For the last 10 years, hiring and retaining qualified drivers has been an industry-wide challenge, with average driver turnover hovering around 95%. Rather than chase a dwindling supply of drivers, the best way to fight the shortage is to keep the drivers you already have by creating a company culture that makes them want to work for you.
Creating A Positive Company Culture Is The Key To Success
Dan Baker’s Cultural Relationship Program focuses on improving relationships that impact drivers, from dispatchers to operations, payroll and beyond. One of the frequent reasons given why a driver leaves one company for another is they feel they don’t fit in that company’s culture. In your company, every employee that has contact with a driver has the ability to “manage” that relationship with the driver to impact them in a positive way.
A good company culture encourages better communication and collaboration between all departments. It improves retention not only for drivers, but for dispatchers and other staff as well, and increases company loyalty. In short, company culture is what makes your company a place people want to be a part of.
Education is the key to improving your employee’s ability to work with and for others and to foster professionalism in the workplace. The Cultural Relationship Program helps all employees understand:
- How to communicate more effectively with their fellow employees
- How to behave professionally
- How to positively impact and direct their attitude
- How to resolve conflicts productively
In addition, The Cultural Relationship Program focuses on recruiting. To be successful in today’s hiring market, a recruiter must understand the differences between the various generational groups of drivers, and how best to communicate, motivate, and attract them. A Gen X driver has different needs and expectations than a Millennial driver, and you ignore them at your peril.
In today’s transportation industry, dispatchers are sitting in cubicles, dispatching drivers they’ve never met. This is the single most frequent interaction your drivers have at your company and also one of their greatest sources of frustration. A good dispatcher is part teacher, part counselor, part organizer, and perhaps most importantly, the most frequent human contact your driver has at your company. Being a great dispatcher is a person-to-person process. It’s essential that your company have well-trained dispatchers that understand:
- How to best manage their team of drivers
- How to better communicate with them
- How to be the “leader of their fleet”
- How to send them out, get them paid, and get them home
Every employee has a part to play in reinforcing your company’s culture, and Dan Baker breaks it down for all of them with a lifetime’s worth of experience, compassion and wit.
