Improving Driver Safety & Retention in the Trucking Industry

Achieving a good balance between revenue growth and driver satisfaction is one of the toughest challenges faced by trucking companies today. Profit margins are tight, so it’s expected that carriers try to do more with less. On top of that, new regulations such as the Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate requires drivers to keep closer tabs on their hours than ever before. Then, throw in a pandemic, asking drivers to keep driving to keep the economy running. This is a very stressful time for truck drivers. How can you keep them happy?

Drivers want safety

Truck drivers expect their employer to have a culture of safety – making this their top priority. Instead of paying off fines, they would prefer the company invest in compliance, coaching and technology to help them do their job more safely and effectively. Drivers expect their feedback to be acted on and their performance to be celebrated.

Is connected technology the key?

Implementing connected technologies can help drivers feel more supported by:

• Enabling new communication methods (e.g. feedback & support).
• Providing data analytics for evaluating performance.
• Helping maximize driver uptime.

Truck drivers are often celebrated for how well they do their job. Commonly celebrated achievements include collision free days, safe miles driven and minimization of downtime to name a few. All of these can either be tracked or enabled using connected technologies.

Digital key management is an important part of the solution

One of the biggest contributors to downtime is the exchange of trucks throughout the organization – driver to driver, driver to technician, etc. The management of keys can be a nightmare and very costly. Adopting a digital key solution (for more information, see The Digital Key to the Future blog), such as Keystone by Irdeto, can eliminate physical key management as well as the associated issues (physical key distribution, lost keys, replacing keys, etc.). Additionally, a digital key solution can bring along new benefits to the driver – such as the seamless exchange of keys and the peace of mind that they are the only person authorized to use the truck at a time, relieving the concern of late night intruders if multiple keys are available.

Learn more about this topic in the A Tale of Two Truckers eBook.

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