YOU CAN'T LET DRIVERS RUN YOUR BUSINESS
Business owners (CSP's) are generally likable. Drivers want to work for 
them. People enjoy being on their team. Nothing wrong with that. It's a good thing.
However, it's a problem when CSP's are too nice. Tracy Taylor learned that lesson early in his career as a Contractor.
"I had 12 employees, 15 trucks and two operations hundreds of miles apart. My people needed me to make tough decisions instead of letting them manage themselves," he recalls.
Tracy didn't fear being a business owner as a young man, but he feared that his drivers would leave him if he wasn't friendly to them.
There's nothing wrong with owners caring about their drivers' needs. In fact, it's terrible when they don't care, but you can imagine the issues created when an owner cares more about being liked than running a successful business. And it's often a blurred line. Employees need to know the owner has their backs, but they also need boundaries.
And it's an even bigger problem when CSP's are nice just because they don't want their drivers to leave. Owners and their managers can't be held over a barrel because they can't, or don't want to, cover drivers' routes. And I'm not suggesting that owners or BC's should cover routes.
The key is that owners should always be recruiting drivers even when there are no current openings. If you're not constantly recruiting, then you're stuck with your current team and only your current team.
If your strategy for running an efficient and profitable business is to prevent turnover, you're ignoring that turnover is inevitable. Drivers leave for many reasons other than not liking their boss including:
- their spouse gets transferred to another city
- they're internally motivated to do more than drive a delivery truck
- they want a job that pays higher wages
- they move to be closer to family
At eTruckBiz we encourage business owners to make recruiting an essential part of their weekly (sometimes daily) routine. Lack of recruiting is generally the root of many problems in a faltering business.
Being nice because you're interested in your employees and co-workers is admirable, but being nice to prevent turnover is not sustainable.
To read more about Tracy's (and others') successes, click below. Tracy's story is the 3rd on the list.
