Denise Coleman the Safety Director Beacon Transport

Transcript:

If you all want to ask a question, by all means feel free, but I’ve got some questions that we typically get, so I’ll just ask for you to kind of get things started. Yes, Sir. How do your drivers access it at all? Is they have tablets or cell phones? Was it easy for them to get going?

It’s mostly through cell phones. We still have some of the drivers with the old flip phones that refuse to get up to date with stuff, but we do have a computer in our driver lounge that they’re able to use anytime they come to the building. So, a lot of them wait until the last minute and tell us, you know, we got to route me in so that I can get this done because some of our drivers don’t come by our terminal very often. So we’ll make arrangements to get them there because we do not allow drivers past their well, we give them a grace period, but once the grace period is up, there’s no dispatch until it’s done and I just sent a list for drivers that are due at the end of this month saying they better get them done in the next week or they’re not going to get their loads.

Your full-time drivers. How do you handle the pushback on this technology? I’m a driver. I don’t want to do that. I drive a truck.

We tell them it’s just a requirement to work for us, that they have to do this online training. It’s anywhere from 20 to 25 minutes a month approximately. You know, depending on how quickly they answer the questions correctly, because they have to complete it 100%, they have to answer the questions all right. But it does give them an option, you know, at the end it shows what answers were wrong, so they can go back through. It we’ve got, there are still some of the drivers that like I said when they come in, they say I need some help logging on. I’ve gone and sat with them helping them click the button. OK, read question, click which answers right now. Click the button for them to make sure they’re comfortable enough because they’re going to get stressed. They’re going to answer wrong. It’s going to take them even longer, so we’ll help them through it, but most of them have done it long enough now that even the ones that are not tech savvy at all are getting a little more comfortable with it So you know we do literal hands on training with them using the computer. This is a mouse. Here’s where you click. So, they’re getting better at it. And then we tell them they can do it on their own, you know, if they’re sitting there waiting at the dock, getting loaded, unloaded because we got no touch freight. So, they’re just sitting waiting a lot of times to do it. Then, you know, they ask, am I going to get paid for this? No. But that’s part of your job. You don’t get paid to sweep out a trailer. Either, but that’s part of your job.

Good. Anyone else got any questions? Y’all are better than mine anyway so. One question I have. How are you currently using the system? In other words, do you use it for orientation or you use it for just monthly training? Do you use it for corrective action? Just curious of where you’ve made your best use.

We currently use it mostly for monthly training. I signed three to five modules just depending on how long they are. And I go based on maybe the time of year it is for winter driving or heat exhaustion, things like that or things that I see being a trend.

Backing up hidden fixed objects, we had two drivers in a month. I don’t know how, but it overpasses so you know the low clearance things like that we will assign to them. I have done a little bit of corrective action training for certain ones that if they’ve had repetitive things or we see maybe on the camera that they’re struggling with a certain thing then I’ll assign. You know, we write them up and tell them you got to do better on this, but we’re going to help you change that habit, hopefully by giving you some training on this. So, I’ve assigned a few modules specific to certain drivers on that. We’re not currently using it for orientation, but I’d like to start that and that’s part of the reason I came to this. To try to figure out how to do custom content, one thing is finding the time to do it, but the best way to do it.

Very good. Do you think that the system has helped or changed your company’s safety culture?

I do think with a lot of drivers that at first, like I said, they do kind of think well, I’ve been driving for 25 years, 50 years, whatever. I don’t need to be told. I’ve had some of those same drivers come to me later and say, you know, I really didn’t know that after they’ve done the training, a lot of them. Like you know, it’s nice to have that refresher that reminder where remedial training is never a bad thing. We get comfortable in what we do. The older drivers have more expensive wrecks because they get comfortable in what they’re doing. New drivers have left it less expensive because they’re just, they’re a little more nervous, they’re going to do little riding over landscape and damaging that, things like that, but just remedial training just kind of keeps it in their mind what they need to be doing.

Very, very good. I think you already mentioned your process to how you get them to complete training.

Yeah, no load, no money. So, they’ll do.

It is one of my favorites this whole dispatch and what’s great about that, folks, is that gets operations involved and that’s really where safety needs to be driven from. They’re the ones that are controlling the drivers and the dispatchers and everybody else. So, it kind of makes some of the onus on them. And what I have heard is once that report goes to operations that these drivers are not available for dispatch all of a sudden, a whole lot of training gets done real quick. So, it kind of gets them involved in helping you.

Yeah, we, we will. Safety will first send all the drivers a message on our messaging system to the drivers that are past due or getting to be past due, saying you better get this done. And then when the clock is really ticking, their driver manager is then responsible for getting it done.

Yeah. Mark just talked about it. What’s your completion percentage?

We’re at 100% because they don’t get loads if they don’t complete it. So, you know, get in the pocket a little bit and they’re going to do it.

Owner operators?

No owner operators.

Have you created any custom content?

The only ones we’ve done, I have found some really good training on personal conveyance because that’s been such a hot topic when to use it when not to. So, I found a really good it was a downloadable YouTube that we sent in and had that for I think it was one of our February trainings. So that’s the only kind of custom content that we’ve done.

I think you mentioned parts of this earlier. When you push it out to your drivers, are you pushing the exact same content required to each driver and then identifying? Hey, you could also use a little bit of this. You could also use it. Does everybody get the same thing?

Everybody gets the same thing. All of our drivers, all the same thing, run the same areas. So we don’t run Northeast at all. We don’t run out West. We’re mainly SE, midway. So, they all run the same kind of freight, same lanes, and stuff. So, it’s applicable to all of them.

But to that question, you have the ability with the system to assign training to a whole group of people or to individual users, so they could get a group assignment and an individual assignment.

You know you can separate those things out if you need something special for somebody, it’s easy to do that.

You mentioned you push it out in your messaging system. Which one are you’re talking about?

Our elog we use, Qualcomm, Omnitracs. Whoever’s bought them. Now, Solara, they keep changing. But we’ve our messaging system through there. Just sending it to the truck.

Very good. Real quick. Tell me about your impression of customer service. We call them client success.

I have had, yeah, I’ve had really good response from everybody. Mainly, Karen is the one that I deal with mainly. She’s really good. She’s prompt with getting anything done that I need done, answering any questions. If she’s not there or she’ll usually have an auto out of office and somebody else will chime in and say, hey, she’s out. What do you need? And I’ll get it done and they get it done very quickly. So yes, I’m. Very satisfied with that.

On your customer service, what are some of the scenarios that you’ve had to actually use customer service for?

At first, of course, just with training and figuring out the best way to run the reports, get the assignments done, I use them to do the assignments for I’ll say I’ll go through the catalog, I will watch and look at the questions on all the content there that I want. Make sure it’s something that’s going to apply and that our drivers will understand. I’ll send them the list of the ones I want for that monthly training and then she’ll 10 minutes later, say OK, it’s done.

Have you viewed the content of what you assigned?

Every one of them I watch.

You find that it’s up to date?

I will tell you that there’s a handful of them that are a little bit dated, but I know that they’re working on some new ones, and they’ve had some new ones come out in the past two or three months. That we could use sometimes some come out that are not applicable to us just because, you know, like flatbeds and tankers, things like that, that’s not going to apply to us. But every month they have something new coming out. And I’ve repeated some of it and some of the drivers will say, well, we did that training already. And I said yeah, but you’ve been here five years, these drivers have been here six months, have not had it. So, I’m going to reassign it, and again, it’s the remedial training on that. 

~Denise Coleman
Safety Director
Beacon Transport
https://www.beacontransport.net/