Rohan Mathawan
If you want your fleet to perform well, make sure you have a roster of sensible and safe drivers. This can also help you in reducing costs, improving staff retention rates and most important of all, it offers you complete peace of mind knowing that your drivers are safe on the road.
Well, this does not mean you have to search for the right drivers incessantly. It is difficult to get good results going this way. After all, no one is born with good driving skills! What you need to do is incentivise your drivers to get proper performance from your fleet.
You will have to put in some energy and time into offering them proper training which comes with the guarantee of good results. Remember, the financial success of your company depends on the efficiency of your fleet.
So, do the best you can and implement the right changes and behavioural patterns in your drivers to get desired results. The points below will surely help you out:
Educate The Drivers On Improving The Fleet Maintenance Procedure
Having a safe fleet does not ensure safe drivers. You must work on ensuring that the vehicles are safe. Try educating your drivers on preventative maintenance and daily vehicle inspections. They must also stay updated on vehicle recalls for keeping the fleet working at the highest level.
Educating the drivers on the regular maintenance of the fleet not only helps in improving fleet safety but even improves its efficiency and performance. Try using automatic maintenance scheduling as it can help in improving the procedure. It even ensures that the fleet gets proper preventative maintenance to run safely.
Defensive Driving Programs Are A Must For The Drivers
Educating the drivers about the safety of the vehicles can help in preventing and avoiding accidents. Accidents are not always the fault of the drivers working for a certain trucking business.
Sometimes other unsafe drivers are working on the road. This is where it becomes important to incentivise drivers with defensive driving tactics. The drivers can be educated about tachograph analysis which involves knowing how to use the tachograph.
The tachograph is a device that is fitted into vehicles. It automatically records the distance and the speed of the vehicle. Such devices and their work solutions are best available from Samsara.
Fleet safety education, along with the enforcement of proper rules, helps in improving fleet performance. Safety and performance policies will be effective only if they are backed with the enforcement of established and real penalties for non-compliance.
If the drivers working for you are a lot into practising unsafe driving, they will not change their practices only because you have placed a policy against it. Fleet managers should take up the responsibility of enforcing policies, regardless of the resistance and challenges in doing so.
Positive Reinforcement Always Works
As the owner of a fleet, you need to know that instant positive reinforcement is highly effective. Acknowledge your driver and staff at the moment. This will have a better impact in comparison to the annual rewards.
Incentivising the drivers for doing well at the right time brings in great results. Try designing incentives around some of the leading indicators. If you are working on reducing collisions, design incentives centred around encouraging changes in behaviour that can ultimately reduce collisions.
Driving safely improves the performance of your fleet and something as simple as acknowledging the drivers for their safety practices can bring in positive results. Make it a point to acknowledge them during monthly or weekly safety meetings. Even cash rewards can help!
Keep Things Simple But Do Not Forget To Use Technology!
Incentives offered to the drivers might fail if they are very complicated. For instance, if you have a fleet for several locations, avoid making it complicated by weighing urban driving in the same way as rural driving.
While the segregation makes good sense, it works to keep things simple and not bog down by several details. Complex requirements might make the incentives difficult to be achieved, which will automatically cause the drivers to lose interest in the programs.
Hence, incentives and the ways to get them should be easy to administer and simple. This way, the drivers will be executing the same perfectly while on the road. Here, the use of modern technology becomes all the more important.
Use technology for gathering accurate information on safe driving behaviours you are looking to encourage. Technology can also be used for fleet tracking that can further give you an idea of the factors that might have caused collisions.
Using video telematics to gather data on why certain problems are taking place can also help you in improving the performance of your fleet. The most efficient incentive programs are the ones that blend incentivised behaviours with wider organisational goals.
Rewards And Incentives Are Not The Same – Keep This In Mind!
Do you know that there is a huge difference between rewards and incentives? Incentives call for efforts being put on the part of the drivers. They are objectives for the drivers to achieve. Incentives should be designed properly, so they motivate changes in the drivers.
On the other hand, rewards do not motivate changes. They do not help in changing the behaviours or the habits of the drivers. Rewards are offered for the driver’s behaviour while driving. This is the reason why short-term incentive programs offered on a monthly, weekly or daily basis are way better than the annual rewards.
Parting Note
Keeping the drivers motivated and incentivised will automatically improve the performance of your fleet. There are various other ways of motivating the drivers, which include safety bonuses and payment plans.
Perks like updated in-cab tools and additional holidays or vacation time can also work wonders. Such programs do not just motivate the drivers in staying safe but even entice them into staying with your company.
Employee retention will not be a major hurdle for you if you are successful in creating a safe, motivated and efficient work environment.