Running a trucking company is hard work, especially in the current economic climate. While some carriers are struggling — or even shutting their doors — others appear to be thriving, and they have no shortage of qualified drivers.
What’s the secret?
During the 2024 Best Fleets to Drive For education and awards conference, presented by CarriersEdge and held April 8-9 at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina, motor carrier executives and recruiters had a chance to find out.
In a session titled “Building Workplace Culture: A Deep Dive into What Best Fleets are Doing,” Jane Jazrawy, CEO of Carriers Edge, began by defining “workplace culture.”
“Culture is not a fixed object. Your workplace is an organization — and organizations are like living entities,” she said. “Your company is pushed and pulled by your driving team, your office team, your customers, your management and sometimes investors.”
A business could be viewed as a garden, she said.
“Things sometimes grow when they’re not supposed to,” she explained. “When that happens, you can do some weeding or replanting in your business. You make small corrections, introduce new programs and make sure that things are moving in the right direction.
Jazrawy is something of an expert when it comes to the practices of some of the top fleets in North America. CarriersEdge has hosted the Best Fleets to Drive For competition for 15 years, accumulating information from carriers and their drivers about what makes a carrier one that drivers want to work for. The annual competition is open to carriers that have at least 10 tractors and their own operating authority. The hitch? Carriers must be nominated by their drivers to be eligible.
For carriers that want to keep their drivers and other employees satisfied, she said, the key to keeping drivers, or any employees, satisfied, she says, is “ruthless reflection.”
What does that mean? It means that every year, a carrier should take a brutally honest look at what is done for the drivers.
Carriers that are nominated for recognition in Best Fleets to Drive For complete a 100-question self-evaluation and then participate in an interview, where leaders are sometimes asked unsettling questions, Jazrawy said.
“You get a report, and you look at the driver survey responses. And instead of saying, ‘We can’t do that!’ you say, ‘How can we do this better?’ You do this every year,” she said. “You make small, incremental improvements that help your company culture to be more driver-centric.
“When you don’t look back and take a hard look at what you’ve done and where you’ve been, you can’t move forward — and you can’t get better,” she said. “This is true for individual companies, and it’s true for the entire industry.”
Jazrawy says the Best Fleets questionnaire is a great tool to help carriers take a close look at their practices.
“It’s an opportunity to get your people together and talk about what you do,” she said, noting that this process can help leaders identify and break down silos that can prevent drivers from expressing what they do (or don’t) like about a company’s practices.
The Best Fleets to Drive For program is available for carriers with at least 10 tractors and their own authority. The process begins with a driver nomination, followed by a questionnaire for carrier management, followed by driver surveys to determine if the perceptions of drivers and management are on the same page.
This year, 117 nominations were received for the Best Fleets to Drive For program, leading to 72 carrier interviews and more than 5,000 completed driver surveys. Jazrawy says responses in the driver surveys are key.
“Drivers will tell you what they think in any way possible,” Jazrawy said. “If you give them a form to fill out, they will tell you all kinds of stuff that has nothing to do with the questions. They will let you know.”
For example, one question asks drivers whether their carrier has a good coaching and mentoring program. Between 2019 to 2024, the number of drivers expressing dissatisfaction with their companies’ coaching and mentoring programs have decreased, indicating that those programs have improved in quality.
However, another question, which asks drivers if they believe their company cares about their opinions, didn’t fare as well.
“That satisfaction level is going down,” Jazrawy said. “It’s kind of like (the drivers are thinking), ‘We’re not too sure about that.”‘
Making sure employees are engaged and feel like they have a voice is important. Some carriers do a great job of using social media to attract new drivers — but don’t put the same effort into engaging with current drivers and employees, she noted.
As expected, pay is always a hot topic among driver survey respondents, and job perks like paid time off, bonuses and retirement benefits are also important to drivers.
The driver population continues to get older with many drivers working past retirement age. Surveys have shown that only a small percentage of drivers participate in carrier retirement programs, leaving many to retire solely on Social Security or the Canada Pension Plan for their retirement income. As a result, many drivers continue to work for as long as they are physically able.
It’s critical that younger drivers enter the market to fill gaps as older drivers do retire. One demographic that Jazrawy is excited about is owner-operators in the 21-30 age group.
“That under-30 group is moving; you are getting contractors under 30 — and I think that’s really exciting,” she said. “There are a lot of young people who want to have their own business, and they think trucking is a good place to do it.
“That’s a great way to bring people in,” she continued. “I think it’s good to have young people in trucking period, but I think it’s really interesting that they’re coming into the contractor side of things.”
Driver scorecards was another topic, with Jazrawy saying she believes the CSA scorecard has prompted many carriers to create scoring systems of their own. While scorecards can help improve driver performance, unfortunately, some carriers don’t take the time to sit down with drivers to explain them. Some treat them like a report card, simply providing it to the driver, while others work with drivers to provide training and improve scores.
Ultimately, she says, the Best Fleets to Drive For process can help carriers work more closely with their drivers and better understand their views.
In addition, each company must take an honest look at the way employees, particularly drivers, are treated.
“The better companies we have in trucking, the better the industry is going to be,” she concluded.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
