How Andrew Winkler Opens Doorways for Drivers at Chief Carriers – Drivers
Andrew Winkler, common supervisor at Chief Carriers, is an HDT 2023 Truck Fleet Innovator.
Picture: Chief Carriers
The primary week Andrew Winkler was on his new job as common supervisor at Chief Carriers, he seen one thing unusual on the flatbed provider’s brand-new terminal.
Drivers had their very own entrance, with entry to a dispatch window, a upkeep window, a driver’s lounge and a small coaching room. However all the opposite doorways had been closed.
“I’d go kick these doorways open each morning and put the little wedge within the backside to carry them open,” he says. “I come again an hour later, the doorways are shut once more. And I lastly pulled the operations man and stated, ‘Hey, what’s happening with these doorways?’ He stated, ‘Nicely, we do not need drivers in right here. They may hassle us.’
“And I am like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Winkler says. “In order that they did not even like drivers, and so they’re within the enterprise.”
That needed to change.
“We now have a wide-open-door coverage now,” he says. In reality, on daily basis, a handful of drivers cease by his workplace simply to talk.
Winkler began his trucking profession in 1995 as a pupil driver at Nebraska-based Grand Island Specific. He labored his manner up over the subsequent 23 years and was vice chairman of operations when he left in 2018 to change into common supervisor of Chief Carriers (additionally in Grand Island.) Chief has about 75 vehicles and about 225 flatbed trailers.
One of many first issues Winkler did at Chief was to work on altering the tradition round drivers. He had labored with the Truckload Carriers’ Affiliation’s Finest Fleets to Drive For program at Grand Island Specific, and introduced the teachings realized to his new place.
This 12 months, Chief Carriers gained high Finest Fleets to Drive For honors within the small firm class. That made Winkler the primary particular person to win the general award at two totally different corporations.
Though he now not has his CDL, Winkler says, “as quickly as you inform new drivers that, ‘Hey, I used to be in your footwear 25-30 years in the past,’ they appear to respect you much more.”
Doing Extra for Drivers
The closed doorways weren’t the one factor Winkler seen in these early days. In reality, he spent a lot of his first 90 days at Chief merely observing.
“I bear in mind my first month right here, I regarded out my window and noticed a driver had tucked his truck and trailer towards the constructing attempting to get himself out of the wind, attempting to throw this tarp within the Nebraska wind. It’s like a parachute. I believed, ‘This factor’s going to tear him off the highest of the trailer. I stated, ‘We’ve bought to get these guys out of the climate.’
So final 12 months, when Chief added a 5,000-square-foot load-securement facility, it added two 100-foot bays to get drivers right into a climate-controlled surroundings whereas securing their hundreds. “For them to see us imake a major funding in a facility for them, I do know they respect it.”
The bays have cameras so if one thing does go improper there’s a file. However a near-miss accident prompted one other concept for cameras.
“A driver was chaining down a load, and it was a giant load of metal beams on the trailer. In order that they throw their chains over, throw their chains over, and so they comfortable them down, comfortable them down. And he snugged one down and one thing got here off that high beam. It was like there was a unfastened piece of fabric up there left by mistake. It hit him behind the top and it simply grazed him. Fortunately, he ended up with just some stitches.”
It might have been rather a lot worse. So Winkler added three cameras within the ceiling, which show a birds-eye view of the highest of the load on large 65-inch displays.
“So he can see if there’s any unfastened materials up there, he can see if something shifted. After which as he is throwing his chains and straps excessive, he can be certain that he has them lined up the place he desires with out having to climb up on the trailer and examine it.”
Security as a Core Worth
The loading bays had been a outcome not solely of Chief’s new concentrate on drivers, but in addition a part of its security efforts. Winkler doesn’t wish to name security a precedence; it’s a core worth.
“Why we predict security is a core worth and never a precedence is as a result of priorities change everyday; a core worth by no means adjustments.”
Two years in the past, the corporate went by a program placed on by then-CEO of Jetco Supply, Brian Fielkow, known as Making Security Occur. (Fielkow, coincidentally, was a 2022 Truck Fleet Innovator.)
“What we had seen was over time,” Winkler says, “individuals change into complacent. It could be little issues like possibly a driver just isn’t sporting his hardhat when he ought to, or gloves or metal toed boots or some issues like that.”
After going by Fielkow’s program, Chief developed a listing of 10-15 security gadgets and ask everybody (not simply drivers) to decide to them.
From there, they developed the Purple Hat program. “Each driver is given a white arduous hat and orientation, however after they’re caught doing one thing proper on the yard, they’re issued a pink arduous hat,” Winkler explains. As an alternative of punishing drivers for not following the principles, it rewards them for doing issues proper.
Final 12 months, the corporate took it a step additional and connected financial rewards, with the power to earn further cents per mile for conducting sure issues within the security program.
Chief additionally put in sprint cams a few years in the past. The Samsara system offers drivers a security rating on their telephones. “After which they get actually aggressive over it,” he says. “So it created a enjoyable security tradition.”
Chief additionally created a brand new security place. A full-time native driver who was additionally doing coaching and orientation was introduced off the street to be a security specialist.
“So he is on the market continuously teaching, serving to coaching drivers with the tie-downs. It is labored so properly that we’ve duplicated that effort at our different terminal in Rensselaer, Indiana.”
The security specialists additionally exit onto the lot within the morning to verify the pre-loaded trailers. “They’re in search of issues forward of time, to allow them to possibly appropriate these earlier than drivers are assigned and dispatched on the load. In order that’s been a time saver and an additional set of eyes on security.”
Turning Concepts into Motion
Generally, Winkler says, he truly has too many concepts.
“I’m form of … name it a flaming visionary,” he says. “I’ve bought concepts continuously rolling round in my head, and I am going to learn articles, and one thing will pop in there, we have to try this. And what I needed to be taught was that I used to be coming into my administration conferences and form of form of dropping these concepts on my management staff, after which I am out the door once more. They usually’re simply standing there going, ‘Holy crap, how are we speculated to get all these items completed?’”
“They had been getting frazzled,” he says. “They had been too busy working IN the enterprise as an alternative of ON the enterprise.”
So Winkler turned to the Entrepreneurial Working System for companies, or EOS, a set of ideas and instruments that collectively make up a whole enterprise administration system to assist corporations attain their enterprise objectives.
“Consider it as a enterprise working system, like your laptop has an working system,” he says. “It form of grounded us and helped us. It slowed me down slightly bit and gave me the power to work with the remainder of the management staff. We now stay in this sort of 90-day world, we do quite a lot of planning, we set 90-day objectives, it holds all people accountable, offers you the inspiration you want.”
‘Pushed Too Far’ Podcast
What number of high trucking executives would begin a podcast known as “Pushed Too Far: The Fact About Trucking”?
Podcasts had been one thing that was rising in popularity among the many Finest Fleets to Drive For carriers. However Winkler was skeptical. Would anybody actually be fascinated about what he needed to say? With solely 75 drivers, was it actually well worth the funding in a studio and having it produced professionally? He was adamant that it wanted to be aimed toward greater than Chief drivers.
“The podcast is supposed to assist drivers, and we speak about points within the trucking business,” he says. “And I do know there is a lack of belief between drivers and, name it the workplace workers or the manager groups, the place they suppose we’re simply all in regards to the greenback indicators right here within the workplace and that is how we make choices.
“So, I needed the podcast to have the ability to form of pull again the curtain, so to talk, and present them why we make the choices we do. And the way can I assist them make higher choices as skilled drivers that can push them additional of their profession?”
In reality, for the primary couple of months, it wasn’t even branded as a Chief Carriers podcast. And even now, it’s fairly refined branding.
The podcast isn’t about Chief, however about reaching out to assist drivers. He’s completed episodes on matters corresponding to trucking and AI, what to do should you’re in an accident, changing into an owner-operator, social media, automated transmissions, working with brokers, the function of security in driver turnover, and the questions drivers ought to ask recruiters.
And he attracts on his personal experiences.
“I bear in mind the early days of my profession and the silly stuff I used to be doing as a driver.”
For example, he says, “you are house, and the toughest factor for drivers to do is get out of the home on time. And also you keep late, you keep late, you keep late. You do not wish to go away the household, the youngsters, and you then determine to depart 2:00, 3:00 within the morning. You have not had a full night time’s sleep, you’re leaving on the morning time, attempting to drive straight by to make supply appointments. So yeah, I do share these dumb experiences that I had as a driver.”
It appears to be working. The podcast has had greater than 10,000 downloads because it began in November and averages greater than 2,000 listeners per episode.
“And that blew me away.”
