EWS Group MoversSuite (223 × 62 px) (1)

Moving Words – Hiring

Written by Timothy Brady.

“When I find an employee who turns out to be wrong for a job, I feel it is my fault because I made the decision to hire him.” – Akio Morita

The largest occurrence of driver turnover is in the first year from point of hire. A company may have an overall turnover rate of 20% to 30%, but the newbie flight (those first year hires) can exceed 3 or 4 times that amount—or higher (60% to 120% +). We’ll define this as ‘driver churning.’

We know the drill; a driver is hired on, goes through training, is teamed with a van operator for a time, and then let loose on his own. Within the next few months this new van operator is complaining about not being paid for everything he’s required to do, the shippers are too hard to work with, the damages weren’t really his fault, he’s not getting home when he needs to, not making the money he was told he’d make—and on and on and on. The next call we get is “Come get your damn truck,” and the cycle starts again.

As with most problems, the cause is fairly easy to find, and believe it or not, it’s not just about the money. There are several factors which contribute to driver churning, but its root cause was immortalized in the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Communication must begin during the recruiting process and continue through the driver’s entire tenure while he or she is a part of your company. The biggest complaint drivers have about the recruiting process is they aren’t told the truth about what they’re getting themselves into with a particular carrier.

The three key driver’s needs, which must be fulfilled by a moving company, are:

  • reasonable compensation for all hours required to perform the duties of driving, loading and unloading a truck,
  • consistency in pay from week to week, and
  • scheduled time home.

But the most important task you can perform in finding the right driver is to listen carefully for information:

  • What are this driver’s needs and wants?
  • What is his family going to expect and need?
  • What are his expectations in terms of money, time at home, type of equipment and amenities?
  • What are his career goals; in the next year, three years, five and beyond?
  • What are his personal financial requirements, house payments, car payments, other debt and personal financial goals? Are there any other income sources to cover these personal expenses besides the trucking position?

Listening for information from this potential hire will assist you in determining whether his expectations or financial requirements don’t match what you can provide him. The most important part of this process is making sure you’re telling him the whole story. Tell driver applicants all about your operation: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Give them every opportunity to ask for details. Don’t hide anything; it’s only fair everything be divulged.

Most people don’t like surprises that have a negative effect on their income. But not explaining potential surprises and your company’s policies concerning them to the driver during recruiting is one of the most-cited causes of driver turnover today. Remember, the biggest complaint heard from drivers is they’re given incomplete information during recruiting. In some cases, the recruiter is telling the trucker what the recruiter thinks the trucker wants to hear. Or the trucker only heard what he wanted to hear. There’s nothing worse for a driver, having left his last driving position based on a rosy picture painted by a recruiter or by what he thought he heard, to then discover in orientation something which would’ve made him decide the company isn’t a match. The carrier ends up with a driver who feels trapped and duped. Not a good mix for developing a quality business relationship.

Avoid these misunderstandings by providing the potential trucker with a Question & Answer sheet. He must fill in the blanks with the information your recruiter provides him. On his own similar Q&A sheet, the recruiter should note all the answers the trucker provides. At the completion of the interview, the recruiter and trucker should exchange these sheets and go over the information to be sure nothing is misunderstood. The more complete the information, the less likely there will be a disgruntled driver.

When the trucker and recruiter have reviewed and corrected any misunderstandings on their Q&A sheets, each of them signs his respective answers as to truth and validity. After copies are made, the trucker and recruiter should review the information privately to determine the compatibility of the trucker to the company and the company to the trucker.

Driver retention begins during the recruiting interview. The more honest information exchanged by driver and recruiter during the initial hiring process, the better the driver understands and accepts the circumstances and idiosyncrasies of your company’s operations along with its procedures.

Think of it more like an investigation or research into the wants, needs and requirements of both your company and the prospective driver. Not a question of ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ but a way of determining compatibility. The more knowledgeable you are about the trucker’s wants and needs, and the trucker is about your company’s methods and policies, the stronger the relationship will be. And all this makes a valuable, long-term business association. Develop a relationship with each trucker. You’re not selling a product; help each driver find the carrier which works best for him. Invest the time to honestly communicate with each recruit, thus enabling your company to retain the best truckers. Or, to put it another way, ‘driver churning’ will lead you down a twisting, turning, rolling path of frustration and service failures; forward thinking communication builds a stronger, long-lasting driver/carrier relationship. This will create better customer service and better profits for your moving company.

“If you can hire people whose passion intersects with the job, they won’t require any supervision at all. They will manage themselves better than anyone could ever manage them. Their fire comes from within, not from without. Their motivation is internal, not external.” – Stephen Covey

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