Part V: A Call to Action

Using Labor Efficiency to Master the Next Trucking Frontier

You get what you measure. Surprisingly, although fleets track time and delivery, they seldom have a method of measuring, or understanding, how the actions of the labor force directly influence profitability. Now that customers have squeezed productivity from their supply chains, fleets are looking for ways to further increase competitiveness. Identifying ways to help the workforce become more productive affords that next big opportunity.

Using labor efficiency concepts and backing them with the power of analytics provides a real-time method of recognizing the cumulative effect of workforce variables. It gives managers hard data to diagnose, correct, and improve the financial performance of fleet operations. Just as people influence performance throughout the operation, labor evaluation data can quantify the effects of their actions. Labor efficiencies address smaller details, such as on-time performance, and answers larger questions, such as whether a training budget is justified.

These are the three characteristics that I think will power the competitive advantage of the next generation of fleet operators:

• A stream of innovative services that excite customers

• Highly flexible and effective supply chains

• A highly motivated and trained effective workforce

Proper use of Information Technology

Proper labor utilization helps fleets develop a highly motivated, effective workforce by helping them identify where people need better processes, materials, training, or indirect support. It's a productivity tool for managers that help them manage better as they convert labor dollars into profits.

The weakest link in labor retention in the trucking industry is proven time after time to be the inefficient planning, faulty communication, and poor human relations initiatives that drive a turnover rate upwards of 135% in the trucking industry. Rather than accepting this turnover and associated costs, perhaps fleets might review their qualifying, orientation, and retention strategies and include all levels of management and ownership to be part of the solution. In a time when there is a driver surplus due to fleet failures, and excess capacity, fleets should evaluate the quality of their driver programs, be more select in qualifying, and take more time to effectively have both the company and driver buy in to the stated combined objectives. There never was a driver shortage, but a driver retention failure. Drivers move from company to company -they are there, just not to meet a particular fleets needs when the need exists. If a company retains their drivers, they have no shortage.