The transportation industry comprises hundreds of thousands of people: executives, managers, technicians, drivers, and more. To have a successful company within the industry, it takes a combined effort from everyone involved. And to ensure this well-oiled machine can sustain itself in an extremely competitive market, a company needs the right recruitment and retention strategies.

In a June FleetOwner webinar sponsored by Idelic, Jeremy Reymer, founder and CEO of DriverReach, and Rachel Lovell, vice president of people operations at Milan Express, shared their insights and some best practices to help transportation companies find the right talent and keep it in house.

To achieve this, the first rule is to foster inter-departmental communication, which creates consistency and confidence, according to Lovell. When those departments within a transportation company are not on the same page, that’s going to be evident to prospective and existing employees.

“In the absence of a well-communicated, streamlined process, not a well-oiled machine, the driver is going to see that,” Lovell explained. “If there’s volatility and things that don’t add up, it’s going to turn a driver away. During recruitment, we make sure to sell drivers the right job, saying the same thing throughout the whole process.”

Hayden Cardiff, founder and co-CEO of Idelic, agreed that all departments must have the same strong and well-informed message to avoid being labeled as dishonest. For example, if human resources define a position within the company with specific job responsibilities, but the operations department doesn’t believe that person should be performing those tasks, there will be a clear disconnect, leaving the employee in the dark.

“Anytime you have a lack of clarity and purpose, if that’s not cleared up across departments, you’ll start to see people growing in different directions,” Reymer said. “Leveraging technology can help make sure that there’s open communication across the company. Whether its through internal communications systems such as Slack, Teams, Zoom, etcetera, or having an open dialogue within departments when positions are being created—these strategies play a huge role in smoothing out those operations.”

Internal communications don’t just happen overnight. It takes company leaders to make the concerted effort in unifying those departments.

“The first part is taking the leaders in those departments and saying, ‘We have to work together toward this common goal – how can we improve on this communication,’” Lovell explained. “Let’s over-communicate about the job responsibilities, so that every department knows what is expected from drivers and how to best answer the drivers’ questions.”

Reymer also stressed the importance of clearly defining the company culture and answering the “why” of the company goals: “That makes it explicitly clear to all employees about the standard of the organization.”

“From the safety aspect of it, over-communicating allows every department to be on the same page about what the company expectations are,” Lovell added. “Having operations involved in the process when hiring the driver allows all departments to be aware of who is being hired and what is being discussed with that driver.”

Just as important as a company knowing itself is understanding its new drivers and what their needs are. To do that, simply see things through their eyes,  Reymer advised.

“Ask yourself: What is the hiring process like for them, from beginning to end?” Reymer said. “Getting the driver manager involved at the beginning allows a cadence of communication throughout the driver’s first 90 days with the company and developing a better long-term relationship.”

Lovell explained that Milan Express has implemented an offer letter to drivers to be given before orientation.

“The offer letter states everything that the recruiter discussed with the driver about what is expected about the job,” Lovell said. “It stays in their file and keeps the recruiting team responsible as well as staying transparent with the driver.”

So, what steps can fleets take to retain those drivers once they are successfully recruited?

“There’s so much data within the industry regarding driver retention,” Lovell said. “We use WorkHound to get real-time, daily data to see where we need to improve, that comes right from the driver.”

For Reymer, the answer is to start simple.

“There is so much data out there, but if you narrow down really simple data points about what is really impacting the hiring decisions, you’ll be better prepared in real-world scenarios,” Reymer explained. “Sometimes, it can be as simple as you just didn’t move fast enough. If a driver is ready to move, and another company moved faster than you did in hiring that qualified driver, you’ve lost out. Sometimes, companies spend so much time developing data to build retention and recruiting strategies, that they are actually wasting time and missing out on drivers.”