The accepted wisdom within the driver pool regarding the
driver shortage is that there is no driver shortage. Large numbers of people
that obtain their CDL discover it’s simply not their cup of tea after spending
a few months on the road. But is it trucking or the culture of the trucking
industry that is turning people off? I ask this question because it is not only
the newly minted driver that is being turned off it is also the seasoned
drivers that are experiencing a high level of dissatisfaction at present. That dissatisfaction
is expressed across a broad range of issues drivers face every day. We don’t
have a driver crisis in the trucking industry, we have a leadership crisis.
I’m defining leadership here as the movers and shakers that
steer the top 50 Canadian trucking companies. These are the people that
influence and guide policy in our industry. With each passing year these large
companies continue to grow primarily through mergers & acquisitions. The trucking landscape is becoming more
homogeneous. These large companies often share resources and follow the same
fiscal policies and “best practices”. Return on investment is the driving
factor for the majority of these companies. So even if you are not employed by
one of these companies as a driver they have an influence over you and that
influence continues to grow.
Drivers are dependent on the guidance and the vision of this
crop of leaders. There are three broad areas in which driver’s needs are not
being met. Trucker lifestyle (culture), Trucker health, and Trucker training.
The trucking lifestyle, the culture of trucking, is a
delicate thing. It takes a special type of person to do this job day in and day
out over the course of a lifetime. It requires a degree of passion. You don’t
do long haul trucking just for the money. That never works out. It’s very
difficult to list the qualities that make up a trucker but along with passion
goes independence. That independence is key to the trucking lifestyle. That
independence is being eroded by the methods our leaders are employing as they
adopt new technologies. The preferred method seems to be one of control and
restriction which is a method loathed by drivers. Adopting new methods &
technologies is a must but they have to complement and strengthen the
characteristics of a professional driver not create undue stress and limit the
drivers performance.
Trucker health is an issue that is getting much more
attention today than it has in the past. But a driver’s health goes far beyond
simple physical well-being. A driver’s mental health and emotional health is
key to a happy, safe, and highly motivated driver. For far too long leaders of
the trucking industry have been dragging their feet on some of the simple
issues related to health and safety. Safe havens for truck parking and well
equipped rest areas for drivers, especially in remote areas through which we
travel frequently. Adequate rest is THE hot button issue for an aging
demographic that makes up the majority of the driver pool. We spend very little
to no time at all dealing with the effects of aging and how it is affecting the
seasoned driver. How drivers are compensated falls into the health category.
Income is not keeping pace with the cost of living in fact we are moving
backwards. Drivers are “at work” for most of their lives. The ability to step
away from work on a regular basis to deal with burn out and fatigue is a must.
Drivers cannot do that unless they are compensated adequately.
Driver training is not an entry level issue. It is a cradle
to grave issue. The driving culture and a driver’s health are dependent on the
quality and consistency of driver education. Ongoing training for drivers does
not exist within our industry. This is our leaders’ biggest “fail”. How can you
possibly attract new blood to an industry that does not even have a system of
recognition for driver qualifications across different platforms? On this file
everyone seems to operate on a different page. Stories abound within the driver
rank and file of new drivers that are hired on with minimal training at the
same rate of pay as seasoned veterans with proven safety records. How can you
possibly develop and maintain a culture of workplace safety across the industry
without a system of universally accepted workplace training in place? Perform a
few queries on the internet and you will find truck driving is consistently in
the top ten most dangerous jobs. Thought that was firefighters & police?
They don’t even make the top ten list.
The crisis in leadership is the fact that professional
drivers, the backbone of the Canadian trucking industry, continue to be reduced
to nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.
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