Who makes the most important daily decisions for your company? Although the owner, executive and frontline management teams all make critical decisions for overall operations, your drivers are making some of the most important minute-by-minute decisions on behalf of your trucking company. Consider this:
• Your driver is responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of your equipment; either owned by you or others.
• Your driver is transporting tens of thousands of dollars worth of your product or cargo owned by others.
• Your driver’s behavior and performance on the road affects your carrier profile, your insurance risk and your company reputation.
• Your driver is your company ambassador. They interact in-person with enforcement agencies, customers, other drivers on the road and the general public.
As you take the time to carefully consider your investment in new equipment, upgraded technology or other systems to run your operation, are you taking the time to invest in the right people? With the growing issues of a driver shortage, the impact of Electronic Logging Device (ELD) legislation and the increased demand for movement of goods, there is concern that some carriers may be becoming desperate to fill empty seats as quickly as possible. Without the proper due diligence and investment, it is a recipe for bigger and more costly issues down the road. If you do not have one already, now is the time to have a well-documented driver management program in place and use it. Following are some tips to consider.
Create a detailed hiring policy
• Document what your minimum required driving experience is. You should have expectations with regard to experience with types of equipment, loads, routes and conditions similar to your operation.
• If hiring newly licensed commercial drivers, develop an onboarding and training program that will progress their knowledge and experience as a professional driver. Remember, the newly licensed driver has passed the basic provincial licensing requirement, and hopefully has taken advantage of a reputable and recognized training school program, but is not familiar with operating your equipment and your loads on the highway for long distances.
• Note the class of license requirement. Put in place a regular review of driver abstracts to confirm that license class and status has not changed over time.
• Will your company have a minimum age requirement? Note the age requirement to operate certain vehicles when crossing into different jurisdictions.
• What will be your minimum acceptability for road violations, accidents, drug and alcohol? Regardless of violations while operating a commercial or personal vehicle, driver behavior reflects an attitude and a professional driver should be held to a higher standard at all times.
• Develop your interview process and determine who will be involved. Document your screening questions for the driver and your yard and road test criteria. A comment section with sign off from the recruiter and tester should be included.
Putting your policy and program into action
• Review the driver applicant’s experience. Note any gaps in experience and inquire about any frequency of job change or movement.
• Ensure the application is complete and match the information to any accompanied documents.
• Carefully review documents provided by the applicant. Ensure they are current, complete and accurate.
• Request the applicant provide confirmation of their commercial insurance claims history. Require this document to be on the insurance company’s letterhead stating the policy number, driver name and applicable policy terms.
Do your own validation
• Have the driver consent to any background check.
• Confirm the driver applicant’s prior employment history. What was their role in the company, their driver experience and conduct – not only as a driver, but also as an employee?
• Invest in a thorough criminal background check.
• Consider the services of third party vendors who can help your recruiters to complete and validate the driver and employee background check. These providers conduct their search through reliable sources in a timely manner.
Out on the road
• Have a designated and experienced driver trainer observe the applicant around the equipment while parked in the yard. Are they familiar with the vehicle? Do they know how to complete a thorough circle check? Some carriers use a tag or flag that the driver must retrieve from components they must check.
• Observe any adjustments the applicant makes once in the driver seat. Many crashes can be avoided by simple mirror adjustments.
• Have the driver trainer put the applicant through driving exercises in the yard and on the road. Look for opportunities to safely create scenarios the driver applicant may face on the job. Make the test as close to real driving situations as possible.
• Have the driver trainer document and sign-off on the road test.
Review
• Regroup with the driver trainer and recruiter to compare notes and thoughts on the eligibility of the applicant.
• Once the driver is hired, conduct your onboarding process with observable driver monitoring over a period of weeks. Driver behavior in a controlled or test condition may not be what the driver will do once in a more relaxed environment.
• Don’t forget to review the performance of all your operators regularly. Check your carrier profile and claims history to see if any refresher training is required. Remember to recognize and reward good performance.
• Seek customer feedback on drivers to ensure they are good representatives for your company.
• Periodically review your driver management policy and program to see if any changes are required.
A well-documented driver management policy and program is a basic requirement for all trucking companies. The most important thing is to put the policy into practice. Proper driver management will help you recruit and retain the right drivers. It will hopefully put your company in good standing with compliance enforcement, reduce crashes and generate long-term cost benefits from equipment maintenance, fuel efficiency and insurance costs. Take the time and invest wisely. Your customers, business partners and other drivers will appreciate it.
