October 1st, 2024 | Andrew Williams, Director of Client Solutions, Transportation
Morgan Miller, Enterprise Sales Executive, Transportation

Paving the Way to Hiring Efficiencies: Remove Driver Roadblocks by Consolidating Processes

Hiring and onboarding drivers efficiently and compliantly is a goal that your HR, Safety, and Compliance team strives for. Unfortunately, from the Driver Qualification File (DQF) setup to the ongoing management of DQF compliance, these processes have historically been clunky, fragmented, and time-consuming.

In this new blog series, we’ll detail the latest challenges, trends, and solutions in hiring and maintaining compliance for your driver workforce. We’ll uncover the unique issues that trucking fleets face and provide practical solutions that can help streamline your program and keep your safest drivers on the road.

We’ll first cover the challenges of having multiple, separate processes and how organizations can integrate these into a single, cohesive workflow.

Problem: The Onboarding Process is Disjointed and Manual

One of the most common challenges we hear when speaking with HR, Safety, and Compliance teams is creating and maintaining a positive candidate experience during the onboarding process. Hiring teams want their candidates to transition smoothly from one onboarding step to the next; however there are many elements during the onboarding process that prevent hiring teams from achieving this, including:

• Candidates suddenly dropping out of the hiring process.
• New drivers entering candidate data multiple times.
• Manual creation of files by users.
• Pulling data from multiple sources and importing them to a DQF. 
• Tracking data points in several systems (e.g. MVR monitoring and DQ), which runs the risk of non-compliant drivers and is often owned by different stakeholders. 
• Lack of insight into non-regulated drivers’ compliance with company policies.
• Tracking changes in employment status, including Leave of Absence (LOA), change in roles, change of work location, and terminations.

Solution: Integrate Your Systems Into One Cohesive Workflow

Organizations managing a driver workforce should implement a technology-based approach to alleviate static processes and roadblocks. While this may seem obvious, there are many complexities surrounding this solution you should carefully consider before moving forward.

Account for these important factors upfront:

• Ensure you have clear and fully up-to-date policies, especially around driver compliance. 
• Map all stakeholders who are part of the driver compliance process and bring them into the conversation. 
• Reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of your current program.
• Determine what your ideal state and process is, so that you have a goal to work towards.

While the above might seem daunting, the outcome is worthwhile. Not only can teams drastically increase their hiring efficiencies, but they can also start closing the cracks that drivers have historically fallen through that would have put the organization’s safety and compliance at risk. For example, if a driver changes roles, your DQF system may not be updated with the requirements needed for that role, resulting in missed and inaccurate information.

One way organizations can implement a technology-based approach is to work with a partner who can integrate these systems together, enabling candidate data to flow through the entire process without ever having to manually re-enter their data.

The following are mission-critical things that you or your partner can incorporate to truly create an efficient hiring process:

• The Applicant Tracking System (ATS) has information on your candidate that can be passed through to the background check provider.
• Your background check provider can automatically send candidate data to your DQ system once they pass contingencies, including all data collected. 
• The HRIS already has information regarding when someone goes on leave, changes roles, or leaves the organization; it should direct the DQ system to update the driver’s record automatically.
• The DQ system knows who is eligible to drive, and it should automatically update eligibility in the route management system.
• Your MVR monitoring, CSA, telematics, and training systems all provide an indicator on the risk level of your drivers. These should be consolidated into one place to see which drivers place your organization at a higher risk.
• Have a consolidated list of all drivers and their compliance status with your organization, not just your regulated ones, as these especially tend to fall through the cracks (e.g. you don’t have up-to-date insurance information or driver’s license info).

Start Optimizing Your Hiring Process

By leveraging these strategies above, you can create a more efficient, collaborative, and compliant onboarding process for your driver workforce. Optimizing these manual processes will give hiring teams more time to focus on more strategic things like engaging, mentoring, and coaching their drivers. This type of investment creates loyalty with your drivers.

Stay tuned for our next blog, where we’ll outline ways to monitor specific risk behaviors of your driver population.

To learn more about our transportation-focused services, click here.

To learn more about Sterling’s Integrated Driver Solution, click here.

Sterling is not a law firm. This publication is for informational purposes only and nothing contained in it should be construed as legal advice. We expressly disclaim any warranty or responsibility for damages arising out this information. We encourage you to consult with legal counsel regarding your specific needs. We do not undertake any duty to update previously posted materials.