Micro Management has grown 200%

Not always. Our drivers are paid by the hour with time-and-a-half after forty hours. We also offer benefits at no cost to the driver.
We run about 25 power units and it's mostly local work.
When we bid a job or establish a rate we figure about how long a trip will take. If we have five trucks turning three loads a day in twelve hours and another truck is always taking another hour to do the same job, that slow truck will show up pretty quick.
If we have a driver that drags his feet, hangs around the coffee shop, or is continually late he gets noticed real quick. A goof-off wouldn't last long.
We don't demand that our drivers drive like maniacs. We don't allow it either. The first speeding ticket gets them a warning letter, the second speeding ticket gets them a week off with no pay, the third one gets them a new job someplace else. We've never had to do that.
We have very little turnover. We hired a new driver about five years ago. We'll lose two drivers to retirement this coming summer but their replacements are already pre- hired and ready to come to work. We've never had to advertise for drivers, they come to us.
Paying by the hour works for us. Good drivers, excellent safety record, very little turnover, and the company still makes money. The company has been in business for almost fifty years.
If you're paying by the hour and it isn't working out for you you need to examine your business model.

 

$60 an hour was a good rate...in 1980.

 

We certainly have that problem in our world. A lot of our good peddle hands feel demoralized because while they get the freight delivered and pickups done, a few other idiots make the same wage for doing half as much work. I'd feel the same way if I weren't personally driven by pride.

We have a saying here. 80% of the work is done by 20% of the drivers.

 

Our terminal manager tried to institute a policy of the consistently non-productive drivers having to justify why they should continue to be employed here, but corporate stepped in and said no...

 

Really? You might want to hire better drivers. If you can.