What Your Business Can Learn From The Trucking Industry
The trucking sector is one of the pillars of modern society. So often undervalued, the world would cease to function without truckers carrying freight all over the country.
Businesses rely on truckers either directly or indirectly - but that’s not the focus of today’s post. Instead, this post looks at what your business can learn from the trucking industry as a whole. It turns out that this sector comes up with many ideas that you can apply to your business to improve everything from employee relations to your bottom line.
Table of Contents
Time Is Money
While not a concept that’s exclusive to trucking, this industry has really taken the idea of “time is money” and applied it to everything. For trucking companies, lost time leads to lost money. If they’re even a couple of minutes late, it could be the end of a contract. As a consequence, truckers find ways to be as efficient as possible every single day. This could involve mapping out routes with real-time data to find ways to shave time off.
How do you apply this to your business?
Identify where time might disappear in your company, and what you can do to avoid losing it. Perhaps you cut out your daily meetings and send an email instead. Maybe you invest in better software to allow for more automations. The choice is yours, but always remember that time is money.
People Work Better In Teams
It’s not uncommon for a truck driver to take on a team OTR trucking job at some point in their career. This is a specific type of trucking job that involves sharing the truck with another driver. While one drives, the other rests - and then they switch around. It allows the truck to continue on its way without needing to stop for multiple hours while the driver sleeps.
Take this concept and bring it into your workplace.
People work better in teams, and you can improve overall efficiency with two people working together. One handles one task while the other does another. It’s a smart way of taking complicated tasks and splitting them between two or three workers so everything gets done a lot faster.
Employees Deserve Good Benefits
You should never lose sight of the human side of business, especially regarding your employees. The trucking industry is better than most at this; it always prioritizes incredible employee benefits. Truckers will often receive annual pay rises, safety bonuses, hiring bonuses, life insurance, health & dental insurance, etc.
The list goes on, but what are you giving your employees?
A business will always be more successful when people enjoy working for it. A great benefits package keeps people tied down to your company and makes them feel worthwhile. They feel more committed to what you’re doing and will work harder.
Look, there’s a reason the trucking industry has been around for far longer than most industries. It doesn’t just fill a necessary hole in the economy; it also does things that focus on efficiency, productivity, and employee wellness. All of these are valuable tools and ideas that any business owner can take and apply to their company.
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