New Operation this year, working well

Well in my experience ( which is limited) the driver drives the miles the company they work for gives them to drive. How are your drivers dictating the miles they drive per week? Are you giving them control over the loads they accept? If they work for you then you are responsible for keeping them moving by having the loads available for them to run. If they are responsible for booking there own loads and are paid percentage then they are technically working for themselves not you:

 

I totally understand that. If you have the available work and the drivers don't want to put in a good effort then I agree that you would be best to get them out and get drivers in who want the work.

 

sign me up. i miss having those miles.

but i'm home every weekend also. with or without the miles. and with this last company, it's been without

i've hauled a couple of loads that i seen o/o's take twice as long to deliver. one was a 900 miles journey where 20 trucks got loaded before me. i delivered the next afternoon and those 20 trucks were still heading up. NOT gonna make closeing time which means getting unloaded the day AFTER me.

also seen the same thing. 500 mile journey took me 10 hours. the others made appointments for the NEXT day.

 

If I could make $1200 a week I would be back behind the wheel in a heartbeat! I enjoyed driving, but the money wasn't there. I came off the road got married and had two little girls, now I am lead service technician N. and S. America for the company I work for. I told my wife today I could make more money behind a steering wheel and she said I don't want you gone all the time like your older brother is. For $1200 a week I think she would be ok. I travel now with my job but I am home every weekend.

 

I will be facing this soon....what sort of expectations do you set for your drivers? Are they employees or IC's? Do you talk about how much time they will get off or be at home before you hire them, how many miles or how much revenue is expected? I'm just curious how you set the expectations...seems like if those are set before they start with you, then there should be no excuses from them for coming up short. I know I'm going to try to instil some sort of partnership with them, that they have a lot at stake too, but they'll also have some input as well...they want to go this direction, I'll do whatever I can to make sure that's where they go. Guess I'll find out if I can pull that off....

 

Just wait until you get one that works out, and then he starts selling your fuel. lol.

I hope you realize how hard it is to find good drivers. And I also wonder if you should reconsider the way you do things...like maybe you should have forced dispatch? Your drivers shouldn't have a problem with going where you need to go, as long as you give them correct directions and appointment times.

But be careful when you recruit, I called on a driving job once, and I asked the owner if he had his own customers and had a dedicated opportunity, or if it was all broker freight. He said "No, you WILL go where we tell you to go, and there IS no ifs, ands or buts about it!" Needless to say, I wasn't about to work for someone with such a crappy attitude towards prospective employees, so I had him spend 5 minutes on giving me the correct directions to his facility so I could fill out an application, and then I never went. LOL screw people like that.
I found a better job anyways.

There are a lot of driving jobs available...the companies that treat their drivers better, pay better, and are willing to put up with more of the crap than the other companies, will have their trucks filled, and the others won't. And then you have to have the balls to charge more for your services.