Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Recruiting Gen Y Truck Drivers

My Comments: This article is meant for driver recruiters but if drivers have an opinion please post it!


By Marge Bailey


Online Resources that do not offer click traffic reporting in real time are hard to analyze. The burden of tracking click throughs is put upon the recruiting end. While DriverFinder Network's job posting package includes click traffic reporting, unless a company has in place a dedicated call line for each online resource they use it's impossible to track calls that are generated by a web source (other than Adwords and other PPC services that offer a dedicated phone # with tracking). Resource sites that generate the click traffic get dropped in many cases due to many prospects call rather than click through to the company web site. The decision to drop an online resource if a phone # is posted but no tracking is used on phone calls might do a great injustice to those resources and lose a good candidate generator for the company.


To blame unqualified candidates who apply on the advertising resource that's generating great page view traffic is in my experience these last 20 years ridiculous.  That's like blaming a red light for people who don't stop! As long the red light is doing it's job it's up to the people behind the wheel of the vehicles to stop. Needless to say the burden of attracting and hiring qualified candidates is squarely on the shoulders of the recruiters, the job incentives, equipment, home time, the companies' reputation, etc. A good resource should not be held responsible for hires. Only for generating the traffic views of trucking industry candidates and not for how many apply and/or are hired.


As a recruiter I had an entire year to battle with the odds against me for getting qualified drivers that I could sign on to a mega company with a not so great reputation with drivers; i.e. low driver pay and 60 mph trucks to mention the top two (that was 2 decades ago). I had to go through 15 to 20 candidates to get one hire and I was considered an above average recruiter. Nothing has changed much in today's environment.


The challenges are still pretty much the same but with so many old hands retiring and unfortunately dying off, Gen Y has to fill their seats. This is a daunting challenge but it helps to always be truthful with the candidates! People who don't know any better will buy into whatever a recruiter is selling but with the Internet very few show up for an interview who haven't researched trucking to the bone.


It's been determined that most people today come into truck driving as a last resort. It may be as high as 70% that don't make the cut for various reasons. Bottom line is the last 2 generations find that sitting behind a computer makes them a good income and is a much more respected line of work. The medical field is wide open and pays better than driving. I could go on and on but it's not necessary as we all know that Gen Y (41 million of'em) would rather not drive a big rig unless forced to due to the economy.


There are still company website navigation issues that create annoyances for job seekers but that can be discussed in a different thread if anyone wants my opinion ;>)

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Ladies & Gents, What is Normal?

What is accepted as NORMAL by the entire world for the gender of a truck driver? You guessed it!
MEN. Women comprise approximately 6% of the male driver pool for over the road commercial truck operators. In today's so called liberal society, should this be the norm?


Now I admit this is true; the stance some have chosen to relentlessly pursue (who are certainly the minority) has morphed into a witch hunt. What accomplishments this small vigilante group can take credit for I haven't a clue other than they have used the information highway for airing their grievances led by a ex-newbie female driver who knows how to work the online and real world media to their advantage. Bashing and name calling will get attention but the end results 99% of the time is negative and presents to the world at large their skewed point of view with a modicum of truth laced with false accusations, sensationalism and  self appointed whistle blowers who seek justice.


On the other hand there is one organization, Women in Trucking, made up of high profile board members and a supportive driver member community, including male drivers, that truly is making a difference for women behind the wheel in a positive way. The unique difference is this well respected organization helps create actual solutions without stooping to vigilante tactics.


WIT's goal of facilitating an exchange of ideas and attitude change developed between the 'powers that be' and male and female truck drivers not only results in solutions but highlights individual accomplishments of women in the trucking industry through their online My Stories found Here, honor awards and positive media coverage.
Women in Trucking has created a pathway to meaningful and lasting change reaching those who are genuinely sincere about their mission and goals.


All parties involved are brought together to discuss and reason out certain issues to find lasting solutions; i.e. ergonomic driver seat, encouraging female trainers for female students, to strengthen the legacy of education in trucking and the list goes on. While not a political group that addresses political issues, WIT is certainly paving the way for uniting the employers, customers and employees of trucking in order to promote positive change, improve working relationships and encourage women to become a part of the industry as a female professional driver.


Welcome to NORMAL.


Please post your comments!


Marge Bailey/CEO/Founder
Founding WIT Board Member
The DriverFinder Network
LadyTruckDrivers.com

Monday, August 11, 2014

Where Have All the Truckers Gone?

Aug 10, 2014 New York Times Article:


Swift Transportation’s 20,000 workers haul goods in almost 14,000 big-rig trucks that travel the interstates and back roads of the United States every day. The company’s performance is closely tied to the nation’s economy, which has been looking increasingly sunny lately.
So it was surprising last month when Swift’s stock plummeted nearly 18 percent in a single day. The tumble came for an odd reason. It wasn’t because there was too little business — but rather, too much.

“We were constrained by the challenging driver market,” the company said in its quarterly earnings announcement. “Our driver turnover and unseated truck count were higher than anticipated.”
In other words, Swift had plenty of customers wanting to ship goods. But in a time of elevated unemployment, it somehow couldn’t find enough drivers to take those goods from Point A to Point B. How is that possible? The reasons for that conundrum tell us a great deal about what has been ailing American workers and why a full-throated economic recovery has been so slow in coming.       

Trucker Pay Has Fallen When Adjusted for Inflation

The industry complains of shortages of truck drivers, but in real terms tractor-trailer drivers made less in 2013 than they did a decade earlier.
Average annual pay, heavy and tractor–tailer truck drivers, in 2013 dollars
$43k
42k
41k
40k
$40.94k
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Consider this: The American Trucking Associations has estimated that there was a shortage of 30,000 qualified drivers earlier this year, a number on track to rise to 200,000 over the next decade. Trucking companies are turning down business for want of workers.
Yet the idea that there is a huge shortage of truck drivers flies in the face of a jobless rate of more than 6 percent, not to mention Economics 101. The most basic of economic theories would suggest that when supply isn’t enough to meet demand, it’s because the price — in this case, truckers’ wages — is too low. Raise wages, and an ample supply of workers should follow.

But corporate America has become so parsimonious about paying workers outside the executive suite that meaningful wage increases may seem an unacceptable affront. In this environment, it may be easier to say “There is a shortage of skilled workers” than “We aren’t paying our workers enough,” even if, in economic terms, those come down to the same thing.

The numbers are revealing: Even as trucking companies and their trade association bemoan the driver shortage, truckers — or as the Bureau of Labor Statistics calls them, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers — were paid 6 percent less, on average, in 2013 than a decade earlier, adjusted for inflation. It takes a peculiar form of logic to cut pay steadily and then be shocked that fewer people want to do the job.

Millions of able-bodied Americans need work, yet there aren’t enough middle-income jobs for them. That is especially the case for men without advanced educations, who have seen their wages depressed over the last few decades. Trucking would seem to be an excellent option.
It’s not an ideal job for everyone. There is no question that trucking is hard work, necessitating long hours and longer stretches away from family. But that’s why it is well compensated, at least in comparison to other jobs not requiring college degrees. The average pay for a long-haul trucker is just shy of $50,000, according to the A.T.A., and an experienced trucker with a good safety record can make significantly more than that. The work typically offers lavish benefits that are increasingly rare for nonunion blue-collar employees.
The job can be learned fairly quickly. In some industries, companies complain of shortages of workers for jobs that require years of advanced training, like certain engineering specialties. Trucking is not one of those industries, however.
A person can get a commercial driver’s license after a course that can be as brief as six weeks of intensive study. Moreover, there were actually fewer truckers working last year (1.585 million) than five years earlier (1.673 million). Some of the missing workers could presumably be coaxed back into the industry if the money were right. 
                  
To be sure, the trucker-shortage picture is more complex than this, notes Bob Costello, the A.T.A.’s chief economist. He says these complications make a straightforward story of truckers simply being underpaid not quite fair.
For example, new safety requirements mean that individual truckers drive fewer miles than a decade ago: An average long-haul truck can now cover 8,000 miles a month, down from almost 11,000 in 2007, according to the trade association. This helps account for downward wage pressure. And the trucking companies themselves are typically working on thin profit margins and serving customers on long-term contracts, which means that if they simply raised pay sharply to recruit more truckers, they could end up losing money.
But every industry has its special challenges, and the trucker shortage — and falling inflation-adjusted wages over the last decade — are part of a bigger story.
The reasons are the subject of endless debate, and you can pick the one you prefer to emphasize: technological change, globalization or a decline of union power. But wages of workers without advanced skills have been under downward pressure in the United States and across the developed world over the last generation. The deep recession and slow recovery have only made the trend more pronounced.
That has led to a mind-set in which executives sometimes think of line workers as merely resources to be tapped at the lowest price. Companies have been able to keep wages low: It’s hard to demand a raise when your colleagues are being laid off or there is a long line of job seekers. Some corporations may have come to view this as a natural state of affairs.
By now, wage income is as low a percentage of gross domestic product as it has been since 1947, while corporate profits are at postwar highs. These are two sides of the same coin. Money that once accrued to workers now goes to shareholders.

Yet there are some indications that this state of affairs may not last: The shortage of truckers is one piece of evidence that the balance of power is shifting. In recent earnings calls, executives from companies as varied as JetBlue and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group have expressed worry about rising wage pressures.
The trucker shortage is already resulting in higher wages in parts of that industry. There have been $2,000 signing bonuses from companies looking to poach truckers and, as Kevin P. Knight of Knight Transportation mentioned in that trucking company’s latest earnings call, per-mile pay increases have been working out to 5 to 10 percent jumps in driver pay.
Executives may bemoan higher pay for workers because it could cut profit margins. But after a generation in which the median American household has seen flat to declining inflation-adjusted income, wage increases are a welcome corrective. When workers begin to have more leverage in salary negotiations, it is a sign of an improving economy, not a liability that businesses should be complaining about.