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Connecting Drivers and the Back Office is Mission Critical

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It’s a saying we’ve all heard: “Employees don’t leave a company, they leave the people at the company.” Of course, a negative work culture in any industry leads to turnover. But in commercial transportation, where personal connections are often key to doing business, it’s mission critical to promote a healthy relationship and strong communication between not only shippers and carriers, but drivers and back-office staff.

Research from MIT, Tenstreet and more all point to an interesting finding: dispatchers and other back-office support staff can have an outsized impact on driver job satisfaction, and therefore, retention.

Consider this statistic from a Tenstreet survey of new drivers: “For drivers who are brand new to their carrier, the top issues reported [included] better instruction on the dispatch process.” In fact, this complaint appeared in the top three issues according to more than 90% of respondents to their new driver survey.

As Drive My Way put it in a recent article on the subject: “If a truck driver finds themselves working with a dispatcher they dislike, it won’t be long before they start looking for a different opportunity.”

Add in an already challenging driver shortage and capacity crisis, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. So, what can fleets do to ensure that dispatchers and other back-office staff are communicating clearly and proactively with drivers to foster a good relationship?

According to Drive My Way, companies that spend time carefully matching dispatchers and drivers may see increased driver retention, but it’s also important to consider the tools being used to communicate:

  • How user-friendly are they?
  • Are they up-to-date?
  • Do they make workflows easier or harder for both drivers and back-office staff?
  • How frequently do they need updating?
  • When they do need updating, can you do it quickly and painlessly over-the-air, or do you need to pull drivers off the road to make updates in person?

Taking a close look at your fleet management tools as part of a program focused on job satisfaction and safety could have a positive impact on retention, while also improving relationships between colleagues.

Importance of In-Cab Connection

It’s natural that drivers may initially be skeptical of the effectiveness of an in-cab application or device, primarily thinking of them as an infringement of privacy or a way to micromanage their activities. But when implemented in a supportive environment where they’re an aspect of a holistic fleet management program, these solutions can increase productivity, driver retention and safety.

A 2021 study from MIT researchers found that dispatchers do indeed have an impact on driver performance, and can utilize at least three “managerial levers” to improve fleet performance, including:

  • The weekday a driver works
  • Equality of distribution of freight plans
  • Size of the team a dispatcher manages

By using these levers, researchers concluded that “freight carriers can themselves mitigate the impact from the challenges facing the American freight industry today.” Importantly, leveraging these “levers” requires an open line of communication between back-office staff and drivers.

Staying Connected

When it comes to the relationship between dispatchers and drivers, the MIT study concluded definitively: “Dispatchers are more than just administrators: they are perhaps the lynchpin linking driver and carrier goals.”

That’s why fostering an open, proactive and responsive line of communication between drivers and back-office staff is mission critical for trucking – staying connected is more important than ever before, and can make or break a fleet’s driver retention.
 


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