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When Life Is A Highway

What drivers want and how companies are complying
Driver Hwy_MS

With seismic changes predicted in interstate shipping, it’s critical to attract good drivers and keep them happy. What does job satisfaction mean at a time when the very nature of the job is changing?

Trucking Today
There is no occupation more symbolic of twentieth-century America than the truck driver. Fulfilling the role that cowboys occupied in the nineteenth century, truckers have come to symbolize the coast-to-coast expansion of the country, the movement of goods from faraway places, the rugged individualism of the Western frontier, and the way local trade has become intercontinental.

Trucking is an essential element of the American produce market; 64 percent of the nation’s goods are hauled by truck, and as much as 92 percent of the country’s fresh food ends up on a refrigerated truck at some point.

But the industry has changed a great deal since 1914, when most of the 100,000 trucks on the road were largely unregulated. Economic shifts, changing demographics, new laws, thinning margins, and emerging technologies have all conspired to make conditions unpredictable for America’s 3.5 million truck drivers and the 9 million registered vehicles they operate.

Blueprints recently spoke to several truck drivers, and the companies they work with, to talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on the open road.

What Do Drivers Want?
One of the most-discussed issues in the transportation industry has been the threat of a driver shortage, as fewer young people are joining the ranks of a profession that can be strenuous and lead to vast stretches away from home.

A recent study by the American Transportation Research Institute found the average age of truck drivers in the United States was 52, and that the number of drivers age 30 or younger has sharply decreased over the past 20 years.

While most drivers interviewed cited pay and benefits as important, a surprising number said these factors were not their primary motivation for staying or leaving the profession. Owner-operator Dick Pingel notes that while pay is a factor, being treated with respect and getting recognition for a job well done is equally important. Tight margins and increased competition, he says, is leading to unrealistic expectations: “Because of the perceived driver shortage, drivers are expected to exceed reasonable expectations.”

Jimmy Christenson, who drives for Kenosha, WI’s Cool Runnings, agrees. “The driver shortage is still getting worse,” he says, and with high turnover, “productivity diminishes in a situation where you’re already on a limited schedule. It’s hard to attract new talent in an environment like that.” He also believes consolidation among the industry’s largest trucking lines has helped push smaller owner-operators out of business.

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With seismic changes predicted in interstate shipping, it’s critical to attract good drivers and keep them happy. What does job satisfaction mean at a time when the very nature of the job is changing?

Trucking Today
There is no occupation more symbolic of twentieth-century America than the truck driver. Fulfilling the role that cowboys occupied in the nineteenth century, truckers have come to symbolize the coast-to-coast expansion of the country, the movement of goods from faraway places, the rugged individualism of the Western frontier, and the way local trade has become intercontinental.

Trucking is an essential element of the American produce market; 64 percent of the nation’s goods are hauled by truck, and as much as 92 percent of the country’s fresh food ends up on a refrigerated truck at some point.

But the industry has changed a great deal since 1914, when most of the 100,000 trucks on the road were largely unregulated. Economic shifts, changing demographics, new laws, thinning margins, and emerging technologies have all conspired to make conditions unpredictable for America’s 3.5 million truck drivers and the 9 million registered vehicles they operate.

Blueprints recently spoke to several truck drivers, and the companies they work with, to talk about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness on the open road.

What Do Drivers Want?
One of the most-discussed issues in the transportation industry has been the threat of a driver shortage, as fewer young people are joining the ranks of a profession that can be strenuous and lead to vast stretches away from home.

A recent study by the American Transportation Research Institute found the average age of truck drivers in the United States was 52, and that the number of drivers age 30 or younger has sharply decreased over the past 20 years.

While most drivers interviewed cited pay and benefits as important, a surprising number said these factors were not their primary motivation for staying or leaving the profession. Owner-operator Dick Pingel notes that while pay is a factor, being treated with respect and getting recognition for a job well done is equally important. Tight margins and increased competition, he says, is leading to unrealistic expectations: “Because of the perceived driver shortage, drivers are expected to exceed reasonable expectations.”

Jimmy Christenson, who drives for Kenosha, WI’s Cool Runnings, agrees. “The driver shortage is still getting worse,” he says, and with high turnover, “productivity diminishes in a situation where you’re already on a limited schedule. It’s hard to attract new talent in an environment like that.” He also believes consolidation among the industry’s largest trucking lines has helped push smaller owner-operators out of business.

Safety & training
Safety and training are also important to hiring and retaining good drivers; the Bureau of Labor Statistics claims a fatality rate of 22 per 100,000 drivers, the highest of any profession—and no amount of compensation or respect is worth a life.

Pingel cites a safety culture—where drivers are given all the tools needed to do the job comfortably—as his number-one way of attracting and retaining good drivers, while Tilden Curl, another owner-operator, believes proper job training is the primary difference between a good driver and a bad one.

“There’s general training and training specific to each type of hauling you do,” observes Curl. “It helps if new drivers can operate around seasoned drivers for a couple years before being put out on their own,” he notes. “Another challenge on the road is knowing all the rules,” he stresses. “Sometimes they change from place to place, and you need classes just to keep up.”

Work-life balance
Three crucial factors to building a skilled fleet of drivers—retention, satisfaction, and motivation—are affected by much more than what’s happening on the road. Drivers have families, private lives, and many other interests outside the job, and most are concerned with maintaining these interests under conditions where they’re traveling hundreds of miles away for extended periods of time.

“Some of the biggest challenges come in balancing work and home time, and you need to be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor,” says Curl. “You have to assist drivers in being able to attend to their families’ needs and provide them with a clear pathway to having some privileges in life without cutting into pay too deeply.

“Drivers have very little flexibility in their operating hours,” Curl continues, “and an accident, bad weather, road construction, and even vehicle inspections can eat into the schedule,” he explains. All of these factors can be incredibly stressful, he adds, and supervisors need to be careful about adding more pressure than drivers “are prepared to handle.”

Costs Of Doing Business
For the fortunate and skillful, trucking is a profitable business, but it’s also an expensive one. With a few dips along the way, the adjusted price of fuel has risen steadily since 2000, while driver pay has decreased during the same period. But many costs, some drivers believe, are avoidable and come from the top at the operator’s expense.

Christenson singles out ELDs—electronic logging devices—as a major culprit; the devices, meant to monitor a driver’s progress on the road, make no distinction between unavoidable delays, can lead to unsafe conditions, and are financially painful for operators.

“Putting ELDs and cameras in trucks is part of the push against smaller operators,” Christenson says. “If you get tied up in traffic, you can’t get any work done, and you force yourself to drive all night to make up for the lost time, which is a major safety issue.

“And the ELD costs $5,000 plus a monthly service fee, as opposed to a log book which I can buy for $3,” he remarks. Christenson also mentions speed limit governors, intended to protect big fleets from liability, as a step in the wrong direction—noting they often restrict trucks from driving at the same speed as cars—a situation that can turn deadly if a smaller vehicle with a distracted driver tries to get around a slower-moving big rig.

Changing For The Better:
A Success Story

Last year, Capitol City Produce Company, LLC, a family-owned shipper in Baton Rouge, LA launched a major expansion, nearly doubling the size of its facility and increasing its truck fleet. When COO Darin Arceneaux spoke with his drivers, he was surprised to learn they had concerns—unrelated to pay. The resulting conversation led to changes that benefited Capitol City’s truck drivers and management alike.

How did this process come into being?
Our drivers wanted a forum for being listened to, not just safety meetings where they are spoken to. At the first meeting, most of the conversation was about how they could learn from each other to be better drivers—not about pay, as you might have expected! Our drivers want to be respected for their role in providing for their families, for their personal dignity, and for their talent. Changes were made to the transportation department to ensure respectful leadership and attention to accountability.

Have you successfully built a rapport with your drivers?
It’s important that leaders ride with drivers on occasion to experience their work day and show a sincerity about wanting to understand their full role, their challenges, and their ideas for making progress. Riding with a driver in the French Quarter of New Orleans was eye opening! The tight spaces, the aggressive ticketing for parking, and the [secret] passageways for finding the back door to restaurants made a deep impression.

Measuring how it has worked out is not always obvious, but I’ve made a few observations. We routinely receive compliments about our drivers—as an example, a customer recently called us about a driver who had phoned to alert him that foggy conditions would delay arrival. That’s a driver who understands customer service; he’s also a long-term driver, thereby demonstrating the value of retaining those who enjoy serving others.

Have you kept up this approach since your initial meetings?
Quarterly driver forums continue and are completely voluntary. Attendance is very good and communications are excellent. We also hold annual ‘town hall’ meetings to keep all employees on the same page about progress in the company, what we’re focused on, and most importantly, why we’re leading the company in the direction communicated.

What Do Shippers Want?
Despite the often-contentious relationship between drivers and their employers, they both want the same thing: professional, safe, and on-time delivery of perishable produce. And although both sides are on the same page more often than not, it’s in every company’s interest to hire and retain the best haulers they can find.

Cool Runnings’ owner, Fred Plotsky, explains that as an owner-operator fleet, his company knows good business sense is important to drivers as well as shippers. “Most importantly, we value their solvency—are drivers good businesspeople who understand the produce industry?

“If owner-operators are constantly out of money and overburdened with high costs,” Plotsky posits, “they might not have a good understanding of what it takes to be an owner.” On the other hand, if prospective owner-operators appear to be “well put together, their equipment is in good condition, and their expenses are managed properly, we’ll target them.”

Know your load
Plotsky also emphasizes the importance of knowing the industry. Produce haulers are different from most other truckers, as their cargo is subject to safety conditions and time restraints those who haul steel or electronics never face.

Jacqueline McKenzie, vice president of corporate communications for Triple Star Logistics, Inc. in Toronto, agrees that produce truckers are a different and special breed, and it’s important they know not just the rules of the road, but the intricacies of the commodities loaded into their trucks.

“They’re expected to know correct pulp temperatures, what quality produce should look and feel like, and how it should be loaded,” McKenzie stresses. “It’s our job to manage their appointments and speak with the shippers to ensure they’re getting their trucks loaded correctly, with the right product, in the best condition possible, and with reefers set to the right temperature, so they can do what they do best.”

Terry L. Button, an owner-operator, emphasizes that produce haulers are more valuable when they display knowledge of the unique qualities of their cargo. “If you want the product to arrive in a condition you can accept, you have to pulp it, look it over, and have a working knowledge of what the produce is and what condition it should be in. Why haul garbage for thousands of miles?”

Perks and Pitfalls
Many drivers are pleased with the development of new technologies, especially as they increase the comfort and amenities of doing their jobs. New trucks are larger and more spacious, allowing for driver teams, in-cab amenities, and the use of internet-enabled communications and tracking, while many truck stops offer better food, exercise options, and web access.

In urban areas, though, a lack of hand-off options can still be a frustration. Curl explains that city parking is still one of the biggest problems for most operators. “You try to drive as far as you can every day, because that’s usually what determines your pay,” he says. “If you can’t find parking, you’re either in violation of hours of service or are parked somewhere that could be illegal or dangerous.”

One of the issues looming over the trucking industry today is the possibility of automated trucks, with Google, Uber, Tesla, and other major tech-industry players scrambling to perfect autonomous cars, with trucks not far behind. Inside the industry, however, there is a healthy skepticism this will happen anytime soon—if it happens at all.

Plotsky calls them a foolish idea that offers “too much risk for the reward,” and doubts if a 40-ton truck can ever be programmed well enough to recognize all the dangerous obstacles of the road.

McKenzie is less dubious, but says that while driverless trucks may be the future, the industry is at least a decade away from seeing them become a reality. Adding in the role of the government in regulating driverless vehicles and legislating to ensure safety and efficiency, and it could be substantially longer.

“There are many Society of Automotive Engineers ‘Level 4’ vehicles being developed, and while they’re able to navigate highways without disruption, they cannot contend with traffic jams, merging, or city driving,” McKenzie contends. “These vehicles still need a person in the cab to handle anything out of the ordinary, and driving 4,000 miles can be anything but ordinary—just ask the drivers.”

One of those drivers, Christenson, puts it succinctly: “When I see [a driverless truck] back into a dock, I’ll believe it will work.”

Driving Into The Future
The U.S. trucking industry is responsible for $603 billion a year in freight carriage, a number that represents more than 80 percent of all freight revenue over air, rail, and water. It’s clearly not going away anytime soon.

But it’s equally clear the industry is in flux, and continual effort to adapt to changing conditions and fulfill the needs of a new generation of drivers is necessary to remain a vital part of the economy. Drivers and companies alike agree that good pay, mutual respect, and professionalism on both sides is the key to making this happen.

“We’re always looking to onboard new drivers and we know it’s costly for them to run their trucks, so we pay quicker than the industry average and maintain stellar credit ratings so we stay attractive to potential drivers who look us up,” says McKenzie. “In the trucking business, reputation is everything.”

Image: Krivosheev Vitaly/Shutterstock.com

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