Building workplace culture: four things the experts do every time

Published on July 29, 2024

In 16 years of evaluating and recognizing the best workplaces in the trucking industry, we’ve seen a lot of different and unexpected things. One of those unexpected things, and one that’s particularly fascinating, is the subculture of people who use the program as part of their “professional toolbox”.

We all have a “professional toolbox” – the combination of processes, systems, applications, and connections that have proven successful in the past and that we rely on when faced with a new challenge. Maybe it’s a custom set of Excel macros that present data in particular ways, a set of go-to vendors that you work well with, a well-defined process for breaking down problems and prioritizing solutions – it’s different for everyone but we all have a bag of tricks that we start with when going into a new job or facing a new challenge in a current position. And for some people, that includes leveraging the Best Fleets program to define a roadmap for culture improvement in a fleet.

We first noticed this starting to happen years ago, when we would see new companies enter the program and discover familiar names associated with them. Those people were changing jobs and getting the new companies involved in the Best Fleets program. In the past few years, we’ve noticed an increasing number of them, and they’re starting to have some real success.

What’s interesting about this is that they typically employ very similar tactics to bring success to those companies, and those tactics can be easily adopted by anyone.

Let’s look at what they’re doing, and how to apply it more broadly.

First, it’s important to note that success in the Best Fleets program doesn’t come easily. As outlined in past stories, fleets have to have a range of innovative programs for their drivers, a plurality of happy drivers confirming that those are the right programs for the company, and good results in safety and retention. Building a company that can deliver those results takes a lot of work, across a full team effort. It also requires someone championing the cause internally. While the entire organization needs to contribute in order to be successful, we’ve seen time and again that there needs to be someone spearheading the efforts.

Leading the effort internally means coordinating all the data collection required for the Best Fleets process, but it also means clarifying exactly what’s happening in every part of the business, evaluating the final scores, identifying the best opportunities for improvement, and measuring the results. (A skillset of its own, combining project management, negotiation, communication, coordination, and opportunity prioritization.)

Beyond that, there are some specific things that the “travelling Best Fleets experts” seem to always do as part of their approach when moving into a new company. The good news is that these fairly simple things that anyone can use as a starting point to improve the workplace culture within the fleet.

The first step in the process always involves downloading a copy of the current results book. It includes all the questions that were scored, the point values for each different level of response, scores for the winning fleets, notes on category-specific observations, and a summary of broader trends observed during the year. It’s a great way to get a sense of where the industry is at, and see what the winning fleets are doing.

From there, the experts go through those questions internally and answer them honestly for the fleet. How would they score in each different area? Where are the biggest gaps?

Next, it’s time to start drilling down and looking at specific fleets. Finding the fleets closest in size, market segment, or operating area, makes it easier to focus on answers more directly relevant to the current company. If these winners have participated in a podcast or webinar where they’ve discussed their programs, those episodes or associated stories will be full of insights and examples.

It’s worth noting here that no two fleets will ever solve a problem the same way. We’ve seen that the experts recognize that and know that they’ll need to customize a solution for their current company. Hearing a fleet talk about how they solved a problem won’t provide a repeatable recipe for solving that same problem elsewhere, but it will provide ideas on how to approach the solution, which can be just as valuable.

Watching what winning fleets do in real time is also valuable, and social media is a great tool for that. Follow the winning fleets on social media to see what they talk about, how they work together, and what their broader community of drivers is saying as well.

When the time comes, the experts always go through the Best Fleets program, whether or not there’s a chance of making it to the Top 20. The process itself is valuable as a culture-building tool, and after completing the self-assessment noted above, going through the actual program steps that up to the next level.

Finally, talk to the winning fleets directly. The Best Fleets Education & Awards Conference includes a deeper dive into the trends and proven successes, through the formal education sessions, as well as ample opportunity to talk directly to the winners about how they’re solving specific problems. Throughout the year, there are other industry events where fleets have a chance to connect, and the expert take advantage of those to collect as many insights as they can from their peers.

Put it all together and you can see that there’s definitely a repeatable, transferrable process for establishing a benchmark in the fleet, identifying the gaps, and learning how to close them effectively. It may not get you into to Top 20 immediately, but it delivers results and moves a big step in the right direction.