The Best Kept Secret to Keeping Your Company Drivers Happy

Veltri drivers, here are three ways to turn truckers' frowns upside-down.

How to Keep Your Company Drivers Happy:

Communicate with Drivers

After a new truck driver joins your fleet, it’s vital for you to stay in contact beyond the regular dispatches. Since over the road truckers tend to be out of sight for weeks at a time, you won’t be able to catch them at their cubicle, so to speak. Yet staying in contact is essential if you want to develop a professional relationship with your drivers. Here is how to do this: • Contact your drivers for an interview, either over the phone, over a video conferencing service like Skype, or in office, every four weeks. • Ask open-ended questions during the interview that gives the driver a chance to offer constructive criticism and personal answers. “Yes” and “no” answers simply aren’t very useful for finding out how your driver is really doing. By keeping in touch with your drivers, listening to what they have to say, and using that feedback to make changes for your fleet, you will make your truckers happier. Better yet, you will also build loyalty and trust among the truck drivers.

Dole Out Bonuses and Recognition Regularly

Why do truckers come to you for a job? Because they need a paycheck, that’s the primary reason. As such, one of the best ways to ensure drivers’ happiness is to offer financial perks along the way. Creating a competition atmosphere to see who can have the best fuel economy or drive the most miles in a week also benefits your bottom line. So give back to those drivers going above and beyond by offering bonuses on their paychecks and competitive wages. Sometimes you don’t even have to give the drivers a financial reward. Simply recognizing your drivers for being hard workers and going above the call of duty is morale boosting in its own right. Of course, gifting drivers some branded company merchandise or a personalized plaque will also be appreciated.

Provide Comfortable and Reliable Rigs

A driver who takes over the road trucking jobs is going to be living in his rig. Literally. It is up to you as the employer to offer the best tractor-trailers that you can provide. Main features that drivers want are: • Reliability and minimal breakdowns • Properly maintained trucks • Ergonomics for drivers, i.e. seats that improve posture, etc. • Trucks with limited mileage • Semis that meet emissions standards especially when hauling in highly regulated states like California Also, cleanliness is paramount for truckers who live in their trucks. Between drivers use a professional cleaning service to ensure new drivers receive a freshly smelling, clean truck. By providing your company drivers with new or top rated equipment you also reduce the amount of downtime and expense due to costly and sudden breakdowns. It’s a win for both you and the drivers.

Give Regular Home Time

This last one is a big issue among OTR truckers as being away from home is part of the job requirements. However, you can make this easier to keeping your company drivers happy by providing regularly scheduled home time. Examples of this could be one weekend every two weeks, or one week off after being over the road for three weeks. Whatever you do, try to keep with a schedule. This allows truckers and their loved ones to have some routine in their lives. Instead of always wondering when they can see their family, a driver has a mental note of just how many more days it will be each time they head out. This is crucial in keeping drivers happy, as well as emotionally healthy. Find out more about Veltri trucking and our Drivers, who are among the best in the country!

How to Build a Comprehensive Snow Belt Policy for Dedicated Trucking in the Northeast

How to Build a Comprehensive Snow Belt Policy for Your Dedicated Trucking

1. Set rules of which personnel can request winter transportation access. Which workers should have access to winter transportation? If workers can work from home during bad weather without requiring extensive infrastructure updates or other expensive accommodation to make it work, this will help lower the cost of providing them with transportation. For drivers who must remain active, base their level of accommodation with the estimated annual snowfall and frequency of bad winter weather, providing less extensive options to those in southern regions while drivers in areas more prone to winter weather receive higher levels of support. If the employee has a vital job function, increase their priority for all-weather transportation access. 2. Consider which options to make available to those personnel. For drivers with the lowest level of priority, something as simple as all-weather tires can make all the difference in whether they can perform their work functions as needed. However, while these tires improve traction, they don't work as well as snow tires for cornering and braking. Snow tires can work well if you have drivers in areas of significant snowfall, but will not have as good traction in dry weather conditions, so should be reserved for drivers in areas where these types of tires would be most appropriate. Both types of tires will often require storage during the offseason, so if this is a problem, you may need to consider other options. For the most severe weather and vital drivers, considering an all-wheel or 4-wheel drive vehicle maybe your best option. 3. Provide comprehensive training to the eligible personnel. Though it can be tempting to simply provide the right asset access, adding appropriate training can help protect your investment. This can be in a range of different environments. If you have a number of drivers and want the best possible training in real-world conditions, behind-the-wheel training can be very effective. If you want similar training without the extra expense of behind-the-wheel training or have scheduling issues that make it difficult to get everyone together at once, a simulator can be an excellent option to consider. Other inexpensive possibilities to consider include web-based training and classroom options. 4. Assess the overall financial impact of the policy for your business. Take the time to consider what your budget may be able to bear and then look at potential scenarios and the related expenses to see if the budgeted numbers will bear up in real-life situations. A fleet management company can help you look at options and determine figures. Consider the cost/benefit analysis, then pursue approval where it is needed. By creating a snow belt policy for your dedicated trucking and other transportation resources, you can help ensure that your key personnel have appropriate vehicle access during bad weather in the winter months. At Veltri, we know all about cold-weather driving and how a good snow belt policy can make all the difference for your business. Please feel free to see what we can offer you today to keep your business rolling by meeting your dedicated tracking needs.

Veltri Reports on the Benefits of Using GPS Tracking for Fleet Management

Veltri, Inc. dedicated trucking services recently examined a Verizon survey on the subject to discover the answers. This study of over 1,100 business owners, fleet managers, and general managers revealed the details. The initial results of the survey indicate that GPS tracking provides businesses with lower costs, better productivity, and improved customer service. This makes adding GPS tracking to fleets a valuable solution for most businesses that keep and regularly use fleet vehicles. The most interesting finding from the study is that almost half of the study participants reported a noticeable return on investment within six months of implementing GPS tracking in their fleet management programs. Also of interest is that four out of five respondents to the survey, on average, reported a high level of satisfaction with their use of GPS tracking. With GPS tracking, fleet managers or others who are involved in the overseeing of the fleet can keep better track of what their drivers are doing, and adjust instructions and expectations for those drivers accordingly. Fleet management using GPS tracking is known among companies that use it as a reliable, inexpensive technology. It is currently used the most often in the utility industry. Other industries that are heavy adopters of GPS tracking technology in their fleets are:

1. Public sector

2. Transportation

3. Construction

4. Environmental

5. General service businesses

6. Education Most dedicated trucking companies that use this technology have been using it for three years or more with the same provider, and 30 percent of them are using this technology across their whole fleet. Further, the majority of companies using this technology are companies that operate on a local level. When companies operating on regional, state, or national levels use GPS tracking in their fleets, they tend to use it most often when a driver is taking a vehicle a particularly long distance away from company headquarters. It is a good way to keep track of where vehicles are and what the drivers are doing when they are out on their own for long periods of time.
   

1. Better routing

2. Improved ability to serve customers

3. Less fuel consumption

4. Better maintenance of fleet vehicles

5. Less labor costs for the fleet

6. Fewer accidents among fleet vehicles and drivers When fleet managers and company management use the data provided to them by GPS tracking, they can easily see where there are areas for improvement and implement these improvements. For example, if fleet drivers have been taking routes that are not the most efficient in terms of time or fuel consumption, this will easily be seen with GPS tracking, and managers can choose better routes for their drivers. This improvement in routing saves time, which improves customer satisfaction, while making the drives shorter, which reduces fuel consumption and saves the company money. There are a variety of different GPS tracking solutions available to companies wishing to implement it and enjoy the benefits of this technology. To choose the best GPS tracking system for your company, do the following things:

7. Research the different solutions and what they do. Different systems use different features. Some may be better for a particular company than others.

8. Clearly identify the objectives and goals of your company's fleet management program.

9. Choose the GPS fleet management system that best matches your company's fleet program objectives and goals. Many dedicated trucking companies are enjoying the benefits of GPS tracking for their fleet management. The survey shows the benefits are clear and real. With costs being lower than ever to obtain GPS technology, there is no time like the present to get your company on board and learn the benefits firsthand as we have seen at Veltri, Inc.