee for feedback before implementing changes to the policy.
“The drivers gave us their feedback and I can tell you, they didn’t love this idea. But they gave us their opinions and some suggestions and we implemented those. We were able to trim back that hotel policy to a manageable number. We got the drivers’ involvement and made sure they understood, because they’re stakeholders in the success of the company,” he said.
Rewarding cost-cutting behaviors
The companies also leaned on their drivers to help them achieve needed cost reductions.
“What’s one way we can all save money as an over-the-road trucking company? Well, if we lower our fuel expense,” reasoned Lasko. “So, how do you do that? Incentivize your drivers.”
Boyle Transportation rolled out a new monthly incentive program for fuel-efficient driving and gained nearly 1 mpg across the fleet. Initial concerns about how the company would fund the incentives was overcome when it reached out to its vendors and asked them to sponsor the program.
A technology supplier to the company sponsored the program, which doled out $12,000 to more than 60 drivers.
“And guess what? We had less accidents and we had higher mpg and we started saving money,” said Lasko. Boyle then adapted the program to ensure recognition was spread out among not just the top performers, but also the most improved and even the ones who needed the most coaching.
“Now, Jonny who had 89 speeding events, well he’s in a good position to win this competition,” Lasko said of the move to reward most improved drivers and not just top performers. “And we started doing more of a lottery approach where, if you meet the [target] mpg, we put your name in a lottery for a gift card with pretty good value. And if you come in at x mpg +1, you get five entries. And if you come in at x mpg + 3, you get 10 entries. And wouldn’t you know it, mpg started shooting up through the roof because we made it achievable for everybody. It wasn’t limited to the top 10% of our performers.”
Some programs were dialed back
With the current market conditions, it was inevitable that some popular driver programs had to be scaled back or eliminated. At Decker, the minimum guaranteed pay program came under scrutiny.
“I didn’t want to get rid of the program,” Decker said, “because the concept of the program is very valid. If a driver is truly stuck, broke down, whatever it is, I want that driver made whole. It’s not their fault. But we needed to give it more teeth.”
Rather than killing what was a popular program among drivers, Decker Truck Line looked for cases where it was being abused. Some drivers were playing games with how they worked their schedule to get paid when they could’ve been on the road but were not, due to their own decisions. By addressing those scenarios, the company was able to keep its guaranteed pay program largely intact.
“We were able to cut down our minimum pay by tens of thousands of dollars,” Decker said. “But it didn’t come with the sacrifice of getting rid of the program.”
Having run Best Fleets through several downturns, Murrell said drivers are much more accepting of changes when they’re done thoughtfully, involving driver feedback, and not with a “slash-and-burn” approach.
Leveraging data to make positive changes
Pulling data off the trucks’ telematics gives the fleet all the intelligence it needs to make good decisions, but at Decker Truck Line, that data isn’t just fed to drivers in a raw format.
Driver leaders are given the data and are able to use it to help coach drivers on how to improve. The driver leaders share in bonuses achieved through such improvements.
“That really helped us move the needle,” Decker said. “It’s not just a monthly report that comes out and these are the bad guys on the list. It’s every driver leader buying in and they’re bonused off it as well, so they want to start to push the training and coaching. That’s been fantastic for us.”
Lasko agreed. “We don’t embarrass anybody, so we leave the names out of it. But we trumpet the folks who are doing great,” he said.
Not every program is a winner
Carriers that participate in the Best Fleets program are best in class and always looking for new ideas to implement. Not all those programs work out, though.
“There was this weather program that I thought was going to be wildly awesome for our drivers,” said Lasko. It would send them alerts through the ELD when they are approaching bad weather. “They came back angry, calling it annoying and distracting. It seemed like a great idea to me in my cozy office but I’m not out there on the road dealing with what the drivers are dealing with, so yeah, that failed.”
Decker Truck Line decided to pay a certain driver group a salary.
“That was not a good idea,” Decker said. “That worked great when things were really booming, but boy, when it wasn’t booming, that was not a good thing for us. We had to end that.”
That cost the company some drivers, but Decker said it was impossible to continue salaried pay in the current freight environment. Decker also faced pushback when deploying driver-facing cameras.
“That was the right decision,” Decker said of the deployments, even though some drivers left the company over the decision. “We want to partner with drivers with shared principles.”
Don’t be afraid to pivot
Fleets need to be willing to make changes to their driver programs, Lasko said, even if those changes aren’t popular.
“As long as I’ve worked in this industry, and it’s been 20-something years now, it’s a constant game of pivot,” he said. “The challenges this year are going to be totally different than what they’re going to be next year. I’m sure we’re going to have to find something else to pivot on and adapt and adjust to make it more meaningful and relevant for our drivers.”
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