Saul Gonzalez will tell you that driver retention is one of the most important issues facing the truckload industry right now – affecting everything from equipment choice, pay and benefits, even the type of freight carriers choose to haul. And it’s an issue that will affect the industry long term, he stressed.
“Frequent turnover used to be accepted among truckload carriers as simply the nature of the business; we’d just keep recruiting to fill those empty seats,” Gonzalez, COO for Con-way Truckload, explained during a sit down interview with Fleet Owner at the carrier’s Joplin, MO, headquarters.
“But now that’s changed; older truck drivers are retiring and not many kids want to be truck drivers,” he added. “So now we really have to look at retention and all sorts of things we used to take for granted: length of haul, driver-friendly freight, equipment, onboard technology, home time. It’s a big puzzle we have to sort out and put back together.”
