Effective Driver Recruitment and Driver

Retention Strategies
Losing your truck drivers to your competitors is never a good spot to be in. Considering how it
costs thousands of dollars to find and recruit a new truck driver, it pays to have an established
fleet management to keep your driver turnover rates to a minimum.

Formulating an effective driver recruitment and retention strategy is also just as important if you
want to avoid experiencing driver shortage.

As all companies and drivers are unique, there is no one-size-fits-all formula to reducing driver
turnover. However, there are some tried and tested driver recruitment and retention strategies
that you can use to achieve pretty good results.

Driver Recruitment Strategies

1. Establish Your Web Presence

The more established your web presence is, the more truck drivers can get a better feel of who
you are as a company when they search for you online.

If most professionals nowadays are checking out a company’s Facebook page before they even
consider working for them, there’s no reason to believe that drivers aren’t doing the same thing.

2. Run a Referral Program

If you want to recruit more drivers, then you need to run referral programs so your drivers can tell
their connections about it.

Because of our tendency as humans to associate and bond with the similar others, you can
count on the fact that your drivers are bonding and associating themselves with other drivers as
well.
3. Use Compelling Marketing Materials

A common mistake that most trucking companies make when creating their marketing materials
is they focus on how fantastic their company is.

They talk about when their company was established, how much growth it has achieved since
then, and the awards that they’ve won, etc..

While there is certainly value in doing this, we need to realize that the truck drivers aren’t as
interested in who the company is and what it has achieved. More than anything else, they are
more interested in the benefits that they can get from the company.

Driver Retention Strategies

4. Provide Better Working Conditions to Drivers

The better working conditions you give to your drivers, the easier and painless their life is while
working with you. Better working conditions eventually lead to them wanting to stay in your
trucking company instead of them constantly looking for greener pastures.

5. Maintain Good Relationships Even When Drivers Leave

It isn’t uncommon for drivers to look for other companies to work with thinking that the grass is
greener on the other side.

When that happens, instead of taking the drivers’ actions personally, try to see things from their
perspective instead.

Should the time come where your drivers will decide to leave you so they can work for your
competitors, tell them that they are still welcome in your company should they decide to return.

When a driver works for your competitor and see how lucky they were to be with you, they will
come back to you asking for their jobs. This time, they’ll be more loyal to you because they know
first hand that you are treating them right.
6. Create Driver Feedback Loops

You can set up advisory councils, use suggestion boxes, have your fleet managers meet
regularly with drivers, or run surveys using apps. You can even use your ELD device to send
messages directly to your drivers, asking them about the things that they want the company’s
bonus system to include.

If you’ll take the time to listen and take action on the suggestions that your drivers give, not only
will it pave the way to creating a bonus system that your drivers will truly love, but your drivers
will also feel appreciated and treated like a real person and not just a statistic.

Also, be sure to talk to your drivers about how you’ll craft the message. That way, you’ll end up
using their language, making it even more relatable to them.