Filling the seat

Often you’ll hear me say that trucking is a “people” industry unlike any other. Jewelry-retailing sure isn’t, steel-making doesn’t come close. In trucking, hardly anything happens unless people connect in significant ways. And things go bad when that connection is a weak one.

I was reminded of 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 in sight, and my pen was firmly down. We talked about kids and dogs and racing cars, almost anything but The Business, in fact. 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. Filling the left seat is tough. But it sums up the industry’s dilemma efficiently. We didn’t pursue the topic, probably wandered off to Harleys and Hummers again, but something struck me. If trucking is an industry built on relationships, 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?
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 conference on safety and innovation conference in Toronto. The school is part of Markel Insurance Co. 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 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 is high, Lapointe has a good fix on 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 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, Lapointe said, “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 United States. 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 you’ve read his editorial on page 13, you’ll know that after five years as 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.

It’s no easier to find experienced trucking editors than it is to find seasoned drivers. But we had the good sense to bring Peter Carter onto our team a year ago as managing editor. Making him editor makes Stephen’s departure an awful lot easier to deal with.

Peter’s journalistic credentials are impeccable and his experience is broad and varied. We’re impressed with 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 a few national magazines. 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 the 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.