Treating drivers with respect helped trucking company grow by 500 per cent
The owners of a Surrey, B.C.-based trucking company have put their money where their mouths are. In August, they handed out bonus cheques totalling more than $400,000 to more than 400 employees
Over the past five years Jim Mickey and Glen Parsons have grown Coastal Pacific Xpress (CPX) by 500 per cent with one guiding principle: employees come first, customers second and profits third.
“Our intention has always been to create a shared success, shared reward-type environment, one where the president isn’t necessarily more valuable than a truck driver,” says Mickey, who became part-owner of the company in 2000.
From now on, CPX will give out bonuses every year that the company makes a profit. “My goal is to do $1 million next year. I would love to have a BBQ and pass out double what we did this year,” says Mickey.
He says that if an employer treats employees with respect and dignity, they will work harder, which will attract more customers, which in turn will grow profits. This is a policy that’s growing in other industries but hasn’t really caught on in the trucking sector.
Mickey says trucking used to be a thriving growth industry and being a trucker was a respected and sought-after career choice. In the mid 1980s the federal government deregulated the industry. To stay competitive, companies started offering customers the lowest possible prices.
To come through on these deals, companies had to cut other costs. Drivers’ salaries were the only expenses with any flexibility. With unpaid waits at border crossings and other delays that eat into a driver’s time and thus profit, a long-haul trucker can end up earning $8 or $9 an hour, says Mickey.
“It has degenerated to the point where it is no longer a solid living for people,” he says. “The driver shortage today is a direct result of the unattractiveness of the industry.”
In an industry with 135-per-cent average turnover, CPX boasted a meagre 21-per-cent turnover this year. Mickey credits this directly to the way in which the company treats employees.
“I grew up in the trucking business but I got out in 1987 because it was really not a nice place to be,” he says. “We set out to build a company based on the idea of respect for the truck driver. Every time we create a policy or procedure, it’s designed to respect that individual’s contribution.”
CPX chooses drivers and staff very carefully. While other companies might hire seven out of eight applicants, Mickey says CPX’s average is about one in eight. He says they actively screen out drivers who have changed jobs many times in a short period of time because they want to ensure the drivers are going to be happy in the company.
Each new hire goes through an extensive training program. Mickey says they only hire experienced drivers with a proven record. As a result, instead of focusing on skills the drivers should already have, CPX helps them build other skills including customer service, personal effectiveness and business management.
Every new employee gets a copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and the company is organizing a book club so employees can read other works by successful businesspeople.
“We want them to understand the larger picture so we set out to educate them,” says Mickey.
Typically the relationship between dispatchers and drivers can be combative and acrimonious. Mickey says CPX only hires dispatchers with a customer service background so they treat drivers like customers as opposed to “tools.”
“They’re treated with respect,” he says. “That radical approach creates an unbelievable difference as far as the feeling the driver gets from being associated with the company.”
CPX extends this environment of support and respect to all employees. It pays for fitness memberships, offers flex time, recognizes staff birthdays and encourages colleagues to thank their co-workers with candy and thank-you notes.
CPX extends its respectful treatment of employees to compensation. Five years ago, the company offered a competitive wage, says Mickey, but since then it has enhanced the program “around the edges.”
Each time drivers cross a border, they get $30. They get $60 every time they load their trucks and $35 each time they unload. In one trip, a driver can load and unload his truck two or three times.
CPX drivers transport a lot of fresh fish and produce. Sometimes there’s a delay on the supplier’s end because of harvest problems and a driver might have to wait one or more days before loading his truck. CPX pays $250 if the driver has to wait overnight.
With skyrocketing diesel prices, CPX also charges its customers a fuel subsidy, which goes directly to the drivers. A typical trip to California can cost $6,000 in fuel so the fuel subsidy makes a big difference.
Mickey says that other carriers try to keep their drivers in the dark about fuel subsidies, a practice that makes it easier for the companies to pocket the extra cash. “We make it very transparent,” says Mickey. “We educate our guys and show them what we’re doing and why.”
CPX takes its “employees first” slogan very seriously, even “firing” customers who are disrespectful and abusive toward staff. Mickey and his partner Parsons also let drivers and front-line employees make the call to an abusive customer to fire him.
“It’s a remarkably empowering situation when you take a group of people who have been abused and beleaguered by a customer’s irrational demands or abusive treatment and they can phone them up and say, ‘We don’t want to work for you.’”
He admits that not all industries have the same ability to fire their customers but he would like to see other trucking companies put employees first and demand that they be respected.
“You have to be fair and honest and take care of each other,” says Mickey. “We deliver a sense of community that they don’t get elsewhere. They’ve been chewed up and they finally come here and it feels like coming home.”
Over the past five years Jim Mickey and Glen Parsons have grown Coastal Pacific Xpress (CPX) by 500 per cent with one guiding principle: employees come first, customers second and profits third.
“Our intention has always been to create a shared success, shared reward-type environment, one where the president isn’t necessarily more valuable than a truck driver,” says Mickey, who became part-owner of the company in 2000.
From now on, CPX will give out bonuses every year that the company makes a profit. “My goal is to do $1 million next year. I would love to have a BBQ and pass out double what we did this year,” says Mickey.
He says that if an employer treats employees with respect and dignity, they will work harder, which will attract more customers, which in turn will grow profits. This is a policy that’s growing in other industries but hasn’t really caught on in the trucking sector.
Mickey says trucking used to be a thriving growth industry and being a trucker was a respected and sought-after career choice. In the mid 1980s the federal government deregulated the industry. To stay competitive, companies started offering customers the lowest possible prices.
To come through on these deals, companies had to cut other costs. Drivers’ salaries were the only expenses with any flexibility. With unpaid waits at border crossings and other delays that eat into a driver’s time and thus profit, a long-haul trucker can end up earning $8 or $9 an hour, says Mickey.
“It has degenerated to the point where it is no longer a solid living for people,” he says. “The driver shortage today is a direct result of the unattractiveness of the industry.”
In an industry with 135-per-cent average turnover, CPX boasted a meagre 21-per-cent turnover this year. Mickey credits this directly to the way in which the company treats employees.
“I grew up in the trucking business but I got out in 1987 because it was really not a nice place to be,” he says. “We set out to build a company based on the idea of respect for the truck driver. Every time we create a policy or procedure, it’s designed to respect that individual’s contribution.”
CPX chooses drivers and staff very carefully. While other companies might hire seven out of eight applicants, Mickey says CPX’s average is about one in eight. He says they actively screen out drivers who have changed jobs many times in a short period of time because they want to ensure the drivers are going to be happy in the company.
Each new hire goes through an extensive training program. Mickey says they only hire experienced drivers with a proven record. As a result, instead of focusing on skills the drivers should already have, CPX helps them build other skills including customer service, personal effectiveness and business management.
Every new employee gets a copy of Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and the company is organizing a book club so employees can read other works by successful businesspeople.
“We want them to understand the larger picture so we set out to educate them,” says Mickey.
Typically the relationship between dispatchers and drivers can be combative and acrimonious. Mickey says CPX only hires dispatchers with a customer service background so they treat drivers like customers as opposed to “tools.”
“They’re treated with respect,” he says. “That radical approach creates an unbelievable difference as far as the feeling the driver gets from being associated with the company.”
CPX extends this environment of support and respect to all employees. It pays for fitness memberships, offers flex time, recognizes staff birthdays and encourages colleagues to thank their co-workers with candy and thank-you notes.
CPX extends its respectful treatment of employees to compensation. Five years ago, the company offered a competitive wage, says Mickey, but since then it has enhanced the program “around the edges.”
Each time drivers cross a border, they get $30. They get $60 every time they load their trucks and $35 each time they unload. In one trip, a driver can load and unload his truck two or three times.
CPX drivers transport a lot of fresh fish and produce. Sometimes there’s a delay on the supplier’s end because of harvest problems and a driver might have to wait one or more days before loading his truck. CPX pays $250 if the driver has to wait overnight.
With skyrocketing diesel prices, CPX also charges its customers a fuel subsidy, which goes directly to the drivers. A typical trip to California can cost $6,000 in fuel so the fuel subsidy makes a big difference.
Mickey says that other carriers try to keep their drivers in the dark about fuel subsidies, a practice that makes it easier for the companies to pocket the extra cash. “We make it very transparent,” says Mickey. “We educate our guys and show them what we’re doing and why.”
CPX takes its “employees first” slogan very seriously, even “firing” customers who are disrespectful and abusive toward staff. Mickey and his partner Parsons also let drivers and front-line employees make the call to an abusive customer to fire him.
“It’s a remarkably empowering situation when you take a group of people who have been abused and beleaguered by a customer’s irrational demands or abusive treatment and they can phone them up and say, ‘We don’t want to work for you.’”
He admits that not all industries have the same ability to fire their customers but he would like to see other trucking companies put employees first and demand that they be respected.
“You have to be fair and honest and take care of each other,” says Mickey. “We deliver a sense of community that they don’t get elsewhere. They’ve been chewed up and they finally come here and it feels like coming home.”
