The CarriersEdge Podcast | Episode #107
Mark: Hello, and welcome episode one hundred and seven of The CarriersEdge Podcast. I'm Mark Murrell. Forgetting how I normally introduce myself, co-founder of CarriersEdge and joined by my longtime co-host.
Jane: Jane Jazrawy, other co-founder of wait. No. Not co yeah. I'm a co-founder of CarriersEdge I forgot too.
Mark: You are a co-funder. Absolutely
Jane: Co-founder and founder.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: Founder and funder and co-host with you. So welcome.
Mark: Yes. Welcome, everybody. Well, I'm not sure what we're going to get up to in this episode because I don't have a formalized agenda like I often do, so we're going to see where the conversation takes us, but we've got lots of things on the go over the next few weeks that we can talk about. And I am happy to report as a beginning that my jaw is less sore. This is breaking news for everybody here that's listening.
I'm sure is most interested in the state of my personal well-being, but it's been a rough few weeks and I've been measuring the state of the day by how saw how sore my jaw is. And of that feeling like you've had major dental work and the freezing just wore off. Yeah. I've been clenching a lot during the day, but I'm getting better. Today is better than it's been.
Jane: You've got pain free day?
Mark: Maybe it's close to pain free. I'm aware of it.
Jane: Okay.
Mark: It isn't actively hurting.
Jane: It might be that you stopped and that it's still smarting.
Mark: I think it's that.
Jane: Having a, you know, a clenched jaw for most of the last twenty years. I I understand.
Mark: It's not fun. Yes.
Jane: It is not fun. Is not fun. And if you do this, you should definitely get a night guard from your dentist because you will lose your teeth.
Mark: I'm feeling like I'm chewing through my night guard like it's
Jane: That's fine. Like chew through that. It's better than chewing through your own teeth.
Mark: True true dat.
Jane: So if you're having that and it can be like I think for me it's stress, but you can have it even when you're not stressed. So if you grind your teeth at night or clench your teeth at night, so it's one of those things that, it will save you a lot of dental bills if you realize that you do it early. It is not fashionable or beautiful or in any way attractive, but it does save your teeth.
Mark: It is not conducive to speaking clearly.
Jane: No. No. Especially the one that you have.
Mark: Yeah. It's kept me from wearing it during the day because I probably should be wearing my mouth guard during the day.
Jane: You can wear it when you're not speaking.
Mark: But then I'm just taking it out all the time for every call. So that's my challenge. Yes. My status reports for the last several weeks have all been memes from the old movie airplane with the 'It looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking' and 'I picked the wrong week to quit amphetamines' and sniffing glue and all of that.
So hopefully this week ends up better. We are starting off okay, this week, and we are on the upswing. That's what I'm going to say.
Jane: Alright. Good.
Mark: So a couple of things to talk about something that's come up over the last few weeks that's been really interesting for me to watch and this is not one that I think you're expecting me to mention, but I'm gonna talk about it because it's really noteworthy and that is the fantastic subject of air brakes.
Jane: Air brakes. Yeah. It has been a, it has been a subject. We are doing we're basically putting Rolf Vanderzwaag's practical air brakes course that is already out and is is being offered by CVSA.
Mark: The only air brake course endorsed by CVSA.
Jane: Right. And we're taking that content and we're putting into into our system. What we're doing is kind of rejigging it a bit, and so we're making it, so it kind of flows a little bit better in an instructional way. And as we do it, we're coming up with questions or Tiffany is coming up with questions that are hard to answer sometimes. And then it gets into more gets into multiple answers and kind of conflicting answers and the usual.
Mark: Yeah. Well, I think it's been interesting to watch for me because Tiffany is a a very serious researcher, nearly as as serious as you are. So when she's got this material, it's not just go through the material and learn it, it's go and ask questions at the chapter of of the Fleet Safety Council. I think she went and took an air brakes course or went to a workshop on these things and go and look at a brake board and ask questions about every little piece of it and how it works.
And when people are not just trying to get through a course and get to the end and get a certificate, when they actually do want to know all the nuances of the subject, they will ask a lot of questions, especially when they're not afraid of, you know, looking like they don't know it, when they freely admit, I don't know it, and I'm learning it. That is a recipe for a lot of questions. And so Tiffany has been doing a lot of research and coming out of that is a lot of things that don't really seem to be that well established in the industry where people have got conflicting opinions or they say, no, this must be absolutely covered in the air brakes course. And then other people say no way you can't talk about that. That's not how we do it anymore. And both sides are entrenched and pretty sure that they are the established standard. So
Jane: Do you have an example of that because I can't remember where that came up. Is this about braking?
Mark: It might have been braking. It might have been this thing on the hill.
Jane: Yeah. The braking on steep grades or, like, how you use your brakes on a steep grade or a mountain or a steep hill. I I'd rather call it a grade because when you're talking about grades then, like, they're usually serious. It's not just a hill where you're just going down a little bit and it's very short. We're talking the long steep ones that go on for a couple of kilometers and you've got a percentage sign at the beginning.
Those ones. And what happened was that Tiffany had looked at oh, no Rolf had sent me a copy of what he had done for Trucking HR. Actually, I think he just sent me a link to it. So Trucking HR has all of these different documents on their site, they're freely available to the industry, and one was best practices on how to ascend and descend a grade.
And I don't know if that's the wording or not, but it does basically what it is. And there's tons of information on this all over the place. If you look up the the Internet, Jim Park has a great series video series that he did with TruckNews on on doing this and what you do with your brakes. So it's not so much about how air brakes work. I think that there's, you you know, there's a lot of information about how air brakes work, and it's, you know, pretty accepted.
But it's how not how they work, but how you use them.
Mark: Well, continue with that, but I'm gonna come back to it and add another thought on there because it is about the brakes as well. There have been items about how the brakes should be illustrated and all of those things. And at the same time, we don't just wanna put it a course that is, here's how this piece of machinery works. We always have to have the context and all of the background and why it matters, why you should care, why it isn't always the same, why it changes based on the scenarios, all of that kind of stuff because that's the holistic approach.
Jane: Right. And it's very important when you're on a grade because how you how you approach it and how you descend all of there's so many variables that go into how all of that works that you can't just say, oh, here's how to do it. A plus b plus c equals you know, we got down the hill and this is all great. It doesn't work that way. You have to think about how steep the grade is. What's what's the weather like? Are you using your engine brakes? You're not using your engine brakes? Are you, like, have you checked your engine? Like, should you have changed? Like, there are so many different variables. And the truck itself, do you have a heavy load? Is it a light load? You know, what kind of, you know, how are your manufacturers guidelines? Like, do you even know where those are? Do you have one of the what do those things called a book? The manuals. Do you have one? Does your carrier have it? Did they give it to you? Is there a copy in existence? How old is your truck? It's like, a billion reasons or a billion things to keep in mind. And what it comes down to is you have to know your vehicle and you have to understand how engine brakes work and you have to understand how your air brakes work in conjunction and also ABS brakes. So your ABS system is coming into into play here if it's slippery.
And all of these variables make it so that there isn't a particular rule for going up and down a steep grade. And we have been Over the last little while, we have been kind of trying to explore what all of these theories are because there was early on and in our first course, the idea of not pumping the brakes, but snubbing the brakes. So you actually when you're going down a hill, you use your engine brake. But if you're going too fast, you can you can, like, kind of lightly use your your regular brake or use the air brakes, and then but only, like, for a couple of seconds, then you take your feet off. And then when you're going too fast, then you you can do it again. That is not technically a good way to do it. You can, and the manufacturers will say that you can, but you shouldn't. But sometimes you can.
And sometimes you should, but not always. Oh my. It's been insane.
Mark: Yeah. How to turn that into a course?
Jane: Yeah. Well, that's kinda what we have this not a lot, but, you know, it's calmed down quite a fair bit since we first started. When we first started, this was everything. You know, everything was like, well, if you do this, then you do this, and in this case, and this and this particular scenario, and you're like, okay, come on. Like, give me give me this sort of general gist, like, how do you make the decision? And that's what I think we do now is we try to put as much information about how to make a decision when you're driving as possible.
Mark: Yes. Yeah. You wanna put all of that information out there and give people the context so they can be informed and understand why there is no black and white answer. Why there are so many different options. And so you guys have been doing, you as collectively, the content group, the research side, have been doing a lot of this work and asking some really good questions and getting some really good feedback and seeing that there are a lot of different opinions out there and trying to piece it all together. So it's been interesting to watch for me because it's another reminder of all the work that goes into a course. And a part of a course that may end up being one sentence on one page of one lesson.
Jane: It's definitely not a long part of it. And they when you were talking about the diagram, so Tiff is and most of the work has been done by Tiffany. I mean, I can't take credit for that. At all. I kinda come in when I need to connect her with someone who well, I connected her with Rolf. I connected her with Jim. We had to really get talk with Jim Park about what drivers experience, like the kinds of so they you know, the fact that they're told to, engine brakes work really well at a certain revs per minute. So hard RPMs engine brakes work the best at a certain at a certain level of RPM, but it's higher than you would think. But then at the same time, carriers want you to conserve fuel, so they tell you to stay at lower RPMs cause that conserves fuel or wait? Is it no.
Mark: Yes
Jane: I think that's right.
Mark: Yeah. Lower RPM uses less fuel.
Jane: So but the thing is when you're going down a steep grade, you're not using any fuel. But because it's a rule, drivers are getting dinged on their performance metrics by when they're going down having it revving higher. So even though they're not using more fuel because the truck is sending back the, you know, the information that you're at a higher RPM, that the carriers are interpreting that the wrong way. So it's it it one of those.
Mark: The AI based scorecard is not accurate?
Jane: Well, technology has to catch up with what's actually going on in the industry, and I don't know if this is
Mark: That's not an AI thing in most cases
Jane: I don't think so.
Mark: It's a lack of
Jane: I think it's just technology reporting the wrong thing.
Mark: Well, it's a lack of refinement because reporting that is fine, but they should also be reporting the slope of the road. And recognize that on certain slopes, a higher RPM is not not just not a problem, but is actually a good thing.
Jane: Yeah it's
Mark: They take advantage of the breaking and they're not really doing that. They're just saying, high RPMs bad.
Jane: And I don't think it's everybody. I think it's I mean, obviously, if you drive in the mountains a lot, then that's going to be you probably have already solved this problem, but it's for, I think for inexperienced safety managers, risk staff
Mark: People that are just putting out starting to get going with a scorecard that tracks these things.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: That's the kind of bit of detail that you need to add in there in order to accurately measure.
Jane: And that's something where driver feedback is gonna give you a lot of good information where, you know, where you you ask drivers or talk to drivers about what's going on with their with what the readouts are. And talk to them about the types of routes that they had, where they were, when they were, you know, when they were recording this information. And, like, don't look at the data in a vacuum, like include other people in it, and talked about talk to them about why certain things are happening. Because even when it looks like data is giving you, you know, this fact, it doesn't necessarily mean very much unless you look at it in context.
Mark: Yeah. You have to look at where the truck was when that happened. Ask the driver what was going on. And it's not gonna be long before you get a lot of answers are while I was going down the grade and I used my engine brakes.
Jane: Yeah. Something like that.
Mark: And then you realize, oh, we need to refine the scorecard.
Jane: And I think I mean, this is that's the kind of thing that's not gonna make it into the course, but it's good to know. It's good to have that understanding about where, you know, where things are kind of missed. And it's important that and that's the Best Fleets thing is, like, where are these little gaps that you don't even realize are there?
Mark: Yeah. Exactly.
Jane: And how do you close them?
Mark: Yeah. So that, for me, has been very enjoyable to watch.
Jane: Yeah. And you're able to watch. It's not enjoyable to do. It is oh, my god. It's hard on your brain when you're trying to think, okay. Because I I remember I sent an email to Jim Park and asked him, you know, about it was one thing about, do you use engine brakes in when it's slippery? Like, what would you is that a thing to do? Because we wanna I just wanted to make sure and he came back with an answer that I was expecting. And then I got another answer from him the next day, which is like, well, there's this case and this case and this case and I thought, okay, you know, I can't do this in email anymore. And it was hurting my brain because I'm also not writing actively anymore. So that whole writing process of trying to ingest this information and know it and be able to spit it back out in a in a way that is what people will understand is getting a little bit harder for me to do. And if this is one of the hardest parts of I think this is the hardest part of being a driver is how do you how do you manage adverse conditions and use your and use the the technology on your truck. Like, use your engine brakes so that you don't, you know, you don't have to use a runaway runaway ramp.
Mark: Yeah. Well, it's tricky because you think you've got it and then, oh, wet changes it. Oh, temperature changes it. Oh, snow in the air changes it. Like, it could be all these different things that actually changes the rules.
Jane: But if you think about it, when you were heavier, you are more you you you can inflict more damage around the the things around you. So if you're an eighty thousand pound truck or an eighty thousand pound vehicle and you have not only are you not you're eighty thousand pounds, but you're also, you know, you have a have a waist and you can your bottom half can swing back and forth.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: And you may or may not be able to control it. Like, the more the heavier you are the more damage you're going to inflict if you can't control the movement. It's I think it's hard for new drivers to understand that what they can do in your passenger vehicle which just goes is just straight line. Right? And you can do a lot of damage in just a passenger vehicle, but you're just you're just you're not you don't have any that waist where what would you call it when you can swing around?
Mark: Like swivel or
Jane: Yeah. Like that swivel point. You don't have that swivel point. You're just like you're going you're pointing in a direction and you go and you might hit things on either side, but you're too close to them. But when a tractor trailer and you've got that swinging and that pivot, that's a whole thing.
Mark: Note for the record that Jane is acting out, the swinging in the pivot right now.
Jane: But think how dangerous that is. And when you're when you have weather and the roads, you know, having having all of these different variables in there, you've really got to understand the effects, the physics of it all.
Mark: Yeah. Well, and you say it's a painful
Jane: I think it's painful to watch me pivot.
Mark: Painful to go through and figure this out, but this is also why it needs to be done because it isn't documented anywhere. Like, you you're not having an easy time with this because there's no single source of information. That you can find and you and Tiffany and Deanna that's also working on it are actively seeking these things. So a driver who's just trying to fill in the gaps and doesn't have hours to do research on it they're lost. They're dead before they even start basically.
Jane: Well, what they do is they get behind the wheel and they go down a they go down a steep grade and their brakes, you know, catch on fire.
Mark: Yeah. Or they don't know where they hope for the best or they they rely on what one instructor told them years ago or what the road trainer is telling them now, which may or may not be accurate, is all based on that person's particular experience. It's not documented. It is the central challenge of this industry where nothing is written down.
Jane: Well, it's starting to become more written down.
Mark: Yeah. A bit by bit, but there's
Jane: There's no.
Mark: A lot of stuff that should have been written down a long time ago.
Jane: There's a lot of play, there's a lot of a lot of information and it's not definitive. It's it's kinda. Now, I would say there is information written down it's just dubious sometimes. It depends on you really have to know your sources and figure out where the best information is coming from.
Sometimes it's not coming from the government regulations. Those are not the best. Sometimes it's insurance companies that are giving you the best information. Sometimes it's, you know, it's just how we've always done it and it's and it's worked so far. So I think though that for this particular driving down steep grades, I think we've kind of got it.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: And it's kind of a mixture of all of it and and part of it is and I just want to say one thing that Jim said that I really think is important is that if you think you're you've screwed it up, come to a stop and start again. Like, stop on the on the grade. Like, just stop at the side of the road. Put your flashers. Oh, you don't even have to stop for very long.
He's said all you have to do is come to a complete stop and then start again and keep control of your speed because he said that the key is to go slow.
Mark: Interesting.
Jane: Just don't go fast. Go slow. Slower you go, the safer you are.
And I like the idea of, you know, just stop. And it's true, you know, like people don't do it. People will try and keep control and keep going and sometimes it is just a good idea to just, you know, if you're just not feeling confident, get to the side of the road, and put their blinkers on.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: It is. I've done it.
Mark: Yeah. Interesting.
Jane: I don't know if you've done it.
Mark: No. I haven't done it going down a hill but it's a good idea
Jane: It's not a guy thing. What's that?
Mark: I don't go down a lot of hills where I have these issues.
Jane: No. It's not hills so much. It's just being in a dangerous situation.
Mark: Oh, I've definitely done that. Like, it's super heavy rain and you can't see anything. You just pull over and put your put your flashers on and and just wait it out. Right? Sometimes that's the best thing to do.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: But yeah, it's good to remember as well for this. So lots happening there, lots of research. And how is our progress on this course? Do we have an ETA when we think it's going to be done yet?
Jane: I think it's gonna be the New Year.
Mark: Oh, it's still got a few months then?
Jane: Well, the actual writing of it is done
Mark: Right.
Jane: Or nearly done. I think that Deanna I think Tiffany's finished it, and Deanna's reviewing it, and I have to look at it. I think part of the issue is that we have to kind of take apart all the graphics and put them back together again. Because the way that we have laid out the course, we do it differently because we take all the words that are being said and put them on the page. And people I don't think they realize how much, how many words are hidden in the voiceover.
Mark: Yeah. If they're not having the voiceover match.
Jane: Right.
Mark: What's on screen.
Jane: And so what people do is they'll have all of this information in voiceover that gets completely missed
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: By a lot of people because they don't see it. They don't see the words written on the on the page. And that's why we always have the words written on the page. It helps. When you hear them and you see them at the same time, it gives you that same, you know, gives you that kind of emphasized.
And so we're not putting a lot of words on the page because we want to bore people to tears. We're putting them on there because they're there any way. When other people do courses that are just video, those they're the same amount of words. It's just what they're doing is just they're just blathering on without having or they're using a script, but you would really like to see that script.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: If you really wanted to understand the content.
Mark: Yeah. For sure. So we've got the writing done, and you said I was gonna make that note as well that we have to build these things a little bit differently to fit into our templates and to make sure they run nicely through mobile and through all of the different devices that we have to have things running on. So it's going to be a little while before all of that is pieced together and ready to go.
Jane: Well, it would be very cool to see it. Well, I don't know if we can talk about it, but we're working on a new mobile app that
Mark: Yep. I think I did talk about that in the previous episode.
Jane: Well, one of the things that I'm really excited to see is how the content gets kind of moved into mobile into a mobile interface because we're not just taking the course and kind of running it on a browser over the web. Now we're actually trying to make it native content, and it's totally different approach.
Mark: Yes.
Jane: So I'm very excited to see that. And I am interested in like, we have a lot of visuals from this air brake course from Rolf, but I wanna see how it looks. We're going to clean them up a little bit. We're gonna rearrange them. And also, the original course doesn't have the entire brake system diagram.
It takes different parts of the system and it puts it in like, it puts it in the various places in the course. But what happened in but what Tiffany has done is she's created kind of her own little brake board.
Mark: Mhmm. Nice.
Jane: And a brake board is really useful because you can go and you can press the brake pedal or you can, you know, pull out one of the valves and you can see what happens with the brakes because every single part of the brake is is on this 3D, you know, people actually have them all set up on a board.
Mark: So is Berenice going to do a 3D animated
Jane: No.
Mark: Model of a brake system?
Jane: I would love to. It probably isn't gonna be 3D. We have a lot of pictures and stuff. We're gonna do a diagram. We're gonna have a diagram.
And that was something else that we had to sort out because there's like these this one little part I can't remember it's something with the tractor supply valve where there's a little valve, a little connector that there is some disagreement about whether it's there or not.
Mark: That was one of the other things I was thinking of. Yes. The valve that maybe should or should not be there.
Jane: Yeah. And that is to be determined. I don't know. I I have to wait and see. It seems that newer air brakes don't have it.
Mark: Okay.
Jane: But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have it at all. It's I'd have to see it in the context before I make a decision on that. But I know about it. I don't remember what it does, but Tiffany knows what it does.
Mark: Yeah. So it's
Jane: Yeah. That's fun.
Mark: Yeah. That is a good summary of what I've been hearing about air brakes and the state of braking and how we're handling that in our content. Very good. And it will be exciting to have that out there when it's finally done. Also exciting coming up two weeks from today, we are going to be at MCE at ATA's annual event happening in Nashville this year, and we are once again doing an education session.
And you are going to be joined by two Best Fleets to talk about something that I was very proud of when I came up with this description for the session.
Jane: Yes
Mark: But I don't remember exactly what it was. I think Great Workplaces in a Terrible Economy.
Jane: Yes. That's it it. That's what it is. Great Workplaces in a Terrible Economy.
Mark: Might as well call a spade a spade. Right? There's no point in pretending that the economy is good or anything other than dismal. But what are the Best Fleets doing to make life a little bit less miserable for their drivers to try and make it as pleasant as possible for their drivers.
Jane: Is that you want me to answer that question right now?
Mark: Well, that's the question that you are going to answer in this session, and you're going to be joined by Emory from FTC Transportation. Hall of Famer, and Brad from Continental Express, a multiyear Best Fleet to two different sized fleets, doing different types of work with different histories with the program, but both providing very positive workplace experiences for their drivers and with lots to share. So I think it's gonna be a very cool session. I think people kind of don't really consider that they need to keep investing and building a good workplace when times are tough, and it can be easy to get distracted and focus just on cutting costs. But eventually, that pendulum is gonna swing and you're gonna want those drivers to be there and be loyal and be sticking around.
And you're gonna want to be thinking about what you can do now so that they are well positioned to capitalize on the freight when it materializes at some point in the future. So these fleets have got some good things that they've been doing. Most of these people have been through a couple of downturns before they've had some experiences with this, so I think it will be a good session.
Jane: Well, it's interesting because both of these fleets have grown. They seem to be doing fine. And in fact, Continental Express had, you know, a significant number more drivers than they had last year and because I had to I was I was they were on their radio with me a while ago, and I was checking to make sure I had the right count. And I was kinda surprised to see that they're doing well, which is which is really good because I think one of the things that
Mark: Surprised to see that they're doing well. Pleasantly surprised.
Jane: Yes. Well, everybody I everybody is, like, going on and on and on about the economy and how difficult it is. So and some fleets are not are you know, they're okay. They're not growing
Mark: A lot of them are kind of getting by.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Shrinking.
Jane: And absolutely rightly so makes total amount of sense to me. But it just happened that the two that I picked were growing. Which I was like, yeah, that's cool. And I don't know if I don't know if it has to do with being a Best Fleet or not? Or how it's happening?
And it probably is may or may not be related. I'm not talking about that. But what is nice is that when you see Best Fleets who are returning and returning and returning and you see how they manage the ups and downs. And one of the things well, there's two things. One is they might cut money from programs, but they don't cut the programs themselves that the actual the the part of the program that's important kinda stays.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: So if there is if it's a way of asking for feedback, then they keep that program. They may change it to make it a little less or more less costly, but they still they still keep it. They're not saying, oh, I'm not doing this for I'm not doing this for drivers. I'm not doing this for drivers. They may look for things like cheaper benefits maybe or they may try and, you know, take out the perks a little bit like maybe take off, you know, find a cheaper way to or, like, look at camera manufacturers or something. Like, look at their technology and see where they can they can make some not necessarily cuts, but some savings. But they don't just cut stuff. They don't say, okay, we're not doing this anymore. You know, no more of this program, no more no more health and wellness programs. We we can't afford it.
We can't do that. They keep them going. All the time. And they keep the drivers included all the time so that even when they have to shrink a little bit, they haven't they aren't really cutting. So there's a difference between just cutting things and shrinking them a little bit.
And I think that's how people get through.
Mark: I think we've seen that before that the Best Fleets when they are faced with obstacles like this tend to slow down and maybe scale back without actually turning something off.
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: And it's smart move because then when the economy changes and they want to get going, those things are still going and you're just speeding them up.
Jane: Right.
Mark: This way, the difference from having an engine that's idling or you slow down the engine to an idle and then you can just accelerate later versus turning the engine off and then it's cold and you've got to start it up and let it warm up and go through all of that before you can actually get going again. So it's a smart move if you can in any way keep things rolling a little bit even in a smaller capacity so that later on when you're ready, you can ramp up much more quickly. So when the
Jane: Like turning on a tap.
Mark: Yeah. When the upturn comes, they're going to be positioned better to really take advantage and grow from there.
Jane: Yeah. Absolutely.
Mark: Well, it should be a good conversation. And I think you're probably going to include some stats and some things that we found as we were looking through the data about what drivers like, what drivers think about different things and making sure that that is included as well so that people have a good sense of the things the drivers value and what their positions are. You had a good conversation when we did our conference back in April. You had a really good session about drivers anxiety and sort of their just stress about the economy in general, and it always seems to manifest in requests for more pay. But really what they're asking for is more information more stability or more understanding, more communication.
Like, it always comes out as paid, but isn't necessarily paid that they're after.
Jane: And I think that's the case, like, pretty much with everybody, it's yeah. I can't remember that. That's a good point that where people call it pay, but it isn't really pay. It's more can I rely on this? Or is there something that you know, how will I know what happens? How will I know am I gonna get the miles? Or what's the stability like? And that's kind of where that's coming from? But yeah, I have to go back and look at it because that was there is a lot of request for pay or we need more pay, we need more pay, but it wasn't they would say things like, well, it's always nice to get more pay, but it's not always what they actually want.
I know that I just talked gobbling gook there.
Mark: Well, this is our prep for your session. I said we would use the podcast to
Jane: Yeah.
Mark: Figure out what we're going to talk about in
Jane: It's just making me think that I have to go back and read my notes.
Mark: Yep. But now you know where to look.
Jane: Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Mark: Yes. So, yeah, that should be a good session. When we do our next episode, that will be finished. And I expect that there will be some media stories about that, so watch for that. Everything should be should be a good a good event.
MCE is always a good event. Shocker, it looks like it's gonna be a little bit smaller this year than in past years. Fewer exhibitors, fewer people registered on the initial registration list, but I think it'll still be still be a good event. Always good to catch up with people and get a chance to see people that we haven't seen for a while now. You're staring at me like with a stone face.
Jane: Oh, am I? Sorry.
Mark: I don't know if that means you're looking forward to that event or you don't want me to talk about that event?
Jane: No. No. No. You talk about the event. I think I'm just I I think I was just, like, listening to you that's all.
Mark: Well, that's a rarity.
Jane: No. And wondering. And wondering what you were gonna throw at me now.
Mark: You've been very busy talking. Yeah. You've got a lot of presentation slash speeches scheduled over the the next little while. So you have a webinar on translation that you're going to be doing, which should be interesting. You did a couple of podcasts over the past few weeks, other people's podcasts that you were guesting on. So give us some updates on some of those.
Jane: Well, I talked about I did a lot of talking about Best Fleets and why fleets should be part of the program. And I think it's interesting that in a lower economy or in a downturn, people kind of think, okay, I don't need to be part of this because, you know, I don't need drivers right now. And they don't. So we have a smaller number of participants. And what's funny is that as soon as people need drivers, they decide that they're gonna come and try the Best Fleets to Drive For. If if it was me and I was knowing what I know on this end, and if I was at a fleet thinking about doing it, I would do it now.
Mark: Oh, yeah.
Jane: Because the competition
Mark: When you need drivers it's too late.
Jane: The competition is less because people don't. That's true.
Mark: I suppose it is true
Jane: Like, it's the most obvious thing in the world. Like, it's it's easier to get into the top twenty when you're not fighting against, you know, a hundred other or a hundred and fifty other companies.
Mark: Okay. That's a fair point.
Jane: So, like, when we first started when we first started the Best Fleets, There were fleets that got in early on that couldn't get in when the competition started getting hotter. They couldn't get in again. And, you know
Mark: Well, there's that. I was thinking that now is the time to do it because Best Fleets is a process. You go through the evaluation. You get your results. You see how you compare to other people. Then you implement things to kind of continually improve. And after going through that cycle for a year or two years, you're really well positioned. And if you don't start that process until the day you need drivers, it's too late by the time you by the time you get those things in place, it's another downturn. So the best time to do it is now start looking at it a year ago, start getting ready, look at these things, and the people that are here year after year that make the list year after year, they're in it whether it's good times or bad. They're looking at what they can do because they know maybe things are okay now, but there will come a time in the future where we are really needing to bring on drivers and we wanna have everything ready. We wanna be positioned to to run when the time comes to run. And they're the ones that are in good shape. So yes, now is the time to be doing it.
Jane: Well, so yours is the long, boring reason why that you should do your homework and you should, you know, work hard when times are tough and
Mark: Eat your broccoli and you'll be stronger later.
Jane: Exactly. Eat your spinach, eat your broccoli. You know, and then you're not gonna get scurvy later. I know scurvy doesn't come from not eating broccoli, but but the short answer is it's easier to win.
Mark: Odds are better.
Jane: Your odds are better. And Yeah. So I know that most of the best the returning Best Fleets are back in it. So it will be really interesting to see some new blood. I what is interesting about Continental Express who are gonna be with me at ATA, is that they they were nominated, but they didn't participate for a couple years.
Mark: Yeah. They're crafty that way.
Jane: And Garner did the same thing.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: Garner, Garner Trucking, who was our overall winner for the I can't remember what we've called it.
Mark: Stratosphere award
Jane: Stratosphere, I'm thinking superlative.
Mark: The superlative award
Jane: That's in my head. This is what is happening to my brain. It's slowly curdling. I can't remember names of anything anymore. So they went, they did the same thing.
They took a couple of years and they just watched. They sort of asked people about the process and Continental Express actually went through the questionnaire
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: But they didn't participate. So they I guess they were one of the ones who were, you know, not answering our email or anything like that. And then when they were in it, they just they did really well. And so I would say, you don't have to hide. Like, you don't have to not Like, have an interview. If you wanna see how you're gonna do, it's free. Have an interview and see how you do. You don't have to I mean, I'm perfectly fine with what the the idea of I'm not gonna be in it until I can be on the top twenty or I'm not gonna be in it until I think we're there. I think it's a really good tool to try and figure out if you're there.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: And that was one of the things that I've been talking about on these podcasts about, you know, who's eligible, can small fleets do things? Yes, they absolutely can. What should they be doing? And my answer is whatever their drivers want.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: Well, maybe not whatever their drivers want. It's kinda like whatever your kids want. It's never gonna be a good thing.
Mark: But as a collaborative process, you can figure out what's going to work.
Jane: Exactly. You can you can talk to your drivers or you can survey your drivers or have round tables with your drivers and find out what is gonna make their lives better. And it may not be money.
Mark: Yeah. Well, assume that it's not going to be money. They take that off the table. Maybe look at the Best Fleets data, the people that are doing things well over and over again, look at what they're doing and come up with a short list of five or ten things and ask drivers to pick your pick their top three, your top five out of that. And then pool that information to come up with a plan.
Jane: And I think what's really important is not to rely on what the office staff thinks that their drivers want.
Mark: Yes. Do not talk to office staff.
Jane: Well, you can talk to office staff about what office staff wants, but
Mark: Sure.
Jane: Don't ask them what drivers want.
Mark: Yeah.
Jane: Because what they give you is the complaints from drivers.
Mark: And they will give you a filtered version.
Jane: Yes. And they may not know what that actually is. So it's better to, you know, go to your driver driver advisory board, go to some of your senior drivers, talk to your drivers as they come into the building. If they ever do, call your drivers every once in a, you know, have a have a whole bunch of people just call drivers. And actually, that is possibly one of the cheapest ways to make drivers feel happier about being at a company is to talk to them.
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: It's crazy. It's crazy. Just give them a call and say how are you doing? That is, that makes such a huge difference.
Mark: That's not necessarily the job of the fleet manager or the safety manager make it everybody's job.
Jane: Exactly.
Mark: All the executive, customer service, head of operations, head of maintenance, finance people get everybody involved in that. That makes a big difference.
Jane: And then is that gonna be a huge cost to you? Probably not.
Mark: No.
Jane: You're on the phone anyway.
Mark: If every manager has, I don't know, five people a week that they have to call, five phone calls, maybe two hours three hours of your week
Jane: And you spend twenty minutes with one person? Or you know?
Mark: Yeah. A few of the others are going to voicemail. You're not ever talking to them, or you talk to them minutes, ten minutes. And then you have one chatty person that wants to bend your ear for an hour. But, okay, they're generating revenue for you, so give them an hour.
Jane: And I think that it's important to realize that surveys, yes, are easier, and you don't have to do they do cost more to implement if you don't aren't doing, you know, if you're using a survey tool or if you're using a service, but you're not getting that, and I don't have anything against surveys, we use surveys as well, but that in person connection about, you know, how do you feel about what's happening? How are you doing?
What's what's going on in your life? That makes a huge difference to people.
Mark: It's funny that you mentioned that about surveys because we're kind of moving back from that a little bit for our staff surveys, which we were doing twice a year. And we had started originally having an outside HR consultant talk to everybody and she said, well, let's try doing it online and do it anonymous, and maybe people will feel more comfortable giving different answers or something like that. And so we did that a couple of times, and the feedback was pretty much the same as what we were getting through the calls, but it was kind of less actionable because we didn't really know when it's anonymous it's really hard to know the context and know what you should be doing about it. So we've done that through a few cycles now. And I think for the next one, we're actually going to be going back to doing calls, and our HR chief is going to be calling people and talking and talking to team leads and things like that. And there will still be an online component, but those conversations will be much more actionable because she'll be able to take that information massage it so that we're not getting any individual details that we shouldn't be getting, but give us something with the context that we can then act on. And that will make a big difference because getting a survey that you can't do anything about is really frustrating.
Jane: Well, surveys are yes. I would agree. And surveys are you gotta mix it up. You can't just use surveys alone just like you can't use anything on its own. You have to have a whole bunch of different ways of getting feedback. And some of it is, like, one to one conversations. Some of it is surveys. Some of it is anonymous. Some some of it isn't anonymous. And some of it, you have to get through another party. Like, our team leads can funnel information to us as well, kinda like a driver advisory board. And different people can get different information out of people at different times and different ways. And so the more ways that you do it, the better. And I think that's really what we have been saying all along. Is just have a bunch of different ways
Mark: Mhmm.
Jane: To get feedback. And it's never gonna you're not gonna get the magic perfect bullet of how to make your drivers happy or how to make your staff happy in all it's kind of like brakes. It's like how you It's it's not it's not a fixed object. It's not it's not a black and white, you know, equation with a if you put in all the variables, then you're gonna get a perfect answer. It's you have to it's more of an art than a science.
Mark: Mhmm. Lovely
Jane: Tie back
Mark: Tie back. Tie back segue back into the beginning of it.
Jane: And you notice I'm doing a little dance as well.
Mark: Yes. So I think that is a really good place for us to wrap this up since you brought us right back to the initial subject there.
Jane: There you go.
Mark: I think it's time for us to put the brakes on this.
Jane: Alright. Are we using an engine brake though?
Mark: No. What's the conditions outside? I think it's dry.
Jane: Okay. I can use the engine brakes then.
Mark: Yes. Well, thanks for listening, everybody.
Jane: Have a great day.