Pay advice

I had a nice visit with a retired fellow that made his living owning a 20 truck company.
He said it was easier hire drivers if he ran big hood trucks with lots of chrome.
He didn't pay top wages but got his drivers home on the weekends made them
feel respected. His theory was the extra fuel they burned was worth the trade off
of having better quality drivers and less problems all around.
I think that paying a mileage rate plus some kind of bonus plan would be better than
a percentage deal. Your drivers don't need to know what rate your getting.
If the rate is low they will be complaining and if it's a good rate they might be
telling stories about your business to people that pass it on to your competitors.

 

Drivers to get to know the rates. That's top secret information.

And if they did. They'd be complaing because they don't get percent of full load. They have no concept of bills first.

 

I totally agree with your point. I myself, like to think as the truck as a representative of my skills and experience. I would gladly take a little less pay and drive super nice equipment with good miles, than a Cascadia with no options. Just my .02

 

Just spitballing here...

Regional flatbed, assuming you're getting them home every weekend, .47 mile + tarp doesn't sound too bad on paper. My biggest concern would be how many miles you can get me in a single 5 day work week. I'd basically need to do 600 miles a day to make any sort of significant income.

I'd prefer a set salary if I was regional and getting home every weekend. Just my preference. How much you're willing to pay would most likely depend on the experience of said driver, personally I wouldn't take less than 1200/week and I am by no means "experienced" compared to a lot of other flatbed drivers out there. However, I do know my good weeks average around 1400-1600 net and my bad weeks can be anywhere from 600-800... but I see the house every 12-13 weeks...

Salary is the way to go, imo. But I know the sad state of affairs most drivers are so unfortunately it isn't an easy call for you...

If you want to do mileage based pay -- at least give them a weekly guarantee.

Tarp pay has always been a non issue for me with the typical stick and brick stuff. If you're hauling odd ball machinery and whatnot you might want to think about the time it would take for them to effectively tarp it.

I don't mind the 20/20 split I get right now when 95% of the tarped loads I get are insulation, coils, structural steel, fiberboard, or lumber. Easy to tarp any of that stuff. However, when I get a funky load with variances on height and width, sharp corners and boxes everywhere... that 40 dollar tarp is me getting raped for my time. That's something these larger companies just haven't figured out...

There's a huge difference between throwing a rag on a coil and tarping a 53' foot elevator load with sharp boxes and aluminum sticking out in every which way.

 

That's fine.

All the good drivers worth hiring already have jobs anyway. Isn't that how the story goes?

 

To be honest, I think also wage should be dependent on your hiring area.. .47 a mile with a base out of California is a lot different than .47 a mile with a base out of Iowa. If you really want to save yourself some money I would withhold the pay scale until you know where your potential employee is going to be coming from, then you can determine pay from there.