Greetings!
The rising demand for new truck drivers is being met with shrinking federal and state training budgets across the country. However, two states (Arkansas and Utah) are actually increasing driver training and achieving results that are the envy of the transportation industry.
By selecting candidates with the right behaviors for the job the Arkansas Workforce Service's federally funded "Rapid Road to Recovery Initiative" to train and place displaced Arkansas workers achieved 75% driver retention with their initial employer at 14-months. The results were so positive Arkansas developed a state funded version of the program (Governor's Truck Driver Training Initiative) which has proven equally successful.
This compares to a study of 16,659 inexperienced drivers conducted by the American Transportation Research Institute, "A Technical Analysis of Driver Training Impacts On Safety," that found "more than 25% of new driver entrants were no longer employed by the carrier that initially hired them by the 60th day of employment. At 100 days, more than 50% of the new entrants had left and less than 3% worked for the original employer on the one year anniversary of the date of hire."
Mike Kennedy, Grants Administrator for Arkansas Workforce Services, recently shared, "Consistent with our previous partnership on the U.S. Department of Labor funded Rapid Road to Recovery truck driver training project, you continue to deliver exactly what you promise. JOBehaviors is the key to selecting exceptional driver candidates."
After learning of Arkansas' driver training success, the State of Utah's Workforce Services revived their driver training program and has made passing the JOBehaviors assessment mandatory for recipients of state funded training. Candidates throughout the state are directed to the online assessment which takes approximately 12-minutes to complete. Results are instantly emailed to the administrator. Connie Laws, Program Coordinator, says "The assessment is key to identifying candidates with the highest potential for training and job success."
Innovative Public/Private initiatives are proving to be an extremely effective way to address future capacity demands. Improved selection leads directly to improved training completion, driver performance, retention, and...increased profit!
