Are you facing high driver turnover in your trucking organization and trying to determine the root causes of why people are leaving? Understanding what’s causing them to call it quits is a huge hurdle for a lot of companies, but that’s where confidential surveys come in.
One of the questions we ask in all of our exit surveys is the exit factors question, and it’s a goldmine of important information. This question asks a respondent to rate the impact various factors had on their decision to leave their job on a scale ranging from “No Impact” to “Main Reason for Leaving”. The various factors include items such as pay, supervisor, leadership, growth opportunities, schedule, workload, etc. When looking at exit surveys administered by People Element over the past 2 years, we have seen two factors consistently rated the highest: compensation and communication.
Why Drivers Quit
Of course, it’s not enough to simply identify the factors. We want you to know the key drivers of those exit factors. That is, we want you to know what had the highest impact on those particular exit factors being chosen. Statistically speaking, they are the items most correlated.
Across our trucking clients, the key drivers we see for the compensation exit factor most often are:
- Competitive Pay – Being paid as well as people at other companies doing the same work
- Miles Received – Receiving the expected miles
- Fair Pay – Being paid fairly for the work that is being done
For the communication exit factors, the key drivers that we see the most often are:
- Guidance – Ability to get additional help/guidance when needed
- Leadership Understanding – Leadership understanding the problems drivers face
- Decision-Making Freedom – Freedom in making decisions to do the job effectively
- Supervisor Respect – Supervisor treats employees with respect
Establish Driver Retention Strategies
As these are statistically the biggest factors we have seen across major players in the industry, if you’re struggling with driver retention, a first step may be to consider these elements of your organization and see if there are places you may be able to improve. If, after you make small tweaks, you’re still not seeing the retention you want, it may be time to bring in the big guns. If you want to know the key drivers of turnover specific to your team, People Element can help. We begin by administering confidential surveys to your exited drivers. Our Organizational Development Business Partners will then consolidate the results, help determine the root causes of turnover in your organization, and assist you in creating a formal plan to act on those results to help increase retention.
