One of the things I really like about the trucking industry is that there are so many opportunities to be exposed to new ideas and learn new things. One such opportunity was at the National Private Truck Council's Annual Conference and Ehibition (NPTC) held in the spring.
After attending the various workshops, members of the Transervice team and I came away with a lot of things to think about and consider implementing to improve our operations.
Why driver scorecards improve performance and engagement
One of the presentations focused on creating a scorecard for drivers. The presenter shared that drivers want feedback on a regular basis to know how they are performing. A monthly scorecard seems like a good way to accomplish this.
The scorecard can include things like the driver’s average miles per gallon, time spent in idle, numbers for speeding events, instances of harsh braking and incomplete stops, on-time performance, and CSA scores. In reality, you can develop a scorecard that contains whatever driver-related metrics are important to your fleet.
Develop the same scorecard for every driver or tailor the scorecards to fit the individual driver. The goal is to give drivers regular feedback on their performance. However, remember to focus on their positive achievements and provide coaching to help improve the items where driver performance falls below expectation. And as always, praise drivers in public and coach them privately.
The good news with scorecards is that most of the data comes from telematics devices, making it unbiased and enabling the person coaching the driver to highlight real incidents where drivers performed exceptionally well, as well as times when performance fell below an acceptable standard.
