Every carrier likes to think of itself as an attractive employer. Who wouldn’t want to drive for your fleet? After all, your company offers great pay and benefits.
The only problem is every other company thinks the same thing. Compared to your competition, your fleet actually ranks — well, you probably can’t say for sure. Unless you have some sort of insider feeding you monthly intel, your recruiting and retention strategies may not be as effective as you assume.
It’s important to know for sure, because the driver shortage isn’t getting any smaller.
Amid rising competition for drivers, carriers are gaining more insight into the current market by actually working together through Fleet Intel, the hub for carrier data that provides a benchmark for carriers’ pay and benefits.
“One could argue that driver pay and benefits have never been more important to carriers. The competition is fierce and carriers need to be able to stay ahead of the trends,” said Rob Hatchett, president of Fleet Intel. “Fleet Intel takes the guessing out of where you stand in the industry. With just the click of a button, you can visualize how you stack up and where you need to improve to stay competitive.”
What seems counterintuitive is actually revolutionary for the trucking industry, as carriers can update, analyze and compare driver pay and benefits with each other. “While we spend much of our time talking recruiting, this tool is just as important for operations and sales teams to know what they are competing against,” said Hatchett.
Patrick Grace, innovation architect at Conversion Interactive Agency, guided FreightWaves on an interactive tour of the Fleet Intel platform, detailing the specs behind the hottest carrier comparison tools in the industry.
Fleet Intel relies almost exclusively on user input, meaning carriers themselves supply their metrics upon joining the Fleet Intel community. Carriers are encouraged to share as much information with the database as they’re comfortable with.
Grace described the survey as similar to TurboTax in that it keeps track of the survey’s completion, reminding users of information gaps in areas ranging from base pay to benefits and mileage bonuses to recruiting bonuses. However, he said the more information shared, the more information that can be compared with others in the industry.
Once the survey is complete and a company’s geography as well as driver and trailer types and subsequent attributes have been defined, the Compare tool can be used to do just that: compare metrics with other carriers’ in every way, shape and form.
Performance metrics such as average cents per mile or average weekly miles will compare a carrier with the industry average. Furthermore, Fleet Intel uses the metrics to rank each carrier. Results can be as broad or granular as needed, as rankings can provide an overall picture or be based on any combination of state, driver type or trailer type filters.
“The importance of having this data in real time should not be discounted. Driver pay trends change by the day and it’s crucial for a carrier to analyze the data as those numbers change,” said Hatchett.
Because Fleet Intel’s data is user-generated, if carriers find any discrepancies in the data or would like to make updates, they are free to make changes. This ensures the accuracy and reliability of the Feet Intel database. What’s more, Grace said the platform messages users monthly for any updates.
But users spend most of their time in the Visualize tab, where data comparisons come to life via charts and histograms. Based on survey results, charts are generated from two categories: dimension and survey question. For instance, selecting “What is your max pay by driver type? (CPM)” by “Trailer Type” yields results similar to what’s generated below.
The ways that Fleet Intel’s data can be utilized are practically endless, as customers build unique data reports to gain answers to an array of important questions. In fact, results can even be viewed geographically through its heat map, adding further insight to certain data queries and making the results easier to interpret.
It all comes down to the tools at hand. You can’t expect growth without some way to measure your success; the same applies to your driver recruiting efforts. Are you confident that your carrier’s offerings are better than those of your competitors?
The truth may surprise you.