Truck Driver Turnover – Is it Really 100 Plus Percent?

I absolutely disagree! A happy employee will stick with the company that's dedicated to them. Without the "lower employees", the company would go bust. ALL businesses need to realize this! When employed, employee and employer alike shoud see and treat one another as their second family. I never stayed where I didn't get feedback, even if bad, so long as the purpose was to improve my performance.

 

It's all a snowball effect. Back in the old days there wasn't a strong demand for drivers and only the elite got seats. Then the trucking boom came and along with it came the need to fill seats.
When that happen, here come the washouts and the ones that couldn't hack it.

So as long as companies have to deal with high turnover rates, they might as well use it to their advantage. They can't fix being away from home and other things that come with trucking. They tried hard in the early 2000's to improve driver retention with increased pay and sign on bonuses and it didn't work. Now they pretty much accept it and many are training their own now to fill seats. I've had two $5000 sign on bonuses in the past and one $1500 bonus. Not anymore.

Pay has pretty much gone down since 2005. Sign on bonuses are disappearing. Then the gov't started tax incentives for hiring employees. Drivers became more of a number. Now they get $9600 if they hire a vet. It doesn't say you have to keep them, just hire them. The more the merrier.

 

Although it might make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside to get some positive feedback it isnt necessary or required. This is trucking not some knitting circle. I always say no news is good news. As long as they keep your wheels turning and arent scolding you for nonsense you should be happy.

 

lol. old guys complaining about how much the new guys complain.... OH THE HIPOCRISY!
i can see the the old hands point though, god forbid we try to better this job.

 

As Clark Howard on WSB Atlanta and on National Radio or my dad would say.

No customer support!

The first link to customer support in trucking should be and actually IS the driver! Unless the load planner or company broker meets the customers for a lunch the only people they see in person up close and almost personal is the driver that is standing in front of them with some kind of paper in their hands! P/U and the BOL! The sales person or dispatcher in most cases only know their customers as a voice on the phone! Guess how many of your drivers they meet face to face?

If they the drivers think they are being used or bent over the tank or some thing not in their best interest, can and will screw up your customers relationship with you! THERE is where you get hurt and if the account is big then you just got what you've been doing to that driver!

The cost of all those bus tickets, motel, a little food and the transport to and from the motel then the return tickets for those who your unemployed used car sales person called a recruiter was too fricking lazy getting seats filled and not doing a better back ground check that you have to pay also! A meeting with them and hold that job over their heads and tell them it's cheaper for you the owner to "let them go" if it costs you more money to send the drivers home because you didn't take a few minutes to follow up that ticket the applicant told you about!

These companies do not have the drivers best in their sights! We read about them in here every day!

My dad always told me that keep the employees happy and they will take care of their pay checks because the employee serviced them the way any business would treat a customer!

Apparently these companies with such a turnover rate higher than the number of trucks in the fleet or above a 10% average are losing money from one pocket when if both pockets were filled the same then that's pure profit! But these college kids or idiot CEO's don't see it that way!

Customer service starts at the customers door! Who knocks on that door and is making that only chance to make a first impression is the one who keeps income coming in!

We darn sure know how a person who is not a happy camper can screw it up for the rest!

I could tell you about how a company lost a very profitable dedicated route due to bad employees!

 

Worked for a company years ago that had 700% turn over!150 trks. You would work for about 3months and then your paychecks started having deductions taken out. After $400 bucks i got other employment, but 400x150x7 is agood income. I,m also sure they got some for more and some for less.

 

If you can't recognise and don't see just how much this job has changed over the past 30 years... you really need to shake yourself.

30 years ago we didn't have a satellite in the truck monitoring your every movement 24/7.

30 years ago drivers didn't have things like DAC (who for the life of me I don't know why someone hasn't gone down there and put a bullet into someone for the way they operate) screwing them over for no good reasons...

30 years ago, drivers didn't have to pay for things like twic cards just to do their job...

 

There wouldn't be high turnover rates if a company paid well enough to keep their employees...

Because who in their right mind would leave a company that paid extremely well and treated them as a human being...not just another piece of meat to fill a seat.

 

I know Central talks about having an 80% first year turnover rate. The trucking industry isn't the only one with this issue. When I interviewed with Prudential to become a career agent, the manager told me that they have a 99% turnover rate among those agents that make it through the hiring process. Which I didn't, since I did not (and still do not) want to get a securities license. Hell, AIG subsidiaries were on Ripoffreport.com as employment scams, their turnover rate was so high.

I think it's just like insurance... the nature of the business is simply outside the experiences of most people who try to enter the industry without a mentor. This is why the training companies don't care about the individual driver... no matter what they do, their turnover rate is going to be extremely high because of mismatched expectations. So the companies take the easy way out and treat beginners as a fungible resource.

 

I see both sides of the story from the drivers point of view & the companies...A driver needs to be paid well & treated decent to retain & keep happy to in turn keep the customers happy....From the company perspective they have improved home time a LOT since 83 when I started I stayed out 6 weeks that was the norm nowadays these guys cry like babies if they dont get home every single weekend....Theres fault on both sides...If I owned a trucking Co I would make everybody in management go out with a driver for a week or 2 to see what the driver has to deal with & vice versa put drivers in the dispatch office for a week to see what they have to deal with everyday & I think things would run much smoother for everybody involved & retain happy drivers,dispatchers & customers..This us against them crap has to go..