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Driver Retention: The Cost of Drivers Leaving Goes Both Ways

drayage driver with container at terminal

Your Drivers Want to Stay, But Without the Right Tools, They Just Might Bolt.

When it comes to trucking companies and their drivers, it’s in everyone’s best interests to keep already-employed drivers right where they are. Yet, despite all the costs associated with changing jobs, many drivers are willing to do so if they don’t think their employers are giving them sufficient reason to stay.

This is astonishing when you consider the stakes.

What switching companies costs a driver

A driver who switches to a new trucking company gives up all seniority and dispatcher relationships. They have to rebuild these relationships in order to get assigned the best routes.

Meanwhile, the transition time is costly. Not only will the previous employer likely withhold certain funds to make sure back-end issues are cleared up, but the driver will likely have to go through an onboarding process (including drug testing and so forth) and a waiting period before they can start earning money from the new employer.

All of that is time the driver could have been earning revenue at the old employer. Yet the driver still left.

Why? In too many cases, trucking companies aren’t giving drivers the tools they need to prosper in their jobs.

Giving your drivers the tools and support they need will improve your driver retention rate

When we designed the Envase TMS, we built into the platform many tools that give drivers an advantage. These include tools that help companies accurately pay their drivers according to the schedule that was promised to them – not to mention visibility and automation that help to facilitate successful deliveries, easy access to upcoming assignments and even the ability to bypass lines at ports and terminals so they can move more quickly to their next assignment.

All of this also improves cash flow for the company, so it’s one of those classic win-wins.

Trucking companies have every incentive to invest in tools like these to help their drivers.

The typical cost to a trucking company of losing a driver is between $10,000 and $15,000, which involves everything from routes not driven to recruiting, training and onboarding new drivers. The cost of a tool like the Envase TMS is a small fraction of what it is to lose and then replace even one driver.

Most truck drivers would prefer not to change jobs. But drivers become uneasy when business isn’t consistent and they don’t feel they have the support needed to optimize opportunities on the road. That’s when they start talking to other drivers, who tell them they’re consistently getting loads rather than experiencing lulls of several days.

And make no mistake: Those lulls cost a driver serious money.

Drivers don’t want to leave you

But they will, if other drivers are getting the tools and support they feel they deserve.

Talk to us today about how the Envase TMS can help you keep your drivers employed – with you, not your competitors – and thriving.

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