Switch from CPM to hourly

I rather just pay straight salary if I was employer. Figure a proper 70 hour work week, based on truck production in average and pay the fleet one average salary slightly above what they would have made running 3000 miles or working 70 hours.

If it is enough your payroll would be very simple. One number to everyone every payday minus withholding if they are not 1099.

Mileage is obsolete and hourly is excessive. Remember back in 1934 this entire industry when assigned the old 60/70 it was excluded from the then existing O/T laws nationally on purpose.

 

I think you’re right in that paying miles or hourly means a lot of work ensuring the pay is accurate for every driver, while salary is very simple. Regardless of the method used, what I find to be significant is to have some sort of incentive for the driver to be efficient. One efficient driver can get more work done than two slackers.

 

Find out what the slackers like in life then take care of it.

One employer here in Arkansas, has a motley crew of about 30 half whom live to hunt or fish. If the work flow was carefully doled out all the day they stick around. The minute there isnt enough work by say lunch, you have half of them scatter to the hills to do what they enjoy in life. You will never find them today.

Thats what you need, find out what the slackers like in life and give them a bone now and then.

 

Edit: didn’t read whole thread before I posted. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to mention salary.

I think it shouldn’t be mileage or hourly but salary. What if you don’t have a load, or waiting for one, etc.

I believe it should be salary. What are you worth for a day of labor and rest? If I had drivers I would pay them a salary. Everyday you’re out it would be x amount of money (example $280) and it doesn’t matter if you wait for a load or not. This also keeps paychecks consistent. As an owner op I try to bring in x amount of money per day so it’s basically a salary anyway.

 

I find it interesting that people who have never run a trucking company are so willing to pay the drivers a flat salary.
Is the salary based on so many hours a week? What happens if the driver has to work more than the hours the salary is based on?
Where's the incentive for a driver to pull that extra load if he's not going to make any more for it?
What happens if work is slow and the driver doesn't work enough hours to generate enough revenue for his flat salary? A trucking company can't continually pay a man for not working.
Some people call hourly jobs a slacker's heaven. If the drivers are responsible and management pays attention there isn't much slacking going on.
I'd think that a flat salary would be a true slacker's paradise.

 

No thanks. A slacker gets things explained to him, he gets retrained if need be and he gets help if help is called for.
If, after all that, he's still a slacker he gets fired, pure and simple.
We're not running a social rehabilitation agency here, we're a trucking company.

 

Drivers tend to be drivers, because they have n boss hanging over their shoulder watching them all the time. They are paid cpm or percentage for a reason. There is nothing wrong with pay based on how much you do, a good hand makes money, a sorry and yes there are plenty of them starves out. Pay over the road by hour or salary and you will have a lot of folks doing half of what they should be and trucks not paying their way.

Pay everybody the same and there is no reason to be good at what you do.

 

If the slacker got salary and starved out anyway, you don't want him around anyway.

Salary is intended to eliminate most of the problems associated with who got what miles when or none and detention and all of the stuff. They can just focus on the load and being on time.

 

Sure that could happen...if management wasn't paying attention. With the tools available today to keep track of a truck and driver's productivity there's no reason why a company can't know if a driver isn't being productive.
We're a small company but we know right to the penny what it costs to run our trucks and what the expected revenue is.
Most of our drivers come from a vocational trucking background and they like the way we do things here. The only drivers who have quit in recent memory are two guys that went to WalMart. Can't blame them for that.
Most of our drivers retire from here.

 

Sometimes I think Management and Drivers as a whole live in two separate worlds.

Just a passing thought.