Previously in this series: Guaranteed pay: The promise for company drivers, small fleets
Twenty percent of the small fleet respondents to Overdrive’s recent compensation survey offered minimum guaranteed-pay packages to employed drivers. The rate is slightly higher than what drivers report in the same survey, where 17 percent said they receive a minimum guarantee.
Small fleets are showing an eagerness to experiment with guaranteed pay. Of those that have established such a program, 83 percent did so within the last five years, though 67 percent have done so within just the last two years.
Still, minimum guarantees aren’t for everyone. Small fleet operator Mark White of Old Time Express, started by his owner-operator father, Bo, in Hartsville, Tennessee, considered guaranteed pay for the fleet of about 20 trucks. While it “sounds good in theory,” White says, “there’s just too much incentive to do less.”
Efforts to improve retention and the driver experience at the dry box hauler have centered instead on detention and benefits, among other things. As of about a year ago, White and company are picking up 100 percent of drivers’ health insurance premiums, rather than the typical split on offer at companies around the nation.
When White’s company shifted to electronic logs several years ago, “I thought about switching to hourly-based pay,” he says. “We kicked that around — it might be difficult unless we went to an hourly-based charge to our customers,” something few carriers outside of local haulers are doing today.
Smokey Point Distributing had similar worries about its move toward offering an annual guaranteed salary for company flatbed haulers. Comfort enough to make the move was achieved with an internal system for analysis, as well as incentives for miles and hazmat/overdimensional hauls the company allowed on top of the base salary.
