12/8/10. Interesting article in FleetOwner's online magazine explains how industry concern for the upcoming truck driver shortage, along with other factors, is causing many carriers to postpone adding additional equipment even though capacity is tightening. Click on image to read article.
EXPERT OPINION
Desiree Wood
Truck Driver and Women's Activist for Training and Communication in the Trucking Industry
12/7/2010
The trucking industry is realizing that women can be a large part of the solution to our upcoming Truck Driver Shortage crisis. To capture this opportunity however, motor carriers are going to have to make significant changes in their recruiting, training and retention programs.
To begin with, recruiting programs need to be brutally honest and objective about the lifestyle of a truck driver. Too many recruitment ads today targeting women tend to glamorize the truck driving profession by providing potential candidates with a false impression of what life on the road is actually like. Sleeping in the truck, not being able to shower every day, possibly having to team with a male driver and driving early/late hours to make delivery times all are important aspects of the job that women need to know. Attracting women candidates by glossing over the day-to-day realities of trucking will only result in disgruntled employees and high turnover.
Training is also a very critical aspect of trucking that needs improvement. Companies need to realize that women drivers, being women, have unique and critically important concerns about personal safety on the road. I personally know of too many incidents where women truck drivers were sexually abused and even raped while on the road; and the really sad part about several of those instances was that the abuse came from fellow male driver employees.
Sexual harassment training and policy are uncomfortable subjects for most companies but having women employees on the road, especially if they are in mixed-gender teams, demands that employers provide the direction and enforcement needed to protect its female employees. A company’s Sexual Harassment Policy must be strictly enforced to protect not only the employees but the employer. This is easier said then done as investigating reported abuse often involves two employees with completely different versions of what happened. Companies should consider adding Hot Lines to report sexual harassment and make sure that they have a strong, no-nonsense HR department that will act quickly to address any and all issues.
Additionally, awareness training should be developed to provide all new female employees advice on off-road safety such as safe conduct during times of overnight parking, or late night stops for fuel or food. Companies should train their dispatchers and driver managers in off-road safety procedures also and provide driver employees Hot Line numbers for reporting suspicious and dangerous activity.
Many of the retaining activities used to keep good male drivers also apply to women including good pay & benefits, comfortable equipment with APUs or bunk heaters and respect, respect, respect. Respect is particularly important because trucking is traditionally a male dominated industry. Driver managers need to be trained to provide the same level of respect and recognition to their female drivers as they do their male counterparts while company policy needs to provide equal pay for equal performance and equitable treatment for both genders.
There are other areas of retention that are particularly important to women. Where companies supply facilities such as bathrooms and showers, each gender should have unique, private and secured access. This is especially important for terminal locations that are unsupervised in evening and weekends. Also, consider a pet policy. Women have a special relationship with their pets which can also provide security. A dog will naturally become protective of their owner and their home, the truck. Knowing that your dog will warn you by barking that someone is getting too close to the truck is a great comfort. Many female truck drivers I know are much happier when they can take their pets with them.
There’s a lot of value for women in driving a truck if their employer provides the proper training and support. It’s a job where women can take pride in their accomplishments without feeling they have to compete for recognition from anything else except being on time and driving safe. It’s a job that provides a large degree of independence many women never dreamed was possible. And finally, it’s a job that can provide a lot of satisfaction by knowing that you are providing a must-have service to all of your customers.
Truck driving is a good choice for women if the company they drive for truly understands how to train and protect their employees.
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Desiree Wood is a 3 year truck driving veteran currently working for Covenant Transportation. She is also a well known women’s activist in the trucking industry that focuses on improving communication between drivers and trucking companies that train new drivers. She actively tweets about her driving experiences as @TruckerDesiree and has over 6700 followers. She also maintains a website at www.TruckerDesiree.com & is the Founder of "Real Women Truckers" on Facebook.
Various Dates - Mid 2010. Driving Ambition, a blog published by a driver staffing company, asked for Driver Comments to this question: "Why is there a Driver Shortage?" Two of the comments are printed below. Click on image to read all comments.
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Some one asked me what I did for a living. I offered them the following clues:
I'm up all hours of the day and night.
The work I do is dangerous.
If I mess up I could end up in prison.
I'm constantly hassled by cops.
The person I talked to thought I was a drug dealer. The answer was: No. I'm a truck driver!
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Truck drivers are not paid for the time they spend, at least concerning OTR. You are not paid for waiting at a terminal to get loaded or unloaded. You are not paid for downtime. You are not paid for the time it takes you to fuel the tanks in your truck. You work many hours every single day that you receive no compensation for.
I will ONLY work hourly now. I am a local driver and for me, it's the only way to go. I get paid for EVERYTHING I do, whether it's fueling or filling out logs.
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9/16/2010. Short article featuring four trucking executives speaking on the truck driver shortage and how it will impact their operations. Click on image to link to article.
Summer 1996. Old but comprehensive and worth-reading study on Driver Turnover and Driver Retention. The conclusion states the following:
In conclusion, the 1,464 men and women who responded to this survey request have spoken, saying that truck driving could be a far more attractive, satisfying profession if carriers and the industry would be willing to listen to them and rethink just about every aspect of the truck driving job. Restructuring the job can attract more quality people to the profession and thus reduce the driver shortage and increase the level of driver satisfaction and professionalism. Reduction in turnover, and the resultant positive impact on company profitability, is also a natural consequence of increasing the attractiveness of the profession. Change requires that everyone, drivers and shippers included, entertain new ideas, think positively and creatively, remove biases, reason, and be willing to try new approaches. Improved driver retention is a difficult yet solvable problem. The industry cannot afford to wait any longer. Action should be taken now.
Click image to read article.
March 2006. The Advanced Center for Transportation Technologies at Clark College published this study that provides some general, common sense solutions to the truck driver shortage starting on page 9. Click on image to read study.
11/29/2010. Short opinion piece by Joe White of CostDown Consulting published in Transport Topics. Discusses some of the influences and possible solutions of the driver shortage. Click image to link to article.
6/2010. Great interview with Tom Nightingale, CMO at Con-Way. Tom discusses the potential severity of the driver shortage plus talks about some of the lessons learned - for both truckers and shippers - from our last driver shortage. Click on image to access player (note: advertisments not associated with Driver Shortage Authority are attached to video).
