What is the best way to recruit truck drivers?

[Gamber]

What is the best way to recruit truck drivers?

[Emera]

That's easy - just provide a good place to work, and they'll be beating down your door. If there's one thing I've learned about work in my life, it's this: Good employers don't have to advertise for employees. Conversely, any job that has to advertise for employees, or worse yet, actively recruit, is not going to be a good place to work. Unless this is a brand-new business, or it just picked up some new business, it means employees are fleeing the place, right? If a place just never stops recruiting, that’s a big red flag.

A truck driver wants to be paid for the work he does - all of it. Trucking companies seem to have a million ways to avoid paying drivers for so-called "extra" work. From the worker’s point of view, there’s no such thing as “extra work”. Work is work, and we all want to be paid for doing it. You want good truck drivers? Offer good pay. Almost no one else is, so you'll have your pick.

A truck driver wants time off. Living in a truck, eating lousy food everyday, is no kind of life. The third-World vacation times we get in this country are shameful for any job, but for a guy who lives in a truck, and maybe gets a day-and-a-half off every week or two? It's not enough. Offer some decent paid time off, even after the first year. Consider this - can you attract a driver away from another carrier if he's gotta give up the three weeks of vacation he's accumulated there? A driver might stay at a lousy job just to avoid losing that, because it'll take years to get that again. Offer good vacation time.

Be flexible. If a driver is willing to stay on the road for four weeks straight, why shouldn't he get the accumulated time off? Most companies turn around and screw the driver out of that time, so there's no incentive for the driver to stay out when you need him to. Some people would rather stay out a long time in order to accumulate a decent stretch of time off. I am one such driver. I have a union job, so I know I’m not going to get screwed out of my time.

Make sure the office employees who interface with drivers, (safety/dispatch), aren't - I don't know how else to put this - being jerks to the drivers. To the driver, these people are your company. It seems every company has to have one asshole in lower management who just makes life miserable for the people under him. Get rid of anyone you think is doing that. Especially the guy who constantly denies pay to drivers who haven’t crossed an i or dotted a t. They did the work, you should be trying to make sure they get paid, not looking for excuses to deny it. Root these assholes out. They’re costing you drivers.

[Otr_trucker]

Truckers gossip like old women. If you treat your drivers good and pay them right, word will spread. You won't have to advertise, drivers will be beating down your door.