The first step in reducing turnover in any job concerns matching people to the psychological requirements of the job. This is a selection issue. In very general terms, driver jobs fall into two distinct categories: city drivers and long-haul drivers. All drivers, regardless of the job category, need to be alert and focused (as opposed to being day dreamers) and careful about rules and regulations. Beyond that, however, city drivers need some social skills; social skills are associated with the personality variable of extraversion. Extraverts are approachable, meet the public well, and enjoy the frequent contact with strangers that city driving requires; conversely, introverts find interacting with strangers to be stressful. To the degree that introverts are recruited into city driver jobs, they will be at risk for early turnover.
In contrast, long-haul drivers need to be able to spend extended periods of time working alone. This is the kind of job for which introverts are best suited, and this is where many turnover problems start. Recruiters are extraverts—they spend their time talking with strangers. Recruiters—extraverts—like other extraverts best. As a result, extraverts tend, unconsciously, to recruit other extraverts into long-haul driver jobs.
This is the sort of work that extraverts find uncongenial and are likely to leave as soon as the opportunity arises. This first point can be summarized very quickly: turnover can be substantially reduced by paying attention to the psychological profiles of drivers and the jobs to which they are assigned.
The second consideration impacting turnover concerns leadership. There is a well-established rule about turnover, which is that people don't quit jobs; they quit bosses. This rule applies to the motor freight industry—in an expected way. It turns out that dispatchers are the de facto bosses of many, if not most, drivers. Dispatchers are the principal points of contact for drivers; dispatchers are the visible faces of their organizations; for drivers, dispatchers are the symbols of their companies. This means that, in an important sense, dispatchers are the bosses of the drivers and can be major causes of turnover.
Years of research indicate that people, including truck drivers, are pre-wired to expect to see certain qualities in their bosses. Specifically, people want to see four things in their bosses.
First, and by far the most important, they want their bosses (dispatchers) to be fair, to be even-handed, and to treat them in a respectful manner. This means dispatchers must tell the truth, avoid contradicting themselves, keep their word, and under no circumstances be perceived as playing favorites by, for instance, giving preferred assignments to their friends. People react with fury to bosses who seem to treat them unfairly.
Second, people want their bosses to be decisive; they want their bosses to make good decisions and to make them quickly. People get angry with bosses who make bad decisions or who keep them waiting for decisions. If this happens often enough, they will quit such bosses, which means their companies.
Third, people want their bosses to be competent, to be knowledgeable about the job and the business. I know one very large trucking company that uses college students as part-time dispatchers on the weekend, and the way the drivers react to these young people is quite predictable.
Finally, people want their bosses to project attractive or interesting visions of their businesses, to explain why what they are doing is important and how it fits with the larger mission of the company. This involves being a kind of cheerleader for the company, something that part-time college students can't do.
In my experience, companies are often not very thoughtful about whom they assign to dispatcher jobs. However, dispatchers are crucial for driver retention. Dispatchers who are grumpy, irritable, or hard-nosed ("Don't tell me your troubles; just do the job.") create turnover. There is a well-defined psychological profile for screening and identifying effective dispatchers, and companies that ignore these data create unnecessary problems for themselves.
The core of the trucking business is about moving freight in a safe and timely way and about getting people billed. Although people issues may seem ancillary to these processes, well-run companies pay a lot of attention to people issues.
About the Author
Robert Hogan, president of Hogan Assessment Systems, is an international authority on personality assessment, leadership, and organizational effectiveness.
Hogan received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in personality assessment. He was McFarlin Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology at the University of Tulsa for 19 years. Prior to that, Hogan was a professor of psychology and social relations at Johns Hopkins University. Hogan is a fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
Hogan is the author of more than 300 journal articles, chapters, and books. His book, Personality and the Fate of Organizations, was published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates in June 2006. The 167-page book offers a systematic account of the nature of personality, showing how to use personality to understand organizations, to staff teams, and to evaluate, select, deselect, and train people. He is the co-editor of the Handbook of Personality Psychology and author of the Hogan Personality Inventory.
