4 Payroll Improvements That Impact Driver Turnover

By: John Renier, PTI Controller

In trucking, there are three basic factors that drive the success of any company that affect driver turnover: Get them rolling, get them paid, and get them home. These three items must work together and if any one of these elements is out of sync, then it can have a big impact on driver turnover. Let’s take a closer look at getting them paid.

When people think about what causes driver turnover, they tend to focus simply on the rates that drivers are paid or tacking on a huge bonus that’s paid over the duration of the driver’s time with the company. What they often fail to look closely at is this: the process that is used to pay them. We’ve invested significant resources over the past 3 years to make our driver’s payroll experience better and found significant improvements in driver turnover.

I believe the improvements listed below have helped to improve driver turnover. Not in a way that is specifically measurable, but as a part of the culture we create for all employees: understanding their needs and making improvements to meet those needs.

• Improved Frequency: Changed from biweekly to weekly pay to help drivers manage personal cash flow.
• Increase Transparency: Reformatted the driver settlement sheet to better illustrate total pay per mile, not just the linehaul rate, so that our drivers have a better understanding of what they are being paid for and make easier comparisons to what other trucking companies are paying.
• Shifted to Digital: Created a process to email weekly settlements and paystubs to drivers every Wednesday rather than mailing paper copies every Thursday. This helped our drivers get visibility to their weekly deposit amount earlier, which again helped them manage personal cash flow.
• Make Reimbursement Faster: Made it easier for our drivers to be reimbursed for load related expenses. Now they can submit the reimbursement on their tablet rather than having to go to a scan station. This allows them to submit the reimbursement faster and with more convenience.

As you can see, trucking companies can do more than just increase linehaul rates to improve driver turnover. By looking at the entire process and not just the end result we were able to make dramatic improvements. What processes are you aware of that need to be updated and what can you do to drive change?