Suggestions on finding steady local work?

I have an owner operator lease to me that doesn't really want to go OTR anymore. Great driver, good equipment, just in his 50s and wants to be home weekly. I've been keeping him busy locally (WA, OR, ID) and he loves it but It's a lot more work for me. Instead of 2-4 loads a week, I now have to find and dispatch 6-12 a week.

I remember talking to a new O/O recently and I asked him if he uses the load boards. He said no, he's just driving for a single broker locally. He doesn't search for loads or anything, just gets dispatched directly from the broker. Usually 50-150 mile trips, $350-$500 each way. I told him he can make much more if he looks at the boards and searches for loads himself. He said he was happy with his current situation and they were keeping him busy 5 days a week. Is this typical? Do brokers have enough steady freight to keep a truck busy all week? If so, how would I ask about that or bring it up? Just post on the load boards or call them up?

Something like that would be perfect for my driver. He would make a little less but I can bump his pay up to 92% or so since it wouldn't be taking up as much of my time. Any suggestions on how to find some steady local freight? He's flatbed BTW

 

Thanks. My dad is also one of my drivers so I think that helps me treat them well. He's the reason I got into trucking and got my own authority, I wanted to help him out and make sure he's not taken advantage of or treated like ####. This local driver is one of his friends. He's been great and made me a lot of money so the way I see it is why try to force him to do something he doesn't want to? I'd rather have him keep driving locally then have him leave somewhere else and lose a great, dependable driver.

 

Well that was easier than I thought. I ended up emailing about 10 brokers that I've gotten local loads from in the past. Found one that has Portland to Seattle loads daily for $500-600 and another that has daily Seattle to Portland loads for $500. No tarps on either. Shippers are open until 6pm so he should be able to get 4 round trips in per week. We're going to try a few next week to see how they're working out for us.