No truck drivers can kill your company. You already know this by now because mostly
smart people operate motor freight trucking companies.
Hello, my name is Gregory and I’ve been within motor freight
transportation management for a very long time.
Some call me the expert when it comes to system process controls and
simply making money with a bunch of trucks and people. If you want to start curing your problems in
regards to recruitment and retention I can put you on a two week injection
course. Some say my programs and
workshops was the birth of a miracle cure for some trucking companies. I’ve always appreciated their comments but I
know and teach things you already know but never think about.
Write StrategicMoney@Live.Com
Despite your driver recruiting personnel you don’t have enough
drivers. It’s the fate worse than death
for a trucking company. Power units
parked along the fence line from one town to another. The fixed cost not being covered. Killing off your trucking company takes about
90 days at best if something very dramatic doesn’t take place to cure your own
driver shortage. Trucking companies have
made the wrong conclusions about some of their problems. Better benefits, new or newer trucks,
baseball caps and coffee cups will not cure your problem.
Your next door neighbor has the same problem. Not enough good employees to build a good
motor freight carrier and build profits and annual revenues. You’re going to
need an ice cold shower to change your thinking. The old way of trucking is gone. The golden age is just something a few of us
talk about.
Many executives look for scapegoats. It’s a plague of blame that will never solve
your problem. It’s a people business
with trucks. You’re going to learn to
unbolt your doors to let people in your company. America has a serious epidemic concerning drivers. Recruiters have little to offer as they lower
their basket and pull it back up empty.
Nothing to bring back to your company it seems is the course of the day. My 21 steps moves you to action steps and the
2005-2015 edition has even more to offer.
You need a breath of understanding. The hand of friendship is offered so you can
enjoy the new diet in our new transportation world.
You can learn about the natural staircase to finding and keeping
drivers and other great employees. If
you want revenue and profit records your first mission is to climb the mountain
of recruitment and retention. You can
triumph before the tragedy of drive shortage creates the mountain you cannot
climb.
Helpful Insights
Thought - Provoking
The Inside Scoop
Complete Workshop Overview
Essential Philosophy
Important Facts & Trends
Astonishing Expert Clarity
National C.D.L. Truck Driver Systems
Retention - Recruiting
Rewards - Recognition
COPYRIGHT 2005-2015
“ WANTED YOUNG SKINNY WIRY FELLOWS NOT OVER EIGHTEEN. MUST BE
EXPERT RIDERS WILLING TO RISK DEATH DAILY. ORPHANS PREFERRED. WAGES $25 A
WEEK.”
1860’S PONY EXPRESS
From almost the beginning the Pony Express had problems getting
people to ride the mail 2,000 miles to make services. The average age of a Pony Express rider was
just 20 years old and most of them weighed less than 126 pounds. They had to outrun war party’s of American
Indians. We watch for inspection
stations, D.O.T. inspectors, downtown traffic problems and wrestle with time lines
and truck technology. They had to
transact business through outlaw ambushes, swim flooded rivers, lead their
ponies through blizzards up in the mountains.
Riding around the clock hasn’t changed that much and the mountains are
still high and the deserts are still sun baked and cause agonies. The business of carrying or moving something
remains a basic and traditional business.
High technology engines and communications, air ride seats and cabs,
dashboards and stereos, 53 foot trailers or leather mailbags it's still the
same. We marvel at technology while
computer software coughs up more information than can be useful.
Moving from one place to another place is the business of
transportation. Risking death daily and
riding around the clock. Scores of
grown-up adult drivers are not being replaced by enough young skinny drivers at
any price. Not enough truck drivers make
them expensive.
Pony riders took an oath not to drink, not to swear and not to
fight among themselves. Today we say run
legal and run hard. Not over 11 hours
per day, never work over 14 hours, complete your pre-trip inspections and never
be late. The oath is gone and at times
we wonder about the commitment to service.
Honor has been replaced by more money per mile, better health benefits
and air conditioning. Fast trucks are
turned down by the speed limits and traffic slows us down. The relay stations are now truck stops and
terminals with late night people drinking coffee. We drop and hook and roll again. We run trains to help us stay in balance,
service is risking just like getting paid.
Company’s go broke and the names are changed. Fuel prices keep moving up and the truck
rider just keeps hanging on for better times that never come. We never say thank you we say good bye. It’s
trucking 101.
Riding all day is the life of a driver. Riding all night is the alternative. A fresh truck out of the shop might run or
might not. The driver survives our
mistakes, outlives our hopes in the middle of the night away from home.
They don’t have time to stop and eat. Every other vehicle watches them because the
trucks are big and bold. At the end of
the shift, the 10 day road trip, the breakdown in the middle of the night, the
cell phone ringing about home, the dashboard satellite blinking information and
deadlines it’s time to go home.
How many people want to be truck drivers? Tremendous hardships, away from home, under
constant anxiety caused by traffic, service, legal regulations, technology,
equipment failure, bad-mannered supervision, bad roads and bad food take their
toll on people.
Learning about people and getting the message out to others can
help you turn the tide and start keeping people that drive trucks. You ain’t heard nothing’ yet!
Their culture is movement.
They want to know what’s on the other side of the mountain.
What’s normal about trucking?
What’s the norm about your trucking company that keeps everybody
together? Are drivers going to leave? By
temperament every driver you hire is in the process of leaving your
company. Is there a norm inside your
company? Do you have that one thing or a dozen things that can hold
people? Do you have a behavioral
standard that’s acceptable to the organization?
Does the group of people define your company or do you have a blueprint
for what’s allowed? Do you find your company changing inside and out? Are people talking and acting different? Do
they just leave? All people have an arrangement of norms that they may
follow. People gauge themselves away
from the company and inside the company.
Are you teaching them the way to act, drive the truck, complete the
paperwork or are they using their own set of performance standards?
The everyday life or Ritual Norms of your employees are most
likely not the same as yours. It’s fair
to think or presuppose the way in which people work and play would provide
endless fascination. Everything you
think you might know about your people, including your people that drive trucks
is most likely incorrect. People have a
background and their own chronicle of life and how it all works. The institution you want to create will most
likely never fully match up with the traditions of your employees. To form and fashion a standard of behavior
that keeps them smiling is most difficult.
People have different ways of looking at things just like we do at
times. The everyday life of a truck
driver is not the same as yours.
What can we do to create a philosophy that will create a society
of drivers that will stay with your organization? How can we create a center of attention for
your company that draws or pulls the drivers you want? The society of employees you retain define
your company.
The Final Preparations for a drivers resignation has already
been made.
Reason states that there is a beginning and a ending to
everything. With this consideration we
must take for granted the final preparations for leaving are already in place.
Every employee you hire is in the process of departure. Every employee that is departing your company
is in the process of arrival at another.
Your trucking company is really trying to get people to leave one
company to draw closer to your trucking company. As they leave their last trucking company
they arrive as a new employee on your door step.
Human beings are a very restless species. Way of life, background and traditions keep
certain crowds together but they’re all on the move. Is there anything that is interesting about
your company that brings new drivers to your door. Whatever thing that brought the last one may
bring another. Do you have new trucks? Do you have free medical benefits? Can you now afford what you offer?
Drivers take a trip and pass through many different places. The nature of the job keeps them moving from
one place to another. That same see the
sights mentality keeps them on the move from your company to another. Their culture is movement. They want to know what’s on the other side of
the mountain.
The expected Ritual is movement.
They will move at some point.
They have already conquered the fear of change.
1. Their culture is movement.
2. They want to know what’s on the other side of the mountain.
3. They have conquered the fear of change.
4. They are leaving now they just don’t know where.
5. By temperament every driver you hire is in the process of
leaving your company.
6. Every employee that is departing your company is in the
process of arrival at another.
Imagine a sailor crossing the ocean. Some people don’t need to see the shore but
are very comfortable on the wide open sea.
Most people want a place they call home.
Other people want to wander around on the risky wind. Drivers have little or no fear of change due
to our current economic reality.
You have two problems, you have problems of today, the need for
more and better people and the problem of tomorrow in keeping them on your
payroll. It’s a starting statement and it's
the assumption in place.
Greg
Gregory Bodenhamer Mechanicsburg Pennsylvania Seminars Workbooks Classroom Presentations Motor Freight Transportation Supply Chain Management Fleet Management Distribution Fulfillment Pick and Pack Kiva Robotic Technology Professional Mentoring Supervisory and Management Training Development Performance Compliance Revenue and Services Gregory Bodenhamer Mechanicsburg Pa Free EBook Free Enterprise Solutions
