Are you a fleet manager who feels like you are standing just on the precipice of real success? Perhaps you are looking for better ways to motivate and coach your people. The fact is, if you are looking to strengthen your organization’s culture, from safety to recruiting, there are specific steps you must take.
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You want to understand truck driver learning curves, decrease turnover, improve back office effectiveness and reduce overall costs. The best part? You can. Today, we will take a look at one such method: in-cab video.
Finding Context in the Conversation
With any sports season kick off, ask yourself how the best coaches get the best out of their teams. Quite frankly, they play the tape. They go back and watch video. This is how they determine the best and worst behaviors; how they uncover best practices.
They understand the value of in-game film in helping their players reach their full potential. These systems are used in evaluating truck driver performance, safety and overall organizational risk.
We live in the age of technology and trucking. It’s a marriage. Fleets have new ways of approaching how they get the most out of their people. In the end, you want your people to get a more detailed view of what is actually going on out there on the roads with your company’s equipment.
What You Need to Do
To break a behavior, you must first identify it. When a truck driver or technician carries through with a risky behavior, you must not only address it, but understand why it happened in the first place. Since safety managers can’t spend every waking moment with the fleet’s truck drivers, video event recorders provide a mechanical set of eyes where humans may not always be able to be.
They can help truck drivers take note of any hiccups during the operation of their vehicle. These systems not only help the safety managers; they help the truck drivers themselves. They can help strengthen the culture of an organization.
When you take the time to show your people you are confirming their habits with a video event recorder, there can be no ambiguity in the feedback, whether it is positive or negative. This is good for all parties involved.
Helping The New Guy and Decreasing Turnover
Using video event recording is especially effective when you are bringing new or inexperienced truck drivers into your fleet. It also gives your fleet or safety manager an effective look into how well the new employee learns complex concepts or difficult vehicle operation.
The fact is, when people are recognized for hard work, and when they are given the tools to succeed – of which video event recording is one – they are better able to not only handle the job at hand, but excel at it.
On the other side of helping the new guy sits managing turnover. Show your people you are investing in their success by staying on top of the latest trends in technology.
When people know there is an objective eye keeping track of what they are up to, it incentivizes them to do better. They know that they won’t be subject to coercion when the video event recorder is keeping a keen eye on what is going on both inside and outside the cab.
The final cog in the video event recording wheel lies in preventative vehicle maintenance. When a truck driver is aware that a potential action could trigger a video, they may adjust their driving behavior. Technologies like drive cams and external inputs can keep an eye on certain events and record a video when said event occurs.
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As the cost of new vehicles and components only rises by the year, it is incumbent on a responsible fleet manager to be doing all he or she can to keep costs down and truck drivers happy. Video event recording systems are one way to do this.