A lot of fleets are desperate to retain their professional truck drivers and recruit more in an environment where one estimate places the industry’s current driver shortage at 80,000 and possibly headed toward 160,000 over the next decade. One event this week focused on how fleets can keep drivers of all ages content while another, led by a U.S. senator, focused on opening interstate commerce to drivers who already are holders of commercial driver licenses but can’t cross state lines because they’re not 21.
“So often we get caught up in the negative, so positive feedback is welcome,” Matthew Kennedy, employee experience manager at Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Melton Truck Lines, said during a WorkHound webinar on Tuesday. That webinar first stressed the importance of giving drivers positive feedback and then ways to receive valuable input from them.
“Give that feedback as often as possible, as quickly as possible,” Kennedy added. He also encouraged fleets to offer as many avenues—such as company websites and written surveys—as possible for their drivers to provide feedback of their own, both good and bad.
As an example, Kennedy and moderator Katie Love, marketing manager at WorkHound, shared an “operational intelligence” slide that showed driver feedback tendencies at Melton Truck Lines. Drivers there most often leave “praise” feedback at Melton—one-third of the time, in fact—about people. Comments about equipment, logistics, and even pay lag distantly behind, the slide showed.
This proves that “it’s the little things that matter people,” Kennedy said, relating a story about a driver who thanked the fleet for remembering his work anniversary with a handwritten note.
Webinar participant Lane Williams, CEO at Fusion Now Agency, which specializes in transportation sector marketing and recruiting, related another story about a truck driver who told him that his job had led to new financial opportunities for his family, enabling him to buy a car for his wife and avoid having to skimp on where his family bought groceries.
“Those conversations bring up so much,” Williams said.
The first and perhaps most important tool in recruiting and retention is listening to truck drivers, the webinar participants stressed, sharing another slide that advised fleets to:
- Listen and look for stories about drivers going above and beyond.
- Ask for feedback about everything, “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
- Advocate for drivers by amplifying the good, both stories and positive feedback.
- Work on the bad and give drivers credit for their perspectives.
Williams cautioned fleets to act on the information they gain from drivers: “If you ask questions and don’t act on the answers, why ask the questions? Don’t ever leave an opportunity.”
He added: “Retaining drivers is like a relationship. You never marry a person and then tell them only on that day why you love them.”
'Thousands' of under-21 drivers ready to help
Everyone inside and outside of government is dissecting the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package that President Joe Biden signed into law on Monday. The trucking industry is no different—and it has spent a lot of the week examining how it stands to gain from the largest infrastructure law in U.S. history.
One benefit, discussed during a media call Wednesday on the driver shortage hosted by Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and his staff, were parts of the new law that include programs to help recruit more women, minorities, and younger drivers into the industry. King’s DRIVE-Safe Act was folded into the new infrastructure law.
The law opens pilot programs that would permit drivers younger than 21 to be part of employer-sponsored mentorship programs that put them on a path to operate in interstate commerce, which is against federal regulations now.
As part of these programs, drivers under 21 would have to perform 240 hours of driving time with a more experienced operator and meet other performance standards, but that part of the new law could allow “thousands of more drivers” to travel between states, thereby easing the driver shortage, King said. He pointed out that 49 of 50 states already allow under-21 drivers to operate within their borders. But they can’t cross state lines, even if a contiguous state also allows drivers under that age.
“This isn’t a comprehensive truck-driving improvement program,” King said. “This is only part of the problem, but one we felt could be addressed legislatively.”
The senator said trucking associations brought the issue of the driver shortage to his attention “at least two or three years ago, so it’s not a new problem.” He said he heard about under-21 drivers who could not venture from his home state of Maine into neighboring New Hampshire and thought that aspect of the driver shortage merited a solution.
King stressed that fleets could set up their mentorship programs immediately and have under-21 drivers qualified and ready to drive across state lines “within two to three months,” providing almost immediate help, especially to their rosters of long-haul drivers, which have dwindled because of retirements and other factors such as age and health.
As it is, the driver shortage tops the list of motor carrier concerns on the American Transportation Research Institute’s (ATRI) 2021 Top Industry Issues report, which was released in October. It’s the fifth year in a row that the driver shortage has topped ATRI’s list. Driver retention is No. 2 on the 2021 list.
“The contributors to this shortage are endless,” Rebecca Brewster, ATRI’s president and COO, said after the ATRI Top Issues report was released. “Growing freight demand, the shift to ecommerce that leads to more local jobs that is hurting the over-the-road driver recruiting, an aging workforce, and we are not backfilling with younger individuals that we need to account for those driver retirements.”
