Filling the Left Seat

Often, and I mean often, you can hear me saying ours is a “people” industry unlike any other. In this business, hardly anything happens without people connecting in some pretty significant ways. And things happen badly when that connection is a weak one.

I was reminded of all this when I spent a recent weekend with the owners and/or senior executives of several major Canadian fleets and a few senior supplier folks. Doing fun stuff, no suits or ties, and my pen was firmly down. We talked about kids and dogs and racing cars, almost anything but The Business. We were connecting.

Laughter prevailed, yet one serious comment about trucking arose from amidst the frivolity and it lingers: “It’s easier to find customers than drivers.”

It’s hardly an earth-shattering insight to say that filling the left seat is tough. But it was interesting to hear it put this way and it sums up the industry’s dilemma very efficiently. No matter how you explain it, the problem is huge.

We didn’t pursue the topic, probably wandered off to Harleys and Hummers again, but something struck me: If trucking is an industry largely built on relationships, and for the most part successfully, why do we fail so badly when it comes to the critical link between company owner/manager and driver? Why is there such an “us and them” aspect to this most common connection? How on earth can we break it down?

A week earlier I listened to another man of trucking talk about this in a more formal setting. Michel Lapointe, safety, compliance and risk director at DanFreight Systems in Joliette, Que., was speaking at Markel Professional Transport Training’s first-ever Safety and Innovation conference in Toronto. The school is part of Markel Insurance Company of Canada.

Before I say anything else, let me congratulate Markel for doing this. It was a well-run two-day affair that attracted a surprisingly large crowd, and the list of speakers from both east and west was a very, very good one.

While admitting that DanFreight’s turnover rate remains high, Michel Lapointe appears to have a good fix on and an interesting approach to the driver hiring/retention problem.

“You need to understand drivers’ perceptions,” he said. “You need to define reality. Then you need to align the two.”

What he means, essentially, is that you must first understand the difference between the ideal driver and the ones you actually have, or the ones you can realistically expect to have. On the other hand, drivers must be encouraged–indeed, allowed–to know and understand the company’s reality.

In practice, says Lapointe, that means that the company embrace a key responsibility: “From day one, you have to say it like it is.”

His reality is a group of 100-plus relatively inexperienced, mostly French-speaking drivers who are increasingly reluctant to cross the border into the U.S. The reasons are many and obvious, and they explain the problem of high turnover. Yet cross-border freight is also the company’s reality.

The DanFreight story is worth pursuing further, which I’ll do in a future issue. For now, I have another “people” issue to talk about, this one from within our own offices at Today’s Trucking.

If, unlike me, you read the front of the magazine first, you’ll know that editor Stephen Petit is going home to Seattle to pursue an independent writing career. I hired him 11 years ago after a mighty informal interview at my kitchen table, and it was a smart decision. Stephen’s a good man, a good editor, and he’s been a good friend to you folks from day one. He’ll continue writing for us regularly, so it’s not a total goodbye, but I’m sorry to see him go.

As it happens, it’s no easier to find experienced trucking editors than it is to find seasoned drivers. The pool is tiny. But we had the good sense to bring Peter Carter onto our team a year ago as managing editor. Making him editor was a no-brainer, and it made Stephen’s departure a lot easier to deal with.

Peter’s journalistic credentials are utterly impeccable and his experience is broad and varied. We’re impressed by Peter, and we think you will be too as he puts his own stamp on the magazine in the years ahead.

The youngest of 10 children in a family that operated a bus line in Sudbury, Ont., Peter’s interest in transportation is well grounded. He studied journalism at Carleton University and proceeded to win awards on everything from northern Ontario newspapers to Canadian Business magazine. They include, impressively, the Governor General Roland Michener Award for Meritorious Public Service Journalism. He’s had the editorship of both Harrowsmith Country Life magazine and the Metropolitan Toronto Business Journal, as well as the senior editor role at Financial Post magazine.

Clearly, while you’ll see more of me for a time, Peter is perfectly able to continue the long established tradition of award-winning journalism at Today’s Trucking. Our simple mandate — to help you make a buck — is in good hands.