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I need drivers! Where are the drivers?!
Sound familiar? If you’re reading this article, chances are you have a vested interest in finding and hiring drivers. The big question everyone is always asking is, “How can I find and hire the drivers?”
Well, the short answer is … there’s no short answer. There are many different ways to approach generating driver interest and hiring prospective drivers. But, if you really want to drill down to the heart of the matter, it all comes down to one core issue: Motivation.
Ask yourself, “What motivates the driver? What are they looking for?” For many years, the easy answer was money. Why did a driver jump fleets? Why were they looking for a new job to begin with? Money.
And while it is still the easy answer … it may no longer be the right answer. As we all know, the past few years have been, let’s just say a little “different”. One more thing to add to the ever-growing pile of things that are changing, could be drivers’ core motivations.
What Do Today’s Drivers Really Care About?
The American Transportation Research Institute conducted a study to try to identify driver motivations and satisfaction levels. They surveyed drivers using eight motivating factors, and asked them to rate their importance, ranging from extremely important, to not important at all. They also asked the drivers to rate their satisfaction level with the eight factors using a similar scale.
It’s all very fascinating and the ATRI did a fantastic job, (if you’d like to read more of their report you can find it here) but for the purposes of this article, I really just want to focus on the big picture finding.
According to the research, job security and stability is a bigger motivation to company drivers than pay!
For company drivers the top three motivating factors were job security/stability, income, and healthcare/retirement savings. As you may notice, income remains a motivating factor, but what will surprise some, is that it’s no longer the number one concern! According to the research, job security and stability is a bigger motivation to company drivers than pay!
Think about that. Drivers … at least the ones surveyed for this research, valued job security and stability more than pay. At first glance this could be shocking, as we have seen pay consistently ranked as the number one concern for drivers; but given all that’s happened recently … is it really surprising that company drivers’ top concern is job security?
Appeal to Drivers’ Motivations
So, what’s all this mean to you? I guess that depends. What are you showing prospective drivers? What are you telling them? What is it you’re using to try to catch their attention? If you want to find success with your driver recruiting, aligning to driver motivations is a must.
If you want prospective hires to stop scrolling when they come across your ad; if you want your messaging to be impactful and successful at stopping them in their tracks; you have to take the time to know what resonates with them.
If you appeal to those motivations … you will see results. If drivers are concerned with job security, fill your ads with quotes from current drivers about how long they’ve been with your fleet and how loyal and supportive your fleet has been to them. You could also promote how well established you are to let prospects know that no matter how wacky things may get, their job will always be safe when they come to work with you.
There are a lot of drivers out there, and they are constantly being barraged with messaging about why they should choose fleet A over fleet B. Remember that. It’s important to know, no matter how good your fleet or recruiting campaigns are, you will always be in constant competition for a driver’s attention.
As times change, the economy ebbs and flows, and concerns shift, the one thing you can do to put your fleet on the path to recruiting success, is to make sure you always take the time to factor in driver motivation.
Basically, if you need drivers … you better know what they care about!
