The transportation industry is competitive. There’s many who still feel there’s a trucker shortage and with the drug and alcohol clearinghouse crackdown and many other factors, many truckers are being flushed out of the industry.

Still, you want to grow your fleet and build a company that lasts.

But how?

Jim Collins, best-selling author of the landmark book, “Good to Great,” said metaphorically, that to build a great company, you’ve got to get the right people in the right seats on the bus.  In other words, when you focus on attracting the best truck drivers to your company, then you’ll build a much better company.

You CAN attract the best truck drivers to join your fleet IF you have a winning employment program.

For more insight on what makes a great employment program for attracting good truckers and what innovative incentives should be considered, we can learn something from the ‘Best Fleets to Drive For’ program, which is an award given to trucking fleets that have top-flight employment programs for their drivers.

Mark Murrell and Jane Jazrawy

The Best Fleets program is the brainchild of Mark Murrell and Jane Jazrawy, who came to trucking from a tech background and were struck by how little the trucking industry was doing to promote itself as a good place to earn a living.

Murrell and Jazrawy also noticed trucking companies were underrepresented in awards programs that highlighted top employers.

Here are some of the most important factors to consider as you build a better employment program to attract and retain the best truckers to build a great company.

Attract the Best Drivers with These Key Features

      1. In recent years, organizers of the ‘Best Fleets to Drive For’ award have seen the emergence of guaranteed pay become more prevalent among the best-performing fleets. Truckers don’t just want to have ‘gigs.’ Like anybody else, they want a stable income they can budget on – a salary. So, you should work to build a program that gives you the profit you need and the income stability they need to attract and keep better team members.
      2. Fleets will be asked by the organizers of the program how long their drivers are typically out on the road, and what a typical week looks like to their drivers. “We’re going to be drilling into that farther and asking specifically, ‘What constitutes a weekend in your fleet?” Drivers are people. They get burned out just like anyone who has to work more than 40 hours a week. Work to give your drivers a true weekend so they can have better work-life balance.
      3. This year, ‘Best Fleets to Drive For’ will be more focused on the ratio of drivers to dispatchers and fleet managers. Increasing the administrative team boosts the smooth operational flow of your business, making for a better company overall.
      4. Provide better vehicles for your truckers. If you’ve got older, beaten up equipment with seats that give your truckers a back-ache, breaks down, etc. you can bet they’ll be looking for a way out fast, and you’ll be stuck with employees that have no better options.
      5. Participating fleets can also expect to be asked about how they manage pay-to-park and their natural disaster-readiness. Truckers shouldn’t have to pay for things related to the job, if they are fully employed by your company.

These are some of the levers you should pull on to build an attractive employment program that attracts and retains great truckers. When you have good retention of good people, it’s easier to build a great company.

Watch Now:  Matt Manero gives 4 tips for for taking your company from good to great in 2020.

About Commercial Fleet Financing, Inc.: At Commercial Fleet Financing (CFF), our pros have given smart advice to fleet owners and owner-operators in the transportation, moving, towing or construction industries for more than two decades. With CFF, finding the right financing solutions is a phone call away and most borrowers secure commercial vehicle financing with ease. To talk directly with one of our finance pros and get started with a credit approval in as little as two hours, CFF’s phone number is (469) 281-2962.