Lessons on reaching trucking’s next generation — Taking the Hire Road

On this week’s episode of Taking the Hire Road, guest host Leah Shaver, president and CEO of the National Transportation Institute, is joined by Anthony Book, VP of sales and marketing at Long Haul Trucking. 

While serving as the director of sales and marketing might imply a customer-facing role, Book devotes much of his attention to leading driver recruitment and retention programs at his company. 

At Long Haul Trucking, “we always say that we have two sets of clients: We have our drivers and we have our customers that pay us to haul their freight,” Book related.

“You need to keep both parties happy if you want to find success.”

Accordingly, Book and his colleagues have redoubled their efforts around internal marketing, which can range from employee advocacy to promoting the company’s mission to its drivers.

To sustain a company culture that puts employees first, that vision has to start from the top. “It starts with our CEO and CFO, who lead our management team, and we all have shared values about what we want Long Haul to stand for,” Book said. 

“It really comes down to being a driver-first company.”

Of course, it doesn’t hurt that many within Long Haul’s management team have firsthand experience with the responsibilities of the job.

“Our CEO and our VP of fleet — both former drivers — do a wonderful job of empathizing with our drivers when they talk about the ups and downs of our industry,” Book noted.

Yet talk is cheap if it is not reinforced with action. “We have a constant focus to ensure we are doing everything we can,” Book stressed, “to keep pushing every single day to bring in as much work for our drivers as possible.”

Work is only one aspect of Long Haul’s driver-first mission, however. 

“We take so much pride in giving our drivers the time at home that they need,” Book stated, “giving them that work-life balance that’s so important to our drivers.

“All of these personal and very important factors to having a long-term successful driving career,” he continued, “add up to our drivers wanting to be with us for many, many years.”

This unwavering focus on drivers’ health and quality of life, if anything, is the secret sauce to driver retention.

But retention is half the battle. Recruiting the younger generations to the industry has proved a struggle, despite overlap with their core values and the possibilities offered by trucking.

In his time on social media, Book has found that young people increasingly prioritize freelance gigs that allow them to travel the country. “They might live out of their van, they might even live out of their car.

“I always wonder to myself: Why don’t you just live out of a beautiful semi?

“You can work on the roads and wake up in a different town every day. There’s a real spirit of adventure that comes with trucking,” Book mused. “Maybe this next generation will find their desire for that adventure.”

Click here to learn more about Long Haul Trucking.

More from Taking The Hire Road:

Lessons from across the pond

Show up for yourself to show up for others

Leveraging associations and networking in tough economy