Part 2: Creating a Retention and Engagement Program

During a freight recession, it's vital for fleets to reduce as many operational costs as possible. You can not only reduce your recruiting advertising spend but, your cost per hire by retaining your drivers.

Believe it or not, you don't have to have an expensive retention plan or a large team to develop and manage a robust and effective retention program. This is part 2 of our 3-part series on retention.

Now that your team has recruited with retention in mind, it's important to make the driver feel welcome and a part of your community. This can all be done at little-to-no-cost! You can do one of all of these things as part of a driver engagement program.

Create a Facebook Group

If you have not done so, create a driver's lounge Facebook group and encourage your drivers to join. Assign key members as moderators in the Facebook group.

Create clear community guidelines. Some suggestions are: no solicitation, no belittling others, etc. Let drivers know the group is intended to be a community and they'll receive important company updates there.

This is a free resource. Allow drivers a free, but private, place to air their concerns, share tips and get to know other drivers. Address concerns quickly and be careful not to censor

Use the space to update drivers on lane changes, new freight, introduce new staff, send safety messages, and share general updates.

Make it personal. Ask team members to share fun things such as introduction of new pets, share recipes, relevant news articles, etc. Just remind your team to keep it professional and to not share personal or private details. Remember: people trust people more than they trust corporations. Drivers often live a solitary life; it's important to make them feel a part of your community.

Create Weekly or Bi-Weekly All Fleet Calls

Provide your drivers with a venue to share their feedback and receive important updates. Consider creating a weekly or bi-weekly fleet call.

This can be done via Facebook Live through your Facebook Group, Teams, Zoom, or other video platforms.

Invite members from each team: operations, recruiting, fleet equipment, safety, etc. to join the call and provide important updates such as recurring violations, tablet updates, lane changes, new customers, etc.

Allow drivers on the call the opportunity to ask questions and raise concerns. Address these concerns directly when you can.

Always remember to close the loop. If a driver addressed a concern, follow back up and let them know how you plan to or have resolved his/her concerns.

Create an Online Gaming Community

Drivers spend a lot of time in their trucks. Many of them have video consoles and play video games in their spare time.

Consider creating an online gaming community and invite drivers and staff to compete against one another in online games.

This can be done very inexpensively through platforms such as Discord. If you've created a Facebook Group, remind users to join your online gaming community.

Create a company and fleetwide Health and Wellness Program

Did you know you can create a MyFitnessPal community for free? Create a MyFitnessPal community and set up monthly challenges. Encourage staff and drivers to join the health and wellness community. Example challenges: Number of steps per month, most consistent daily meal tracking, number of hours exercised, etc. If you can, offer prizes for monthly contest winners.

If you created a Facebook Group, make sure to promote the MyFitnessPal group there and provide leaderboard information and updates to your Facebook Group, as well.

Partner with a local grocery store that offers a nutritionist and ask them to do menu and grocery planning and shopping with your drivers who are at-risk of losing their med cards due to high blood pressure or diabetes. Many nationwide grocers offer this service for free.

Host monthly heathy cooking classes and focus on recipes that can be easily prepared in the truck. If you've created a Facebook group, film these cooking demonstrations and post them to your Facebook group, or do a Facebook Live video of the demonstration.

EBE can help! Our ATS also has a built-in safety platform. Quickly identify who is on a 3 or 6-month med card and encourage them to join the Health and Wellness program.

Create and Send Monthly Driver Newsletters

Platforms such as MailChimp and ConstantContact allow you to mass upload email addresses of your current drivers. These platforms are easy to use and versatile. These services allow you to quickly build beautiful and robust emails and mass send with one click.

If you hosted a fleet call, embed the video into your monthly driver newsletter. If you are hosting a Health and Wellness Program, add details about that program. Allow representatives from each department to contribute to the newsletter (Ex: monthly Safety Spotlight). Consider adding a driver spotlight or shout-outs section to thank drivers for their good work.

If you're creating surveys (see email 3 of this series), embed links to your pulse survey.

Monthly newsletters are another great way to open the line of communication with your fleet.

This is part 2 of 3 of this retention series: part 3 we will offer tips on surveys and gaining feedback.