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Driver Retention: Managing the Risk

By John Gentle

When I think about driver retention and recruiting, three things come to mind: the actions of the shipper, receiver and carrier. Each of these parties plays an integral part in your process and can either be an ally or an obstacle. Let’s start with your company and specifically your sales and operations teams.
When sales is soliciting freight from shippers, they are hesitant to say or do anything that could be perceived by the shipper or receiver as negative. They will not say "no" to things like multiple stops, touching the freight, tarping or even delivering the shipment to the attention of Tony Soprano and his boys in the middle of the night under a bridge with no lights somewhere on the East Coast. Seemingly, they would prefer to get the business and then let your company figure out whether it works or not. After all, it’s always easier to ask for forgiveness.
Additionally, most carriers don’t do a good job ferreting out all the information that is vital to providing the driver with a good experience, like gaining a clear understanding of the nature and value of the material to be transported, the service sensitivities, and what the driver is expected to do at the loading and receiving points. Your operations teams become co-conspirators in this process. Rather than ensuring that they have a clear understanding of the program, many operations managers are just happy to get more opportunities for their team, reasoning that there is no such thing as "bad freight."
So what about the shippers? Do they really know much about their product, including how and when the shipments are loaded? The good ones really do! And the mark of a good shipper is one that has a well-defined fitness-for-use (FFU) statement that’s available in print and makes it available to the carrier without having to be asked for it. Among other things, this document will clearly outline:
• product, package configuration, value, and classification – NMFC
• MSDS (material data safety sheet), including Hazmat info
• safety and operational rules in force at the loading point
• nature of the customers and timeliness of the deliveries
• driver’s role in handling returns, detention and other issues
• special loading and/or counting instructions, including the use of straps, tarps and v-boards, etc. if a flatbed carrier
• special instructions for tracking/control during shipment
• special instructions for unloading and counting including delivery receipts
Good shippers also insist that the operations team send someone to one of their plants before the first shipment is made to see the products and understand how they are loaded/secured. The operations team needs to understand how the plant loads: from trailer pool or live load, how the loading teams are staffed by day of week and time of day, where the pinch points are and what the average waiting/loading times are throughout the week. Do they load by appointment or by first-come first-serve? Are there different lanes for long distance versus CPUs versus regional and/or dedicated? How do you avoid getting mixed up in the receiving gate or the wrong lines?
When your company is being contracted to handle third-party shipments, fitness-for-use documents take on a greater level of importance because they not only provide information about the receiving plant, but about those mysterious "third-party shipping locations" which many shipper transportation teams have only heard of but never seen!
Regardless of whether the driver is going to a new shipping or new receiving location, there is nothing worse for the shipper or the receiver than having a surprised and subsequently unhappy driver. Within one hour that unhappiness is shared at least with his teammates and likely everyone within CB range.
So how do you prevent this kind of thing from happening?
• Carrier sales must ask the right questions of their prospective accounts and specifically ask for a fitness-for-use statement.
• Operations teams must take the initiative to view the loading and/or receiving operations in order to understand the pinch points so they can navigate the driver around without incident.
• Recruiting teams must clearly define their expectations to both their sales and operations teams and hold them accountable for securing and analyzing the right information so that dispatch and driver managers can effectively plan and provide drivers with good experiences that improve retention, and, by reputation, boost your recruiting efforts!
This is called risk management. Recruiters take note. You own this!

John A. Gentle, DLP, is the president of John A. Gentle & Associates, LLC, a transportation and supply chain company offering consulting services to carriers, brokers and shippers. Gentle, a longstanding industry activist, was the former Transportation Affairs Leader for Owens Corning. He is well-known throughout the motor carrier industry and is often sought after as a speaker and columnist. He can be contacted through his Web site www.RelaTranShips.com.

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