Retaining talent in any organization is a major key to growth. The massive cost of recruiting new employees, both in terms of time and money, can put a huge dent in that growth. Replacing employees can cost anywhere from 16% to 213% of an employee’s salary, and advertising job listings can be a major expense as well. Overall, turnover is something most companies try to avoid as it can negatively affect expenses, productivity and morale.
Due to worker shortages over the last few years in many industries, but specifically in the trucking industry, companies have scrambled to find the most effective retention strategies and decrease turnover as much as they can.
Intrigued and willing to address challenges such as retention rates in the trucking industry, Max Farrell founded WorkHound, an organization specializing in simplifying employee retention with strategies that help retain workers.
“When we started the company, we saw really high turnover rates in the [trucking] industry. A lot of people were quitting because they didn’t feel like they had a voice, and there weren’t many great options for companies to hear the voice of their people,” Farrell said. “We wanted to do something that helped companies be proactive instead of reactive and for drivers to be heard.”
Farrell saw and heard the challenges that drivers face firsthand after doing a ride-along early on and encourages companies to have an open line of communication to hear how to improve from those on the front lines.
WorkHound allows this open line of communication by providing companies a constant feedback loop. In 90 seconds or less, drivers can share, anonymously, their thoughts with their leaders — creating an open-ended conversation between drivers and leadership. The leadership can then reach out to drivers to continue the conversation and seek to improve the company’s processes.
WorkHound has created more than just the opportunity for an open-ended conversation, but has also helped companies review and restrategize, thus seeing increased retention rates and improvement in various areas across the company.
“Last year, we saw that there were over 9,000 retention opportunities that companies got through WorkHound by being proactive instead of reactive,” Farrell said. “Instead of using WorkHound to address one-off issues, more companies are using it to help guide strategy and determine the trends inside our business and the changes we need to make in order to improve.”
About our sponsor
Netradyne creates solutions for real-world problems using computer vision and deep learning technologies. Its mission is to transform road and fleet safety through advanced vision technology to change the way drivers interact with the road around them, creating safer roadways in the process.
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