You have been told a LIE. Pay is not the key to increasing your driver recruiting effectiveness. When a driver is looking for a new position, pay will always be a significant consideration. However, it is not always the most important. Everyday we see drivers choose to take positions with a lower starting pay.
Compensation may be one of the top priorities, but it is not the only and often not the most important priority. What is important to a truck driver when they are looking for a new opportunity?
Assuming you have a relatively competitive compensation plan, what else can you offer to help recruit truck drivers and increase your driver recruiting? If you are wondering how competitive your compensation plan is compared to your competition click here to request our free Salary Evaluation.
Can you imagine what it might be like to never know WHEN you’re going be home, IF you’re going be home? Drivers often don’t mind being away from home, even for extended periods of time, three, four, six weeks at a time. But what is important, is not necessarily the amount of home time. But, knowing WHEN you’re going be home. It is important that a driver is able to plan around family events. When they know in advance that they have something important in their family coming up, they want to be able to make a commitment that they’re going be there. Consistency and predictability are important to drivers. Letting drivers know that you understand how important predictability is will help you increase your driver recruiting.
In addition to home time, consistency in Pay is also an important factor to drivers.
Can you imagine working out your home budget and not knowing if you were going to make 200 dollars this week or 2000? It’s important that drivers are able to consistently and predictably figure out How much point they are going make on a consistent basis.
These are all real concerns drivers face. Although they understand this job requires flexibility, they want some consistency. Simply knowing and being able to plan is a huge advantage in your driver recruiting efforts. Allowing a driver to know he can make plans to be at his son’s birthday party will do wonders in encouraging a driver to choose your company over another one.
Everybody wants respect, and truck drivers are no exception. They want to be treated as a valuable member of a team, not a number on a page. Let’s be honest with each other, every single trucking company and every truck driver recruiter will tell a driver that they are going to be treated as part of a team or a family and not just a number. Even the largest trucking companies in the country will use this line when they are trying to recruit a driver. The reason every recruiter uses this line is because they understand how important it is for a driver. The problem is that for most companies, especially those who extremely high turn over rates it is nothing more then a line. It’s one thing to tell a driver that they will be treated with respect. It’s another to actually follow through on it.
Take a good, hard look at your corporate culture and consider how respected your drivers are. Do you value them? Can they freely speak their mind to you? Are their concerns addressed? Are their accomplishments acknowledged?
Ensuring that every driver on your force is respected will help you hire truck drivers.
Truck drivers can face a myriad of difficulties out on the road. They can run into mechanical issues, have problems with authorities, or struggle with being able to fill out their paperwork.
When these issues are met with little to no support from the corporate office, this leaves drivers feeling frustrated and abandoned. This in turn leads to many choosing to leave that company in search of one that will always have their back.
Driving a truck is a hard job and it is hard on the body. It is not a job that most people will be able to do for the rest of there working lives. Even for those that are physically and emotionally able to perform the job, not everyone wants to be a truck driver forever. Those that see driving as something more than an entry-level position will be disappointed to learn the company doesn’t help drivers advance. So many times companies will tell there drivers there is room for advancement. However, all of the people in the office from the president to the director of operations have spent little to know time holding a steering wheel themselves.
If you want to attract more drivers to your company, make sure you have opportunities for them to move up in your company. Promote from within rather than bringing in a new person every time you have an opening.
When a new driver sees that the director of operations or the safety manager used to be a driver, they have hope for their own career.
Job Perks are a significant part of the over all consideration when truck drivers are considering a new opportunity. If you’re not offering any, this could be why you’re struggling to hire truck drivers.
Some driver perks revolve around the work itself: how new the truck is, what bonuses are available, and so on. Other perks may be something as simple as having a yearly company picnic they can bring their families. Those who work in the office and in corporate America have become accustom to company parties and events. As a result of the remoteness of the driver from the office they are almost always not invited and excluded from such company events.
Your Next Steps
As you can see, drivers value more than just the amount on their paycheck. Consistency, respect, support, job opportunities and perks are all important when you are evaluating your driver recruiting program. Many companies want to hire drivers. The competition for high quality truck drivers is every increasing.
Don’t stop thinking about what your company can do to improve these five important aspects in your hiring and retention program.
