As a follow-up to last issue’s article about negative behavior, complaining, and other detrimental activities your employees may be engaging in, I want to go over several approaches to help you correct this costly cycle of action before it cripples your business.
The first and foremost consideration I ask you to realize is that no matter how good an operator or dispatcher is, and how much you’ve invested in them, if they’re complaining, whining, bringing other people down, gossiping, and the biggest one – showing a bad attitude at your customer’s locations….they’re costing you much more than you’ve already spent. That’s one of those unseen situations that may not be directly apparent, but I promise you you’re losing employees because of people like that, and your customers see the attitudes and actions and form opinions about your business.
There’s a quote floating around that I truly love, and it applies here:
Nothing will kill a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a bad one.
Think about that for a moment. In a company I’m familiar with, there’s a young man who lies continually, snitches on people over petty things, and isn’t a good driver. He’s taken out a mailbox or two, damaged another driver’s truck, gotten stuck when he should have planned better, requiring a heavy to go out and rescue him…and his attitude is atrocious. Even though he’s young, he’s a know-it-all, and is openly disrespectful to older, more experienced drivers.
The rumors and innuendo are that you can’t get fired from the company. In recent history, there’s no track record of anyone getting fired for seemingly major offenses. Newer drivers, those hired in the past couple of years, haven’t seen anyone terminated for cause, and this young guy skates by with his bad attitude, smart mouth, and poor driving skills.
What possible motivation are you giving the rest of the crew to behave and operate professionally?
This guy regularly gets away with it, so why should I work so hard and be careful? Damaged a car? No biggie, the boss will cover it and I won’t get fired.
Cursed out the guy with 20 years in the field? No biggie, we’ll get called into the “principal’s office, the issue will be minimalized, and the older guy will just have to live with it.
You reap what you sew, and what you reap is a group of guys who grumble and perform at a mediocre level at best – the guys who screw up aren’t being dealt with and the guys who do great aren’t being rewarded. Congratulations! You have a below-average crew.
Complaining – People whine. Tow drivers and truckers whine. It happens.
There’s a couple of jokes that fit in here. What’s the difference between a tow driver and a puppy? A puppy quits whining and crying after 8-10 weeks. What do you have with 40 tow drivers in your basement? A whine cellar.
What you do with complaining is up to you. If you hear it, shut it down. The main problem with someone complaining about how Joe get fewer calls than me, or I had to do more than Joe…is that it creates a whining contest almost every time. Each drive may feel the need to compare their woes and professed atrocities, and it kills the attitude of just about everyone, likely for the rest of the day or even the week.
A group announcement may work well at your next safety meeting or training session. It’s not a matter of being an authoritarian or a dictator, and those words may come up as the complaining continues but explaining the flow of activity that extends from these public sessions should make sense to your people. Explain what it costs in attitudes and productivity. If they feel slighted over something, explain that you or your manager are the only ones who need to hear it. Complaining to Bob about Joe does nothing for the perceived problem or the employee – Bob can’t help them fix a problem with Joe, but you can.
Negative attitude – there are millions of quotes and phrases that center around the notion that attitude is everything. Attitude goes hand in hand with complaining, gossiping, and other negative behavior, or it reflects professionalism and pride. Not everyone can have a perfect day every day but teach your people to check their attitudes at the door, especially when dealing with your customers.
You may ask them this: Are you having a bad day, or did you have a bad five minutes that you’re milking all day?
Pettiness – This attribute is directly associated with the amount of emotional maturity a person has. Goes back to the argument or complaint that Joe got more calls than me, or I worked harder than Joe. Grow up. Be an adult. This person is an adult working for a company, not a child in elementary school. This is a situation that only some tough love can fix.
The know-it-all – This person damages your company in significant ways. They minimalize other’s qualifications and experience to make themselves feel better. It’s a form of bullying, and if you put up with it, you’re an accomplice. Pull the person into a closed-door meeting and explain to them what they’re doing, since it’s most likely they don’t see it. The know-it-all can easily cost you some employees as they search for another company where they don’t feel dogged all the time or made to feel like idiots. No one wants to feel stupid, and that’s the hidden agenda and goal of the know-it-all – to make others look stupid so they can look smart.
The one-upper – In the complaining scenario, or the “shooting the breeze” sessions, this person is always there to make others feel insignificant and themselves look cool or smart. Limit the amount of downtime for your crew by assigning busy work and break up these unofficial meetings where the one-upper is the center of attention – and you’ll limit their effectiveness. Also works for complaining sessions.
Not my job – It depends on your pay structure and the way you outline a person’s responsibilities, but some folks just like to set unrealistic boundaries around themselves to avoid doing anything extra or going the extra mile to help the company or a fellow employee. You must ask yourself if it’s worth it to keep someone who always blurts out, “It’s not my job,” and does the bare minimum to get by. Sounds a lot like milking the company clock to me, and that costs you money.
The interrupter and the whiner mentioned in last issue’s article are handled just like the complainer and know-it-all. Limit the amount of time they can make an impression on other employees. I jokingly told one guy that if he wanted to whine and complain, he should go into the bathroom and complain into the mirror so he’s not trashing everyone else’s day. His feelings got hurt, but he got over it – I made sure to do it in a group setting so others could help enforce the idea.
Most of all, it’s about establishing rules and expectations. If you don’t have regular meetings and discuss these issues, along with other day-to-day problems and solutions, you‘ll find yourself always putting out fires instead of practicing fire prevention.
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Optimize your workforce & business performance by improving your fleet performance using precise up-to-date vehicle data and reduce your running costs by monitoring real-time and historical fuel usage.
SAN ANTONIO — San Antonio Spurs’ Lonnie Walker IV is now an athlete-investor in the San Antonio-based company, Mach1 Services.
“Being able to invest and be involved in this. I’m just truly blessed,” Walker said. “Being able to have an app like that and fully invested and you fully trust that they’re going to come and help you out, not only in a help situation, but also in a safety situation.”
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Roadside.io
Built-in Navigation and GPS Tracking. You’ll be able to get turn-by-turn directions to your destination right in the application with just a tap!
Plate-to-VIN Technology. No VIN – no problem! Towbook’s plate-to-VIN feature saves time and eliminates mistakes. Simply enter the plate number and the state in which the vehicle is licensed, and Towbook will return the full VIN with the make, model, and year of the vehicle. You’ll also have the option of using our VIN scanner, which will populate the VIN in the call just by scanning the vehicle’s barcode. 
Impound/Storage Lot Management and Vehicle Lookup. You’ll be able to track and release your current impounded/stored vehicles on your lot right from the mobile application.
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While Tennessee’s owner and lienholder notification statute requires the tow company to send the state one dollar for a Tennessee record from them, ADD’s DMV123 real-time vehicle records search provides the information instantaneously. “I have to send the dollar off to the state, but I can go ahead and pull the record through ADD and send my letter immediately. As long as the record that comes back from the state is the same as I received from ADD, which happens more than 95% of the time, I’m ahead of the game,” says Jimmy. “And if the vehicle is from another state that ADD offers, I can verify the record and send my Tennessee letter. ADD is reliable and their system has sped up the process, saving me time and money.”
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The programmers at Beacon Software are constantly evolving our software based upon the changes and needs of the industry. We have made many updates to our programs that are user-friendly and important to the current needs of our customers. The following are seven of the most popular recent Beacon Software updates.
If there is anything we have learned from recent events, it is that you never know when you will need to unexpectedly pack up and work from home. In the era of COVID-19, working responsibly now means working remotely. Thankfully, Beacon Software was designed to be your completely remote business solution from day one. Regardless, we know how difficult it is to change your routine, which is why our developers have worked around the clock to develop customized updates that will benefit our customers during the pandemic.
But what about the paperwork? With most CLOUD based systems, the need for paper tow tickets has all but disappeared. Even with one-off cash call customers, instead of paper tow tickets your truck operator will obtain an email address or a cell phone number at the tow scene, and with the click of a button on his/her smart phone or tablet, the CLOUD system will send an electronic tow ticket/invoice to the address or cell number provided. In addition, this process may also collect payment from the cash call customers credit/debit card. Every month we see the introduction of new features; some of these new features cater to real needs and some are just wants. Many of these wants, often described as “bling,” are nice to have but not necessary and don’t positively add to the bottom line. However, we should always remember that one man’s “bling,” is another man’s necessity.
Owners Rusty Russell and Steve Dugan run S&R Towing, a profitable and growing 45-vehicle towing business since 1985 in nine locations and is one of the largest towing and recovery operations in Southern California.
S&R Towing averages between 75 and 100 tows a day across its locations and serves a large rural population. With a large area and distances to travel, the company depends on its dispatch and fleet management technology to allow them to communicate effectively with their drivers and customers. S&R has long relied on fleet tracking and adopted WEBFLEET in 2015.
Ken Bach, General Manager at Kingsway Towing Group also expressed his experience with WEBFLEET.
When Ken acquired Kingsway Towing Group, one of his first investments was in WEBFLEET to better track and manage his 34-vehicle fleet. “WEBFLEET allows us to maximize the number of calls we can take per vehicle per day while monitoring and managing fuel and vehicle maintenance costs. For instance, I can ensure my drivers are centralized in high demand areas and available at peak times. I can also manage idling time, drive time and PTO engagement, so our drivers and vehicles are best utilized and we are not wearing out our engines, burning fuel, or putting unnecessary miles on the vehicles while waiting for calls to come in.”
Equipment Moves: This is often construction and large agricultural equipment.
Vehicle Transport:
Containers:
Process: Step 1 – Planning
The assignment of drivers to trucks is also a drag & drop “mapping”
The driver simply clicks on the link in the text message, logs in, and can then view his assignments for the next day.
Dispatch has visibility to work-in-progress, and the information entered by the driver is incorporated automatically into the invoice.
Heavy Duty Towing
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When I first opened the door to my company, a sales person came to me from another company, and I would have loved to hire him but I was not sure I could afford him.
