Hi everyone, I am new to the site. I am a 34 year local truck driver who became an owner operator hauling crude oil in the ohio Valley less than 3 years ago. I started with one driver and slip seated with him, and over a year ago I expanded and have 5 trucks. Each driver works 5 days a week and is home every day. They work 50 to 60 hours a week, sometimes up to 65 hours. I give them 6 paid holidays a year and 6 paid vacation days a year and it is $300 a day. I offer hospitalization and pay up to $1000 a month to their premium, and they get 35% of gross. If they don't want hospitalization, they get 40% of gross. Each driver is on pace to make $110000 a year. The job requires very little physical labor, and they don't drive more than 200 miles a day. I treat them extremely well and am pretty lax on things. My problem is several drivers have quit, I fired one, and one fired himself with a big safety issue. I am down to 3 drivers, and 2 drivers miss work a lot. One worked all year, and has missed about 20 days. I tell him to work extra days as a make up, and he refuses. I getting close to firing him. He is a excellent driver and a hard worker when he works, but money isn't motivating him to come to work consistently. To add to the puzzle, he has never made more than $50000 a year in 20 years of driving. Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong? I know I am too easy on them, but am I paying them too much? Thank you, Ken
It’s hard to find good guys anywhere now a days.... there’s a reason why we are owner ops and they are just drivers...
People are lazy. That's the problem. The better you make it for some people... the more Diva they become. You'll get lucky eventually and find a real driver or two, and your Biz will flourish. And you'll be able to sleep at night without worrying about children in the equipment.
Sick days and vacation days should be earned, not just given, some of the perks they have should be earned. If you give them out like candy its worthless to them. Remember when you where a kid you broke a toy? Did you care? Probably not, because you didn’t pay for it. Soon as you earned money and purchased something and then you broke it? Remember how mad you got?
I wa I intend on Meeting with him soon. He recently asked for Thanksgiving and the day after off because his family is important, and said he will make it up. Now he got mad when I asked him to make them up. In the oil and gas industry, it's a 24/7 job. I've spent many a holiday eating dinner after a 12 hour day, or postponing it until I was off. I always thought if you want to make good money, you live your life around your job, your job doesn't revolve around your life.
Yes, you are paying them far too much. There is absolutely no way your profitable right now paying that kinda money and having that little of utilization. You gotta start being far more picky on who you hire. Hire slow, fire fast. Some people are just absolute flakes, nothing you offer will matter. I’d say you also grew too quickly but that’s just me. Anyway, it’s hard to get the all stars because they are already out working and doing a #### good job. Also, for a small company perception is a big factor. If your “A” or All Star drivers see you keep around a B or even C driver then it will only frustrate them and they’ll leave. You end up left with only the crap guys. If they see you be caring and sensible about things, but expect them to bust ### and be dependable, and if someone steps out of line their ### disappears, then you’ll get much more respect. It’s a tough ### deal all the way around. I’m 35 and am running 10 trucks and a little brokerage but I also took 12 yrs to get here. So, I can relate a lot with what your saying. Ps. Never pay a percentage, offer a very high weekly guarantee. Assuming they actually work all week.
With the national average truck driver pay around 46k , i dont believe you have empty seats at 110k annually. Im a car hauler back in the day if you hustled you could make that but probably were home once a week, now most are lucky to see 70k. And im pretty sure hauling ner cars on an open trailer requires a bit more skill than crude. I would happily take one of those jobs off your hands.
