The trucking industry is in need of new talent. But don’t expect sign-on bonuses to attract drivers in it for the long haul.
In this issue: AI Fleet raises $21 million; the American Transportation Research Institute ranks trucking concerns; and the Logistics Managers’ Index is expanded. Trucking in disruption: AI Fleet raises $21 million series A Trucking tech startup AI Fleet recently completed a series A round for $21 million led by Obvious Ventures with participation from Compound, […]
ATRI research on truck driver motivations and satisfaction The American Transportation Research Institute released results on its analysis on what motivates truck drivers to become company drivers or owner-operators/independent contractors (OO/IC). The data came from over 2,000 drivers, two-thirds of whom are OO/IC, and includes additional analysis on compensation models and driver satisfaction. Quick rundown […]
In an industry reeling from early retirements and halted driving school programs, an effective strategy for recruiting and retaining drivers is more important than ever.
On this episode of Net-Zero Carbon, Tyler Cole, director of carbon intelligence at FreightWaves, chats with Desiree Wood, founder and president of REAL Women in Trucking, about truck driver issues and what motivates her work. “I became an advocate by necessity — partly from self-preservation, but partly because I could see the drivers had few […]
Difficult application processes — including long forms and cluttered websites — tend to dissuade drivers from applying at all. In a field with more open positions than people to fill them, carriers cannot afford to lose a driver’s attention over an archaic application form.
HireRight’s Justin Reed joins the show to share the hard data behind the current state of recruiting during the pandemic.
Reliance Partners’ Robert Kaferle shares a few ways for fleets to retain their experienced workforce.
Carrier Perspective: State of the Industry
Bob Costello, chief economist and SVP at the American Trucking Associations, joins the show to discuss the many factors compounding the driver shortage as the pandemic continues.
Ray Haight, a retention coach with and former chairman of the Truckload Carriers Association, joins the show to discuss how driver retention challenges have evolved and what the solutions are.
The recruiting and retention platform takes on a new investor.
Tenstreet partnered with FreightWaves to better understand why drivers leave carriers and what they look for in new roles. Almost 4,000 drivers responded to a survey published by the pair earlier this month, revealing valuable insights about driver turnover and what drivers prioritize when applying for new roles.
Companies across the industry have tried various ways to attract and retain drivers, offering everything from sign-on bonuses to tuition reimbursement. Despite these incentives, it can be difficult to secure those drivers in an industry that is constantly competing with itself.
Driver pay increases continue to roll in as a strong macroeconomic environment shows little signs of slowing.
TFI International is working to hire more truck drivers at TForce Freight as it cuts salespeople amid a push to rebuild the UPS legacy operation.
If you aren’t proactively taking measures to retain your people, someone else is trying to steal them. Here’s what to do about it.
Josh Mecca of American Central Transport joins the show to offer tips on recruiting.
President Biden has ordered companies of 100 or more employees to require workers to be vaccinated or tested weekly.
Peter Covach of Trimble joins this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road to talk about driver choice and how it fits into the driver recruitment and retention process.
The FMCSA touts safety efforts and driver recruitment in its latest round of grant funding.
Register now for Trimble’s Supply Chain in.sights, a virtual series on how to best support drivers.
Drivers who complete this short, seven-question survey can enter their email address for a chance to win a $70 Visa gift card.
John Elliott, CEO of LoadOne, joins this week’s episode to discuss his business, his involvement in the TCA, and the opportunities he sees in the industry.
TPP Retention Project Plan’s Ray Haight explains how the industry has missed an opportunity when it comes to driver retention.
DRIVE automatically spots areas for improvement so drivers can request coaching to boost their safe driving miles.
How do we overcome the driver shortage? And can it be done just by being cool? Blythe Brumleve debates on this episode of Cyberly.
Jeremy Reymer chats with Wendy Bartz, DriverReach director of sales and services, about the challenging recruitment and retention environments.
Jeremy Reymer speaks with Dennis Cooke, president and CEO of TransForce Group, about closing the driver shortage gap.
Getting shippers to pay for drivers’ wait time could boost driver retention and improve safety, according to a trucking economics expert.
CDLLife President and Owner Travis Overton joins the podcast this week. He reflects on last month’s Turning Point summit in Birmingham as well as the future of digital recruiting.
The number of drivers prohibited from driving due to drugs matches an estimated shortfall of drivers needed to keep up with freight demand.
Jeremy Reymer speaks with Priscilla Peters of the Conversion Interactive Agency about how driver recruitment has evolved over the years, as well as the results of the agency’s driver survey conducted as a joint effort with the Professional Driver Agency.
Jeremy Reymer, founder and CEO of DriverReach, speaks with Jim Ward, current chairman of the Truckload Carriers Association, about his career as president of D.M. Bowman, as well as TCA advocacy and membership benefits.
For many fleets, building an effective training program is the difference between setting themselves up for long-term success and submitting to a slow decline. There are three proven strategies for coaching drivers and increasing retention any fleet can implement today. With these steps, your fleet can reduce turnover and build a culture of retention that […]
The coronavirus pandemic inspired retirement-age drivers to leave the industry en masse while also shutting down driving schools for months on end, exacerbating the existing shortage.
On today’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, Jeremy Reymer, founder and CEO of DriverReach, speaks with Jenny Abernathy, vice president of enterprise capacity development and driver recruiting at CRST International, about strategies to engage future leaders of the trucking industry.
There may not be an end in sight for the driver shortage, but holistic supply chain solutions are well-positioned to help shippers and carriers alike weather the storm.
Driver surveys examining turnover rates have consistently shown that drivers value three things: pay, time and respect.
P.A.M. Transportation Services posted a profit in the first quarter of 2021. The bulk of the improvement came on the nonoperating line.
Trucking companies will need to become more strategic about recruitment in the future. Those not willing to change will have difficulty finding drivers.
In this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, Jeremy Reymer, Founder & CEO of DriverReach, speaks with Chad Hendricks, President of Brand Outcomes and host of the first driver recruiting podcast, “Recruit & Retain: Trucking Edition”.
“There is nothing worse than putting a driver in the truck who is going to drive 600 miles a day by himself and he is speculating that somebody either doesn’t care or isn’t listening or isn’t reacting to their needs,” said the president and CEO of Dart during the FreightWaves’ Enterprise Fleet Summit.
FATj and FreightWaves team up to visualize the driver shortage and what can be done to fix it.
Hiring and retaining drivers is an art more than a science.
NFI’s Lance Christensen says, “We’re given two ears and one mouth. If you’re not listening to what the driver has to say, how could you possibly describe to them what your company has?”
Jeremy Reymer, the founder and CEO of DriverReach, speaks with Hayden Cardiff, the founder and CEO of Idelic, about the importance of safety and compliance for driver retention.
On the inaugural episode of Taking The Hire Road, host Jeremey Reymer talks about finding and keeping the best drivers out there.
Drivers testing positive for drugs fell 12.7% in November.
Reliance Partners’ Brian Runnels says, “Communication between a driver and their fleet manager or safety department should be an open line for expressing what you want from them, but also what should they expect from you?”
In today’s edition of The Daily Dash, J.B. Hunt is not expecting a slowdown in freight through at least the first quarter of 2021. Plus, Nikola Corp. and General Motors continue talking about a battery agreement, and some roads are just made for truckers.
Landstar System announces the opening of a new driver center for its independent owner-operators in Carnesville, Georgia. The 8,000-square-foot facility provides classrooms, a business center, laundry, showers and break rooms.
Anthony and Zach talk about driver retention and recruitment issues and how they will contribute to keeping the spot market for trucking active through the rest of 2020.
Driver wages are holding steady during the coronavirus pandemic, but care for safety is where priority should remain, says CEO of National Transportation Institute.
Workhound and Brand Outcomes executives discuss the importance of using the right metrics to measure the costs of recruiting and retaining drivers.
To reach out to prospective younger drivers, effective branding and social media are a trucking company’s best tools.
Fallout could include difficulty seating trucks.
Truck drivers still gripe about long detention times, equipment and adapting to new technology. But they speak positively about communication from their companies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Company launches an online training platform called MyTruckerLife to help provide relationship resources for professional truck drivers and their families.
An overview of driver feedback trends found high rates of satisfaction with co-workers and staffing issues.
Consistently meeting expectations goes a long way toward keeping drivers on board.
The operating realities of long-haul, for-hire trucking translates into working conditions that require both employee and independent contractor drivers to be away from home, and alone for days and sometimes weeks at a time. This combined with transit delays (both on the road and at customer facilities), and lifestyle-related health pressures (sleep deprivation and poor eating choices) are the primary causes of both short and long-term turnover.
Database of test results seen as rate booster while unseated trucks pose risk to operations.
AvatarFleet is in the business of simplifying the process in which transportation companies find not just drivers, but safe drivers.
On this week’s FreightWaves Insiders WorkHound CEO/Co-Founder Max Farrell takes us on his journey as a hustler with a hacker to the current day where he is successfully solving the driver retention issue through data and technology!
Report asserts industry needs to hire 1.1 million new drivers over the next decade.
Sandeep Kar has written a thought-provoking article about changes in trucks and how those changes affect truck drivers. He also writes about what the future may hold for truck drivers in the coming years.
Ease of doing business ranked high with drivers serving over 40 facilities.
Ray Martinez concedes finding enough drivers aged 18-20 with military experience could be difficult.
LTL giant claims new requirements would also add costs to its in-house driver training.
Award winner is taking on new driver partnerships as it expands into last-mile delivery.
FreightWaves Radio’s seventh national show was broadcast on Saturday, April 6 on SiriusXM’s Road Dog Channel 146.
Authors controversial study miss key factors contributing to truck driver turnover and wages.
The idea is to move from lecture-style classes to a hands-on, technology-driven approach, in an effort to set up drivers for long term success.
Companies need to keep their drivers safe; they also need to retain them and pay them. This white paper discusses how both can be done.
Retention, training, and the capacity crunch are undeniably hot button issues in 2018. In response, SmartDrive and FreightWaves collaborated to distribute a survey to uncover trends in driver incentive programs. The white paper—based on the findings of the survey, which was fielded in Q3 2018—reveals the steps that trucking companies are taking in order to hire and retain qualified drivers and create safer, more profitable organizations.
Werner Enterprises (NASDAQ: WERN) presented a market update at Morgan Stanley’s 6th annual Laguna conference on September 12, where John J. Steele made his predictions for the upcoming peak season and addressed issues and solutions related to the capacity crunch, e-commerce, and the potential impacts of Hurricane Florence on the market.
“You have to have the human touch. It’s not robots. How do we take data and take the digital world and do something meaningful with it, do something human with it,” says Keith Mader, VP of analytics.
The improved efficiencies aimed at dispatchers and billing departments, should prove a boon for drivers too, and therefore is another shot at increased driver retention.
The truckload carrier is offering the Full Ride program to both recruit new drivers and retain the ones they have, paying full tuition at online Ashford.
Using Driver iQ’s Q218 survey on driver recruitment and retention as a point of reference, Stifel Capital Markets hosted Lana Batts, Co-President of Driver iQ and Eric Fuller, President and CEO of U.S. Xpress, inc. to discuss driver recruitment and retention trends in 2018 and beyond.
In today’s pickup, CEOs on analysts calls don’t see a peak and see better driver retention for their companies. Also: OPEC output and a change in Chinese scrap policy.
Small carriers enjoy 30% better retention rates than megas; container lines raise rates worldwide; truckload carriers try to capitalize on a historically favorable freight environment; Tesla begs its suppliers for cash back; LNG production is accelerating.
If a new truck driver hire doesn’t find the job similar to what the recruiter said it was going to be, that negativity will last, and will impact retention.
Sponsored by Reliance Partners…Other than the economy slowing and unemployment rising, is there a solution to the driver problem?
The trucking industry isn’t at the point of no return yet, but it is at risk. Many of those jobs are heading into the increasingly efficient warehouses.
Sponsored by Reliance Partners…One of his specific points of focus for improving driving retention has to do with compensation packages. Compensation packages have become more sophisticated in recent years, but there is room for improvement.
Truckonomics is an organization looking to improve the lives of drivers, by providing them a gateway for financial security with a passive income after they retire.
Signs of movement over to rails, OOIDA sounds off on younger drivers, U2 puts its money into trucking.
Amazon announced Tuesday it has joined with General Motors and Volvo Cars to start offering in-car deliveries, giving its couriers access to potentially millions of vehicles in 37 U.S. markets.
One aspect of increasing driver retention is to recognize the strong correlation between turnover and quality hiring.
Driver retention is a hot button topic in trucking right now. Some trucking companies are focusing their technological improvements on helping create a better environment for their pivotal employees.
A limitation on soliciting customers is upheld. Restricting the movement of employees is not.
Burning vehicles and rival automaker are certainly problems, but with Tesla the song remains the same: how to fund it.
As Phil Wilt, the president and COO of American Central Transport said, “I had heard about a driver shortage for the 12 years I’ve been in the industry. It’s finally arrived.”
