Driver Seat Belt Detection: 3 Ways It Pays Off

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driver seat belt protection

Requiring driver seat belt detection isn’t just a matter of good business, it’s personal. The safety of your fleet affects so much more than the individual employees. Keep your drivers safe with a seat belt and get them home to their families. Everyone will sleep easier at night. 

While driver safety should always lead the conversation, driver seat belt detection is also good business. Whether it’s by preventing lawsuits or lost revenue, one small action can have huge benefits. Here are three reasons driver seat belt detection pays off. 

1. Increase Driver Safety

The drivers in your fleet are your company’s most valuable resource. Without a doubt, keeping those same drivers safe on the road should be a top priority. Seat belts are the single best way to increase truck driver safety. Study after study demonstrates this, and most truckers do buckle up. According to a 2015 CDC report on trucker driving habits, 5 in out of 6 drivers regularly click in before driving, but what about the last 16.6% percent? That’s approximately 583,000 drivers who aren’t protected by a seat belt on the road. 

We know you can’t be on the road with your drivers at all times, so consider a form of driver seat belt detection to motivate your drivers. As an employer, there are tools you can use to increase seat belt use in your fleet. Consider investing automatic safety procedures that alert your drivers by SMS if they are driving without being buckled up or prevent engine starts without seat belt usage. Looking for a lower tech option? Incentivize your employees to wear their belts. Remember, small rewards and perks or small financial bonuses can go a long way. Even something as simple as recognition or internal company awards can go along way toward encouraging safer driver behavior.

Driver safety is a top recruiting tool for bringing in quality drivers and retaining the good drivers you have.

Once you prioritize these efforts, don’t be shy in letting your drivers know!  Whether it comes through in your well-maintained fleet rigs or in the rewards you offer for good driving, you’re showing drivers you care. That goes a long way toward building a company culture where drivers want to be.

2. Reduce Company Liability

Everyone has heard accident horror stories. As you know, even if your drivers have met all their safety requirements and are driving cautiously, accidents happen. Unfortunately, some people may try to take advantage of a bad situation. An accident participant or lawyer may try to build a case for reckless driving based on evidence that your driver wasn’t wearing their seat belt. 

drive my way primary seat belt map

For more evidence, consider that as of June 2019, 34 states have primary seat belt laws for front seat occupants. Even if there are no other infractions, drivers can be pulled over by a law enforcement officer for not wearing a seat belt. If your company offers a ridealong program, make sure safety isn’t limited to drivers. Primary seat belt laws include passengers as well, and CMV drivers are held responsible for any other vehicle occupants. 

3. Safety Affects Your Bottom Line

While keeping your drivers safe should top the reasons to implement driver seat belt detection, there is also revenue at stake. Consider, a single truck accident costs an average of $148,279. That number skyrockets to $7,633,600 if there is a fatality. Keeping your drivers safe on the road is a good return on your investment.

In 2012, 700 truck drivers or their passengers died in accidents. 40% of the unbelted drivers could have been saved with a seat belt. Three seconds of clicking in could have saved lives and millions of dollars.

Perhaps not surprisingly, not wearing a seat belt is often just one of several unsafe practices that drivers engage in. There is a strong correlation that the drivers who do not wear a seat belt also are more likely to be found speeding and have received multiple moving violation tickets. As an employer, the best thing you can do is to build a culture of safety.

Become a Leader

Driver safety programs often start at the managerial level. The National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence conducted a year long study with 9 carriers to improve their safety records. Top successful strategies included:

  • Develop a strong safety culture
  • Comprehensive Ongoing Driver Training programs
  • Collision Mitigation Technology such as Automatic Emergency Braking, lane departure warnings, and video-based onboard safety monitoring systems
  • Strict driver hiring criteria

For each of the companies studied, there was no single practice that brought improved safety metrics. Instead, a combination of the above practices led each fleet to experience decreases in the severity and number of crashes. This also improved their overall scores in FMCSA’s Compliance, Safety, Accountability program.

 

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3 Trucking Industry Trends to Watch in 2020

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3 Trucking Trends to Watch in 2020

The truck driver shortage and how to improve recruiting continue to be hot topics in the trucking industry. Finding and retaining good drivers is still a struggle for many trucking companies. If your recruiting strategy from last year didn’t generate the expected results, maybe now is a good time to try something new for this year. Whether you need to start from scratch or just make a few changes, we’ve got some ideas to help. Here we’ll explore 3 trucking industry trends to watch in 2020.

1. Focus on the Driver’s Experience

When thinking about recruiting in today’s world, a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. Each candidate is a unique person, looking for the perfect fit job for them. You can’t take an approach of simply doing things the same way again this year. There are countless opportunities to engage with your future drivers. And each one of those opportunities can be won or lost based on their experience at each step. Think of things in terms of being driver-centric in all that you’re doing.

Can drivers easily find your website? Is your application process easy? Does it work well on a mobile phone? When they call your 800 number can they get to someone quickly to help them?

Take a step back and look at every interaction opportunity with potential drivers. Be on trend with putting the driver first in your recruiting process.

2. Video Testimonials

Video assets are great to have as a tool in your recruiting toolbox. One great video opportunity is to leverage your current drivers to share their experiences. Keep it short. Make sure it’s authentic, conversational and not forced. This means don’t give someone a script to read and put a camera in their face. Let them speak naturally from their own experience and talk about what they like about working for you. You don’t need to be the next Martin Scorsese either. A decent smart phone and some basic editing software can get you a great result!

Here’s a quick example of a driver video testimonial

This gives you an opportunity to let your current drivers spread the word for you. And for your potential drivers hear from their peers about why it’s fulfilling to work for your company.

3. Social Channels

Now that you’ve developed some great videos, it’s time to get them out into your social channels. Social media is one of the biggest trucking industry trends for 2020. And continues to prove to be one of the lowest cost tactics you can employ in your recruiting process.

Statistics from Social Hire show that:

  • 80% of employers say social recruiting helps them find passive candidates
  • 67% of recruiters expect competition for candidates to increase
  • 70% of hiring managers say they’ve successfully hired with social media
  • 91% of employers are using social media to hire talent, today

One note about social media, is that there’s several avenues to potentially leverage. If you’re just getting started, pick one or two, and start small. If you don’t have a good Facebook page setup, it’s probably not imperative to get your TikTok account going. It’s best to keep your social presence manageable when you’re getting started. The key thing with social is to keep a steady stream of fresh content coming to keep your followers engaged.

Working through some of these trends can get your recruiting year off to a great start. Mixing in some new tactics while still fully embracing things like responding to candidates quickly, and measuring your results, will help your recruitment plans flourish.

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Ultimate Guide to Truck Driver Recruiting

Current ways of recruiting truck drivers just don’t work anymore. That’s because recruiting isn’t a transaction. This ultimate guide helps carriers recruit for retention.

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Is Your Driver Recruiting Strategy Fool-Proof?

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Is Your Driver Recruiting Strategy Fool-Proof?
Honing your driver recruiting strategy should be a priority for any trucking company. Having good processes and tools in place to get the best candidates for your open jobs is must. Everyone involved in the hiring process should know your strategy and understand their role in the process. Take a minute to think about your current strategy. Is your driver recruiting strategy fool-proof?

Make the Best Use of Your Marketing Tools

Everything a driver sees from your company should reinforce why it’s a great decision to work for your company.

Use your marketing tools to maximize your reach. If your driver recruiting strategy doesn’t include your website and your social channels, you need to change that. Using all of your channels to create a personalized experience for your candidates, helps them see why working for you would be a good fit for them. Having your website easy to navigate and interact with your potential drivers is the best way to make a good first impression. With recruiting it’s important to be sure your candidates want to work for you. Be sure that each touch point you have with candidates reinforces that working for your will be good for them.

Consider Feedback a Gift

From a simple “suggestion box” to more formalized surveys, give your drivers the opportunity to let you know what’s important to them.

Be proactive in fixing problems quickly. If you have feedback loops in place, doing something with the information collected is mandatory. Give potential, current and former drivers an opportunity to provide feedback about their experience with the company. No matter what stage they are as an employee. Use the data collected to help you figure out what’s working well and what needs to change. Keeping up with drivers concerns and proactively changing when things aren’t going so well is a great way stay ahead of problems that might make drivers want to leave. Or worse, not want to work for you in the first place.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Data is power. You may have an idea on where you are headed, but you’ll never know if you are getting there without data.

Invest in recruiting tools and resources that help ensure good decision making when it matters most. Determine your high-level key metrics and track them weekly. Are the dollars you’re spending on leads giving you the right candidates? Leverage tools that help you understand past results and plan your strategy for the future.

Let the team at Drive My Way show you how to recruit for today, and for the future. Request a demo now, and someone from our Business Development Department will be happy to schedule a demo.

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Ultimate Guide to Truck Driver Recruiting

Current ways of recruiting truck drivers just don’t work anymore. That’s because recruiting isn’t a transaction. This ultimate guide helps carriers recruit for retention.

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6 Tips to Improve Your Trucker Job Postings

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trucker job postings
When was the last time you applied to your own trucker job posting? Yes, that sounds strange, but there are reasons why trucking recruiters should try applying to their own postings. Since job postings are the first type of engagement that leads directly to a driver being considered for a job, it’s crucial to get them right. Recruiters can test their own job postings by making sure they are simple, user-friendly, and check off all the right boxes. With hundreds of other carriers out there, truckers have very little time to read every job posting, which makes getting it right all the more important. Here’s a helpful checklist for your ideal trucker job postings.

1. Optimize for Search Engines

The content of your trucker job posting is irrelevant if no one sees it online. Even if you have the best written job description and images, it won’t matter if it doesn’t show up on online searches or the right advertising channels.

If you’re sharing job postings on digital channels, it becomes crucial to reach your target audience. You can optimize your job posting with keywords and phrases that truckers are searching for. Use Google Keyword Planner or similar tools to keep a pulse on which terms drivers search, and the match those in your job descriptions.

2. Mobile-friendly

mobile-friendly application

More and more job seekers are searching for jobs on their mobile devices. Even if they end up not applying through mobile, they’ll browse and shortlist the jobs while on-the-go.

Creating job postings which are mobile-friendly will ensure they are easy to read and view on small devices. Ideally, your entire application process is mobile-optimized, including a single-sign on functionality and save-application features.

But this starts with the job postings themselves.

  • Is the text easy to read and understand on mobile?
  • Or is the font size not optimal for mobile?
  • Are images clear and detailed?
  • Or over-sized and blurry?

View and apply to your own job posting on mobile to make sure it works as planned.

3. Calls to Action

Every piece of text in your trucker job description should be designed to lead to the APPLY NOW button. That’s your call to action. After you’ve successfully persuaded a driver to consider working at your carrier, you don’t want to be searching aimlessly for how to proceed next.

Make sure your call to action buttons are front and center, and easy to identify.

You may want to include it two or three times, depending on the length of the job posting. Including a call to action at the very top and the very bottom of the post is essential, with another one in the middle being optional.

4. Contact Information

Where should drivers turn if they have questions about this job? Your trucker job posting should have easily identified contact information. Have you posted a phone number, email address, or other contact info? If truckers don’t see contact information, they won’t wait around to investigate. They’ll simply move on to the next job posting that sounds good.

If the job is posted on your own website or other digital channels, you can even integrate chat functionality for more optimal communication. This way drivers can write to recruiters in real-time with their questions. If recruiters are away at the moment, a chat bot can be programmed to deliver automated responses and record driver queries until you are able to get back to them!

5. Text Description

truck driver job postingFinally, we are getting to content. Did you notice that we didn’t cover it yet? This isn’t because the content of your trucker job postings isn’t important! Rather, it’s because you can get the content just right, but still not have a strong posting if you miss out on other things on the checklist. With the job posting description itself, it’s all about striking a balance.

You want it to be long enough to hook drivers and give them the important details. But if it’s too long, it may more drivers with unnecessary details which they’ll just ask about later anyway.

Rather than a simple bulleted list of responsibilities and qualifications, you’ll want to paint a picture of the experience and the company.

Use a varied hierarchy of text to mix how the information is presented. Important details can be highlighted by using bolding, underlines, or different font sizes. Anything you can do to visually catch the eye of the reader will make that information stand out.

6. Images

In addition to the text description, make sure your job postings contain images. In fact, the richer multimedia content you can include, the better. Depending on the channel of the posting, you may be able to include more graphics, or even a video featuring testimonials from your own drivers.

It’s very important to show images that represent the experience truck drivers will have. For many drivers, seeing a picture of the type of truck they’ll be driving is essential before they consider working for that carrier. Make sure images have good resolution, that they are the proper size, and that they are placed in the right position on the page.

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Simplifying Truck Driver Pay

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simplifying truck driver pay

Truck driver pay is one of the biggest factors which candidates consider before accepting a trucking job. Carriers are aware of this, and recruiters scramble to offer the best salary they can to their drivers. But the driver pay numbers aren’t the only important thing to consider. Driver compensation rates have actually increased over the last few years. Yet, carriers struggle to retain drivers over the long haul. The truth is, how you pay truck drivers is just as important as how much you pay them. If your truck driver pay process is messy, complicated, and not transparent, drivers will find it difficult to work with you. Here are 3 tips on simplifying truck driver pay.

direct depositTip 1: Clean and Simple

How difficult is it for the average driver to understand your pay rates? Does it require a five-minute explanation with a calculator? If so, you’re making the pay structure too complicated. While there are many factors that determine driver pay, if the process becomes too messy drivers won’t want to deal with it. Similarly, how difficult is it for drivers to actually get that paycheck? Filling out complicated and unnecessary forms is a burden for drivers, who have limited free time as it is. Remember that most salaried employees simply receive a direct deposit in their bank account every 2 weeks or so. Recruiters and managers should aim to make the pay process as simple as that, if possible.

As Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

Equally troubling is the hassle of delayed payments. If there are delays in paychecks because of clerical or logistical error, the inconvenience shouldn’t be passed along to the driver. For them, the few days could make the difference between paid and unpaid bills or the purchase of time-sensitive medicine. Do whatever you can to make delayed payments less likely. Updating your pay systems reduces the chances of human error and makes it more likely that payments will be made on time. You don’t want drivers to consider leaving your fleet because every pay period remains uncertain, or they can’t decipher their pay stub.

Tip 2: Load Board Transparency

employee value proposition

Drivers get paid based on how many loads they get assigned or agree to take on. Sometimes dispatchers or fleet managers will think that drivers will be happier with their pay if they just took on more loads. Simple, right? While that may be true, think about it from the driver’s perspective for a minute. Often truck drivers may think that other drivers are receiving more or better loads because of favoritism. When was the last time you spoke to a driver who was happy with the loads they receive? There is such a gap between manager perspective and driver perspective on this issue that the only way to bridge it is more transparency.

When it comes to favoritism, perception is more important than reality.

Try to create a system where drivers are fully aware of who has received which loads and when. This helps both drivers and managers. Any unconscious favoritism or bias will be filtered out and less likely to occur. Drivers will also be less likely to perceive favoritism, as you’ve taken steps to counter this. Think of how scientists create double blind studies, or some professors use proctors to grade their exams. Students know that bias is less likely to creep in, so they trust the system more. Similarly, if you create a transparent process on load assignment, you will create perceived equity and fairness in truck driver pay. Drivers are liable to quit because of perceived bias, even if it doesn’t actually exist!

snowy roadsTip 3: Uncontrollable Factors

Truck drivers make money when they’re being productive driving or loading and unloading freight. However, there are many other things that happen during a driver’s work-day that may affect their productivity or their paycheck. Unnecessary idle time, traffic delays, adverse weather conditions, and human error all reduce truck driver pay. Everyone in the industry knows that these things happen and are usually an unavoidable part of the job. Most of these factors are also out of a driver’s control. Yet, the driver loses time, and possibly pay, because of weather and traffic and that isn’t going to look great to them!

While weather, traffic, and other variables may be out of your control also, they shouldn’t be reflected in driver pay

We know that every carrier’s finances are different, and some can afford more luxuries for their drivers than others. If possible, do whatever you can to not pass the cost on to drivers. It will seriously make driver reconsider their employment. Maybe charge for clients for the unnecessary delays and pass it on to your drivers. A promise of guaranteed payments will ensure that drivers don’t have anxiety over delays. Many carriers provide minimum weekly pay guarantees which remove the stress of worrying about delays that could reduce the paycheck. Don’t worry about free-loaders to the system: there are enough tracking devices and performance measures to ensure that drivers won’t milk the system. Investing in these methods will pay for themselves by reducing turnover.

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Brand Awareness: How It Attracts Great Drivers

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brand awareness: how it attracts great drivers

Your company’s brand is one of your biggest assets in attracting and recruiting great drivers. Or, if your brand is weak, it’s one of your biggest liabilities. Sometimes trucking recruiters are so focused on providing better benefits than the competition, that they forget that their own unique brand is something others can’t compete with. Each trucking carrier can position its brand to offer something valuable and attractive to the best drivers. Having a brand isn’t enough – you need to build brand awareness otherwise it will weaken, and other carriers will be more attractive. Here are some things you need to know about strengthening your brand awareness.

Remember the Driver Lead Funnel

When considering how to build you brand awareness, don’t forget the driver lead funnel. This tool helps you understand the different levels at which driver leads engage with your carrier.

The driver lead funnel starts with awareness, then leads to consideration, and finally to conversion.

Sometimes we forget that there are phases in the funnel before actual conversion! If recruiters focus entirely on conversion, they won’t pay enough attention to the previous steps in the funnel which actually lead to conversion. The risk is that leads aren’t properly cultivated and groomed toward conversion. Thus, they don’t engage with your company’s brand before they send an application for a job. Your company will just be one of several dozen which the lead is applying to. Don’t forget the top of the funnel- and that starts with awareness! If recruiters focus more on building brand awareness as the first step, then drivers will be more likely to consider, and then convert, to that carrier over others.

Create Brand Encounters

Okay, so building brand awareness is an important prelude to driver consideration and conversion. But what’s the best way to do that?! Consider that the average worker has at least 8 touch points of contact with a company before they take an actionable step toward conversion. Those are 8 opportunities for you to connect with drivers and have them engage with your brand.

The best way to build brand awareness is to create opportunities for “encounters” with your brand.

In fact, you need to make sure that you’re creating more frequent or more memorable encounters than your competition. These encounters can be created by strategic and engaging content through your channels. Maybe the average driver encounters a Facebook post by you, then reads a blog post from you. A month later, perhaps this driver follows you on Instagram and starts liking your content. The following month, this driver visits Glassdoor and researchers your company, clicks on a driver testimonial video, or asks your company a question on Facebook. Sooner or later, this driver will be looking for a new job. It’s only after all these encounters that this driver will be more likely to have your carrier at the top of their mind and convert to your fleet. You can use many channels to build brand encounters.

Ask yourself, “how many content touch points are we providing potential drivers today?”

Follow the Data and Trends

While the strategy of brand awareness is perennial, the tactics may change with time. The tactics really depend on the data that you have available on your company’s performance, and the trends which are popular at the moment. If you’re maintaining a strong marketing and recruiting operation, you’ll have data on key performance indicators like cost per hire, conversion rate, etc. While those two are metrics regarding conversion, don’t forget metrics for awareness and consideration! Key performance indicators for those phases include how many impressions or clicks you received, the click-through-rate, session time, bounce rate, etc. These data can help you answer questions like which social media channels to use for brand awareness, what types of content is more popular, and what time of day you should post.

Don’t forget some trends that can also inform your brand awareness. For example, 85% of social media traffic is mobile. Additionally, 72% of drivers say that they use a mobile device to fill out a full job application. This tells you that you really need to optimize your mobile interface to make it more user friendly! If not, you’ll see higher rates of application abandonment. Similarly, the data and trends tell us that video is still content king.

If your carrier releases video content for engagement purposes, it will be more successful that photos or text.

Another popular option is user-generated content. This will draw more traffic since truck drivers are incredibly interested to read or see what other truck drivers have to say. Use these insights from data and trends to strengthen your brand awareness!

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Crucial Conversations with Driver Candidates: 3 Ways to Prepare

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Crucial Conversations with Driver Candidates: 3 Ways to Prepare

The hiring process is a stressful one. From both sides of the table (or telephone). Recruiters have to do a great deal of work to find and vet the best driver candidates. Filtering and sorting through piles of resumes, data files, and reading a constantly increasing number of emails. Driver candidates looking for new opportunities have all sorts of information being tossed at them from many directions too. They’re getting calls, emails and text messages from resume screeners, and finding information while doing their own research. The process can take a long time and require tough talks along the road to get on the same page. As a truck driver recruiter, here are 3 ways to prepare for those crucial conversations with driver candidates.

1. Be Honest with Driver Candidates

When working through the steps to bring a driver on-board, you’re going to talk through a lot with your candidates. If your company has a less than stellar reputation, you might get asked questions about what drivers might have heard about what it’s like working for you. These things might be true, or might not be true. But in the cases where they’re asking about something that’s actually the case, you need to be honest with your candidates.

Employers who are transparent in nature with pay, benefits, job role, home time, etc. often see better, more sustainable driver retention than those who exaggerate in a job description to get drivers in the door.

If you know you can’t compete on salary or benefits, be clear and up-front about it. And then also let the candidates know where you’re company can be a great fit with them. Starting out anywhere other than with honesty and transparency will most likely not lead to a long-term employee.

2. Know Your Facts

When being asked questions about pay and benefits, be prepared to provide accurate numbers. Being vague is never a good way to gain trust from your truckers. If questions come up about what their future career path might look like, be clear on what could potentially happen. But also provide the driver with what needs to be accomplished to gain promotions in the future. On the flip side, you may need to discuss negative findings after a background check or a drug screening. Be sure that your information is 100% correct when having these discussions with your truck driver candidates. Accusing someone of something that’s not true, or preventing them from being further considered, could have lasting consequences.

3. Be Empathetic

When going into a tough conversation, put yourself in the other person’s boots for a minute. If it’s a conversation to deliver bad news, or to discuss a potentially sensitive topic, think about what your driver candidates might be thinking or feeling. And most importantly, ask yourself how this conversation is going to affect them moving forward with your company. Empathy can really help choose words to keep tempers controlled, as well as keep the tone of the conversation civil and not accusatory.

A great resource for helping with these conversations, is a book called “Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High”. Written by Kerry Patterson, Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny and Ron McMillan, this book is a highly acclaimed reference for both personal and professional use. It’s a must read for any HR or recruiting professionals.

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Ultimate Guide to Truck Driver Recruiting

Current ways of recruiting truck drivers just don’t work anymore. That’s because recruiting isn’t a transaction. This ultimate guide helps carriers recruit for retention.

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6 Ideas for Improving Driver Satisfaction

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truck driver satisfaction

Recruiters know that truck driver satisfaction is essential to ensuring long-term retention. Sometimes, we naively believe that good pay, benefits, and home time are the perfect satisfaction recipe. A 2017 study by TruckersReport.com, along with software firm OdinText, showed that this isn’t the case at all! The study used text analysis to evaluate comments on TruckersReport.com discussion boards. For veteran drivers, pay grade came in fifth among factors that influence job satisfaction. For both veterans and novices, one of the leading factors was whether the company culture is ‘family-oriented.” While great pay and benefits are necessary for drivers to be satisfied with their carriers, it’s obvious that they aren’t enough. Here are 6 ideas to improve driver satisfaction and retention.

1. Equipment

Drivers don’t want to deal with shoddy equipment and recurring maintenance issues. Good equipment is one of the most cited factors that influence driver satisfaction. Therefore, investing in newer model trucks and quickly resolving maintenance issues shows drivers that you care about safety. Consider also investing in trucks with larger cabins with fleet amenities. Drivers appreciate kitchen appliances and satellite radio/TV that allow for more options during down time.

2. Ride Along Programs

Truck driving can be a lonely profession and hobbies can go only so far in combating boredom. OTR drivers have it particularly rough as they often go several days or even weeks without seeing their loved ones.

Including a passenger or pet ride along program shows your drivers that you care about their personal lives and happiness.

A pet policy lets drivers bring their canine or feline companions on the road with them. Spouse ride along policies gives drivers the flexibility to spend more time with their significant other without losing time away from the job. Driver satisfaction will improve if drivers get to spend more time with who they care about.

3. Health Incentive Programs

Truck driving has the reputation of being one of America’s “unhealthiest professions”. While drivers may not fault their carriers for the inherent risks of the job, they appreciate any efforts carriers make to minimize those risks. Many companies have been engaging in incentive programs to help drivers meet their health goals. For example, some companies are providing healthy sack lunches or break rooms with healthy options. On the other hand, they can be as ambitious as onsite fitness centers, discounted gym memberships, or wellness days with physicals and health assessments. There’s no doubt about it—overall driver satisfaction with the career and the job increases when drivers are healthier, so there’s no downside to prioritizing health.

4. Safety

Truck drivers know that the job comes with inherent risks of crashes and other dangers on the road. When carriers prioritize safety as a top concern within the organization, drivers take note and it will have an impact on their satisfaction.

Carriers can take many steps to address safety in their procedures and policies.

In addition to what the law requires, carriers can institute their own regulations for time behind the wheel, rest time, maximum speeds, and the rest. Make sure that equipment is well maintained and showcase to drivers that the company values their safety. Consider providing drivers with free hands-free devices for use where permitted, or a hassle-free streamlines maintenance request procedure.

5. Professional Development

Trucking isn’t just a job for drivers, but a career path along which the current job may just be a stop on the road. The sooner recruiters realize that drivers have career ambitions and won’t stay in the current driving job forever, the sooner they can help facilitate process within their own carriers. Perhaps some drivers are looking for additional endorsements and certifications to make specialized runs. Carriers can help provide training for these and groom drivers toward those jobs with the same company. Other drivers may be looking to switch regions, or runs. Still others may eventually hope to become owner-operators, or retire and become trainers. All these jobs could be provided through your carrier. Drivers value loyalty so if your carrier invests in their professional development, they will reciprocate by sticking with the same company and being even more satisfied with the company.

6. The “Little” Things

The results of the study suggest that one of the biggest factors impacting driver satisfaction is the company’s culture. Drivers often look for carriers that are family-oriented.

What this really means is that family and loyalty are things drivers value. They are looking for carriers whose values align with their own.

If carriers value family, then your carrier will naturally offer benefits like strong home time, a pet policy, paid time off, or college scholarship funds for family members. Similarly, drivers want to be respected and treated like professionals. When recruiters, dispatchers, and fleet managers treat drivers like people and not simply leads, driver satisfaction will soar through the roof.

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7 Distribution Channels to Consider for Truck Driver Jobs

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distribution channels for truck drivers

Marketing your carrier’s jobs to drivers is an essential task for recruiters. We’ve written before about the importance of reaching truck drivers where they are. If you’re advertising in the wrong channels, drivers aren’t aware of the current job openings in your fleet.

It’s important to work with a partner who understands the industry and how to market effectively, all while keeping the cost per lead low.

The more traditional methods are always available, and there seem to be new approaches developed every day.  Here are 8 distribution channels to consider for advertising your truck driver jobs.

1. Search Engine Marketing

Online job searching is one of the top methods drivers are looking for jobs. Using paid search to help you target keywords applicable to your jobs will assist in extending your reach instead of relying solely on organic rankings. It’s important to note that the trucking industry is extremely competitive in this space, and companies can easily spend thousands of dollars without much return. Approach this channel carefully and be sure to have an expert helping you!

2. LinkedIn

This web service is worth mentioning in particular. Apart from providing a job board, LinkedIn serves as a general and all-purpose professional networking website. It allows job seekers and employers to create profiles, build connections, recommend each other, and a host of other features. LinkedIn is the largest and most popular social networking site for careers and can be a useful addition to your strategy. However, focusing here alone won’t get you far in trucking.

3. Truck Driver Job Boards

Some websites cater specifically to a truck driver audience and can allow you to reach that group. Services like CDL jobs, Every truck driver job, and Truck driver jobs 411 will be specialized toward the trucking industry and help target to your core demographic. However, before putting all of your eggs in this basket, be sure to know the common pitfalls of job boards.

4. Facebook

Even though Facebook isn’t the go-to social media service, you can’t afford to not utilize this service. Posting jobs on Facebook may not help you reach targeted audiences because of a recent legal suit, but still holds value as an advertising platform.

5. Craigslist

Although Craigslist has been around for years, it’s seen a resurgence as it’s specialized towards one function—online classifieds. Posting jobs on Craigslist is nothing new, although recently it’s being used more for truck driver job recruiting. However, Craiglist only allows you to target geographically and you pay per post. These two aspects are great in some cases and not so helpful in others. Again, work with an expert that knows when to leverage this channel and when to look elsewhere.

6. Display Network

The banner ads on display networks can be served to audiences across the web, and on popular websites like Fox News and CNN. The Google Display Network allows access to over 2 million websites, and you can also use Bing and Yahoo. You can also target your audience based on geographical location and more.

7. Word-of-Mouth

There is value to the traditional methods, even if they’re being enhanced. One of the top ways truck drivers hear about other jobs is through other truck drivers. Good word-of-mouth is dependent on maintaining a strong reputation among drivers. They’re only likely to recommend you if they’ve had a good experience or heard good things. Just goes to show that all the technology in the world won’t help if you don’t think of drivers are people and not just leads!

truck driver job description template

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Truck Driver Job Description Template

Your job description can either convert or lose applicants. Follow this template to make sure you’re on the right track.

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4 Tips to Improve Your Truck Driver Job Postings

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Truck drivers are constantly bombarded with job postings and advertisements from different carriers. As a recruiter, your job is to reach as many potential drivers as possible and convert them into your fleet. This becomes extremely challenging when your job postings are ordinary and just like everyone else’s. You need more engaging content in your job postings to distinguish yourself from other carriers. Here are 4 tips to improve your truck driver job postings.

1. Choose Written Content Carefully

There’s no doubt about it—the bulk of your job posting is going to be written content that includes a job description, basic requirements, and information about your carrier. However, you still want to be selective about how you write these sections. You can improve your job postings online by using carefully selected key phrases optimized for reaching your target audience. Even if your job postings aren’t online, you can be smart about which language to use. Using industry-specific phrases and simple language that truck drivers are familiar with will help tailor your posting to the right audience. Basically, you want to use the phrases that drivers are using, speaking, or searching.

2. Short, but Informative

The length of your job posting can be tricky. We’ve seen all kinds of job postings and advertisements. Some carriers write just a few sentences and tease their audience with few details. Other postings are entire volumes of text, which no driver in their right mind is going to read through.

You want to strike a balance here—your posting should be long enough to hook drivers and give them the important details.

If your post is too short and lacks key details, then you haven’t caught their interest enough to follow up. You may be surprised to hear that if your post is too long, then drivers won’t actually read through all of it, and they’ll miss important details that you actually provided! Whenever in doubt of the length of the job posting, just remember the purpose of it. The purpose isn’t to give drivers all the information they need to make the decision, but rather to hook them with enough information so that they follow up. Be sure to provide a website or phone number so they can learn more.

3. Hierarchy of Text

How do you provide enough information in the job posting without making it monotonous? The trick is to use a varied hierarchy of text to mix up how the information is presented. Resist the urge to write a word soup of sentences that aren’t connected. You can distinguish different sections by using proper headings. Use bullet points instead of paragraphs. Distinguish important details by using bolding, underlines, or different font sizes. Even though people are reading text, the human brain still processes it visually.

Anything you can do to visually catch the eye of the reader will make that information stand out and be considered important.

You can use this effect to highlight different parts of the job which you think are more important. If your carrier prides yourself on new model trucks or providing training, then that’s the text which should be highlighted.

4. Use Multimedia to Paint a Story

Speaking of visuals, don’t forget the power of images and videos. Not all the important information about your job or your carrier can be conveyed through words. Using strong images can help paint a picture, literally, of what life as a driver for that carrier would be like.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so imagine how many a video is worth!

Videos can include testimonials from current drivers and day-in-the-life features. You can use the strengths of multimedia content to show your company culture and values. Drivers care about things like job satisfaction, professional development opportunities, and being part of a team. Writing about how your carrier can provide these things won’t be as effective as showing them directly.

truck driver job description template

FREE RESOURCE

Truck Driver Job Description Template

Your job description can either convert or lose applicants. Follow this template to make sure you’re on the right track.

Get the Template