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At Garner Trucking’s Findlay, Ohio, terminal, there is a truck changing station where drivers can park a truck on each side and walk straight across from one truck to the other as they move their belongings between the two instead of having to climb up and down the stairs of each truck carrying items in their arms, creating a fatiguing and potentially hazardous situation.
This is just one purchase the company’s driver advisory board has made in recent years, backed by a budget the company allots the board to make moves that improve driver quality of life.
The company had what it called a driver council in the early 2000s, and while it gave drivers the opportunity to come together, Garner Chief Operations Officer Tim Chrulski said it didn’t go quite as planned.
When drivers would share their insights, the company “would look at those items and give them the reasons why we couldn't do this or that, and it never was really very constructive,” Chrulski said. “It allowed for the feedback, but then we weren't really reacting.”
So Garner Trucking, in the late 2010s, relaunched its initiative with a completely different mindset and put some money behind it.
The company’s driver advisory board is made up of six drivers – with room for a seventh right now – that meet on a quarterly basis in person half the time and via Zoom the remainder. The board is also called upon when the company is considering things like implementing a new technology or policy. Each member serves a two-year term before finding their own replacement, including the chairperson. Chrulski said this keeps things fresh with new ideas circulating. And when an idea is presented to the board – whose members are also tasked with keeping contact with fellow drivers for their input – he said a lot of discussion and consideration comes into play before the board votes on a new measure.
