Drivers are among the most critical and vital workers in any organisation.
They are most often the closest to their principals even more than their wives or husbands as the case may be.
They more often know the secrets that even the spouses and children of their principals do not know. Drivers have many opportunities to terminate the lives of their principals at will.There have been reports of drivers who arranged the robbery, kidnap or killing of their principals.
Why on earth then should anyone or any organisation employ or engage the service of a driver without due diligence or background checks?
Sometimes ago, the Human Resources Manager of a company spoke with me that my organisation should help them recruit drivers, I told him “NO’’. When he requested to know the reason, I told him that the process I would like to go through before recruiting each driver will cost money which they won’t be willing to pay.
We stopped the conversation at that point and he opted for the usual method. His experience with two of the drivers almost cost him his job in less than three months after their recruitment.
Consequent upon the sensitive and critical nature of a driver’s job, it behoves on every employer to carry out a comprehensive background security checks; know the driver’s place of birth and engage his parents or close relations; Investigate his lifestyle in at least one of schools he attended lately; the last house he lived; the last place he worked; investigate to know if he had any criminal record in the past; investigate his health status before he starts the job and know his history of alcohol or drug use.
Right from the first day of his resumption of the driving job, a result-oriented monitoring must be embarked upon to determine his need, attitude, taste or lifestyle, trend of his conversation and looks, his truthfulness, diligence, faithfulness in the handling of money particularly in the areas of fuelling and maintenance of the vehicle.
There are several other pre-recruitment and on the job investigations and monitoring that must be embarked upon to prevent the atrocities being perpetrated by some drivers against their employers and/or principals. Motivation and discipline (carrot and stick approach) should be appropriately used to prevent counter-productive consequences.
I want to reiterate here that driving is the most complex job of all the professions in the whole world. It is the only job that requires the simultaneous use of the highest number of body organs in a continuously changing environment.
Drivers, therefore, must not be used or treated as animals or slaves.
Efficient and effective management of drivers will go a long way to get the best out of them for the safety of lives and valuable properties.
If employers or supervisors of drivers don’t do the needful, some drivers will outsmart them and cause the organisations great losses.
In addition, all employers of drivers must make sure they are subjected to relevant and comprehensive capacity building training programmes{Theory and Practical} in Standard Professional Driving Schools before commencing the driving job. There should also be regular on the job refresher training for the Drivers as well to enable them meet up the changes in vehicle technology and traffic regulations, among others.
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