Pay advice

Greetings, when ready to Hire, send me a P. Messg. I could have a good deal that would benefit both parties.

 

I’m at a local job home every day, work around 9 hours a day and I make 1,000 a week. It’s a big company not just in trucking. I have all the benefits that anyone offers and 2 weeks vacation from the day I started. Not trying to be rude or disrespectful but why would I be gone from home all week for maybe $200 more? I don’t know where you’re hiring from but that will be what you have to compete with from where I’m from. I would say look around your area and see what companies are paying and go from there. I would like to make more money but it would have to be more than $200 a week for me to be gone all the time. Good luck.

 

Good luck.. There is some idiots will go for it.. Just watch what will happen to your truck in few month.

 

Good reply.....but sometimes, certain circumstances are not right for some people but just the right one for others. It is hard to be Owner Oper. these days, even with a small fleet. I was O/O with ROCOR until they went belly up. It was very difficult to find a "Good driver" then and it is even more difficult these days.

 

C'mon, it's not that bad.

 

The pay is often done like that because the carrier management knows that a 1/3 of the short haul loads that call for tarp, and pay for tarp, don't get tarped

 

I'll share what I've learned for what it's worth.

A CPM model is a big carrier game. It depends on consistently running the same lanes to the same customers. Usually drop/hook operations, where drivers don't do much waiting or laying over. If you're not that, then don't do it. It's nearly impossible to find a balance. Pay too much and your drivers are happy at your expense. Pay too little and your business is solid until unhappy drivers start tearing stuff up and pissing off customers, or just quitting.

I also avoid creating a needlessly complex rate card. IMO carriers do that to make low pay look like more. It also is more difficult to figure out gross pay, and opens the door to more disputes. Keep it dead simple and even a dummy can figure out what they earned without too much trouble. Also makes it a lot easier when you run payroll.

I found it's better to figure out what a driver needs, then tailor some sort of pay plan to meet that expectation most of the time, and exceed it occasionally. Your idea about a cpm rate with a floor is along those lines. Focus on the weekly rate, as that's how most people think when deciding if they can pay their bills or not with what they project to earn driving your truck.

You probably already know this, but consider offering to back in a per diem payment into your payroll method, following the new tax laws recently passed. There's some plusses and minuses to both driver and company. I discussed this in another thread here, if you missed it. It bears repeating that you should consult your accountant before taking tax advice from social media.

Edit to add: one more thing. Above all, make sure your business will support whatever pay schedule you concoct, and be open to make adjustments if it's falling short. Seems like you know what you're doing, so I doubt this will be a problem for you. In other words, when your fluffing up a candidate with how much they can make, you better deliver. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like the biggest reasons drivers are unhappy with a job usually involves some sort of perceived broken promise involving pay, followed closely by the nature of the work (hometime frequency, etc).

 

I could be way off base here, but as long as you're somewhat competitive in pay, and benefits, I'd think drivers just really, really want to be valued, and appreciated.

Treat them as Gold, because it's a team environment. Without them, you couldn't run a business...and vice versa...Without companies, drivers couldn't drive.

You treat them wonderfully, they will, in turn, treat your customers great...for the most part.

There's always those drivers who will always be unhappy, and complaining. If it were me, I'd invite them to complain, and be unhappy somewhere else.

That's what my company does. They spoil us drivers, and for the most part, we are a happy bunch. But, there's always those who think the grass is greener...so let them wander.

 

Well put