How to Promote Fleet Safety in Your Business
If you’re managing a business fleet, you’re always thinking about how to meet long-term goals for your business. Whether you’re trying to beat last year’s progress in terms of customer satisfaction or savings, you’re always trying to keep your business running smoothly no matter what kind of issues come up on the road. Promoting driver safety is a huge part of this. If your drivers aren’t trained to stay safe on the road, they could be not only putting their shipment at risk but compromising your business’s reputation. If you’re trying to manage a business fleet safety and efficiently, here are a few tips to keep in mind.
Don’t Slack on Training
Your drivers all come from different backgrounds and most likely have varying levels of experience on the road. Because of this, your training procedure needs to be clear and consistent, giving drivers a chance to learn not just what’s best for their own personal safety, but what’s best for the company overall. Your fleet will succeed when you manage to create a reputation for consistent, reliable service. For this reason, your drivers all need to be on the same page when it comes to best safety practices. Installing the right tracking app can be a huge help with this. If you’re able to track your drivers’ patterns and progress on the road, you’ll be able to ensure that the training process doesn’t end in one or two sessions: Your drivers will know that they always need to be improving on the road. If it’s part of the expectation for the job, they’ll take it seriously and work harder to get up to standard.
Offer Consistent Criticism
Your drivers look to you for guidance both on the road and off. When you work hard to foster an honest, open relationship with your drivers based on forward communication and attention to detail, you’ll create a business culture that sets up an expectation of excellence. That’s why giving each driver personalized notes after each job is a great way not only to create a better fleet but to strengthen your relationship with each driver. Even though it might sound like a lot of work, most tracking apps will give you a driver report after each job with all the details you need to give a driver helpful, honest feedback. It will even let you know how a specific driver is doing with one vehicle as opposed to another so that you can work on MPG optimization and increased driver safety during re-training sessions.
Track MPGs and Driver Progress
If you’re in the habit of increasing driver safety while cutting fuel costs, you’ll already be keeping track of each driver’s fuel usage on the road. Luckily, keeping tabs on the rising cost of gas isn’t something you need to worry about with the WatchCard nationwide fuel card. If you’re doing all you can to save money on gas, you can focus on getting your drivers to operate at a consistent standard when it comes to fuel usage. If you’re noticing that a certain driver is using too much gas after a job, you might want to look at their report for signs of speeding or idling for more than 15-minutes at a time. If this issue keeps coming up, use your tracking app to put out alerts, install cameras to ensure driver safety, and think about using a guided driving system that will help drivers pay closer attention to basic safety protocols.
Prioritize On-Road Protocol
If your drivers need some extra motivation when it comes to staying safe, there are many ways to incentivize safe practices. However, before rewarding drivers for their caution on the road, think about other ways that you can make driver safety a company-wide issue. Set up events or lunch seminars that discuss driver safety on a larger scale. Try to create an understanding among drivers that getting the job done fast isn’t the top priority, and that speed doesn’t have to come at the cost of safety. If you take the time to get your drivers to understand that safety is a bigger issue than just strapping on a seatbelt and paying attention to stop lights, they’ll be more likely to focus on upping their game on the road.
Use Safety as a Savings Measure
When your drivers are working hard and driving safely, you’re not only protected from the risk of safety and compliance violations, you’re saving gas, maintaining vehicles responsibly, and protecting your company from costly lawsuits. That’s why it’s so important to make safety a priority for everyone in your fleet. Don’t even feel like you have to skimp when it comes to safety training. Even if it costs a bit more to create more training sessions or after-work classes on enhanced driver safety, you’ll be saving your company money in the long run.