My name is Tracy Taylor and I’d like to share with you some thoughts on how I handle something that is easily overlooked, but vitally essential in today’s FXG environment.
As you run your operation, you constantly produce something that is time consuming, difficult and important, but does not necessarily benefit you. Most folks really don't like producing it, and in fact, most hate it, but
you have to do it. Your efforts produce the vast majority of it for someone else, like your parent company.
It’s time that we look at how to turn the tide here and start producing some of these things for our own benefit, not just for FXG or other government entities. Because as you will see, it will save all your hard work from destruction!
What Is This "Thing"?
So let’s go through the list of some “things” that we either have to do, or have been suggested:
- GPS Tracking? Check.
- On-board Video Recording? Check.
- Idle Time Tracking? Check.
- Safety Program? Check.
- Business Discussions? Check.
- Employee Handbook? Check.
- Maintenance Records? Check.
Why are we spending time and money on these things? Because an FXG management person said we had to, or strongly suggested it?
You may think that many of these things are just garbage and you don’t have time for them.
But look again. These things and others not listed here, produce documentation. Documentation is now what makes the world go round. Your ability to produce it largely determines your status as a lifestyle owner or a owner of a business for profit and growth. It has been discussed in this blog before, and you know what type of entity will be compatible with FXG in the future!
So What's The Big Whoop About?
At a recent contractor meeting, a FXG District Manager posed this question: “What is the single most important thing a FedEx Ground Contractor can do to protect his business? Everyone in the room thought for a few moments, and then someone blurted out “Safety! That’s the most important thing that can save me from disaster.”
The room agreed.
I am here to tell you that attention to safety is a very important part of what you do, but attention to safety alone isn’t going to protect you in today’s regulatory and compliance environment. I’m here to tell you the best thing your can do to protect yourself, is to create, store and be able to quickly retrieve DOCUMENTATION.
Documentation is an easy thing to talk about, but is the hardest thing in the world to execute.
You hear it all the time from FXG: “This is a documented discussion” or, “Provide us with the documentation for this or that, and that you are responsible for this to be compliant.” These things are said all around the country.
I can purchase all the software, hardware, training, whatever “tool” is out there on the market to make my company safer. But who really benefits from this? Me, or is it used to fight off a lawsuit against FXG someday. I suppose the answer is both of us, but make no mistake, much of what the FXG folks ask us to do ultimately benefits them. Maybe in a much bigger way.
Why Is Documentation Important To ME?
Documentation is my salvation to deliver me from the shadows of the legal court room. It’s my burden of proof to keep myself protected. Without documentation it’s my word versus their documentation. 
Here is a fact: we hire other humans to operate our equipment. Sadly, no one has developed a process to allow the company boss to 100% effectively control that human behind the wheel in our trucks. They have, however, invented a process to document that the company boss took every step and followed processes to make sure that employee was educated about how important safety is to the company, to the employee’s family and everyone else we share the road with. The only way to prove that we have followed the process is though documentation.
An Example
Before I signed up to a slave to the FXG world, I was an independent crop insurance adjuster. I worked a 3 
state area and was fortunate enough to learn some hard lessons about life and about just how important the right documentation is. It can mean the difference in collecting the right amount of indemnity payment or being left out to dry. The Federal Crop Insurance program taught me that there can never, ever be enough documentation. I want to share what made me be a firm believer in the power of documentation.
Let me give you a short example of a gentleman who used the power of documentation to save his business.
So briefly, an insurance agent made a mistake put the wrong policy type down when a policy was being created. The insured has a massive loss due to an insurable cause, but because of the mistake of the agent, the insured didn’t have a loss due to the policy terms. Thankfully the insured had all the documentation to present to the errors and omissions folks. He was able to prove that agent had incorrectly selected the wrong policy and he was able to receive the needed protection to ensure he could carry on. I spoke with that guy a few years after I left the insurance industry, he told me that without that documentation, he would have been forced to sell everything and start all over.
So What's My Secret?
I cannot stress enough that you must document everything. There is no better time than when a conversation is still fresh in your head to get that conversation logged. Please don’t say “oh, I will do that when I get home/later/time/etc.” 
I use the Business Discussion tool in eTruckBiz that is available in both desktop and mobile versions. If you can’t log it into your BD’s on eTruck, then write down some notes so that you can remember and get it put in eTruck as soon as possible. It’s a digital world; use that to your advantage. When you get your documentation into your computer it becomes searchable instantly. Want to find every instance that you talked about Brakes? CTRL+F and type in Brakes. Now you don’t have to spend countless hours searching for that napkin where you wrote down the most important information to protect yourself but you can’t find it.
I like the system because it creates all kinds of documentation, more than just BD's, and some things even happen automatically. Most importantly, it is documentation for YOU, not FXG.
Remember, if you don’t document, it never happened.
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