Over the Road December 2022

Transam Carriers, we believe that success is not achieved without professional human attitudes. We are proud of providing some of the most flexible work options in the industry for an optimum work-life balance. All of these, in conjunction with new equipment, modern technologies, in-house truck shop, and cross-dock facility, make Transam an exceptional workplace that we call here our second home.

Robert D. Scheper

Making Your Miles Count PODCAST

Beginning in January 2023 and in association with Over the Road Magazine, Making Your Miles Count will be producing a PODCAST to serve Canadian Truck Drivers and Operators. I have been researching topics and formats parttime for over two years. I’ve outlined six topics so far, two in each month of September, October and November. December will be the last article introducing these programs.

7. What should a person NOT DO to be successful?

Charley Munger spoke at Harvard’s 1986 graduation; at which time his own son was honoured. He took an example from Johnny Carson’s speech entitled “How to guarantee misery”. Johnny’s three points were: Ingest chemicals to alter mood or perception, embrace envy and become resentful. Charley proceeded to expand that base: be unreliable, learn only from your own experience (ignoring the mistakes and lessons of others), when you go down stay down don’t get back up and try some more, and finally Don’t invert your problems into things to avoid. Similar to ‘what NOT TO DO to be successful’, we should learn to avoid what causes failure. Social media is loaded with people telling us what to do, but not many telling us what to avoid. If you have a problem, invert the proposed solution into the things to avoid doing, so that the problem doesn’t occur again.

Just because marijuana is legal for recreational use does not mean it’s a good idea to aid in becoming successful. Our society allows for foolishness, and we must learn what to avoid to become successful. The practice of avoiding harmful behavior can often come across as “legalistic”, “restrictive” or even “religious” but nevertheless, produces a safe environment to harvest success.

Financial freedom is more than just working hard and raking in cash… it’s also about

restraint, discipline and staying away from things that erode the benefit of hard work. Inverting the solution to your problem is a method of safeguarding your efforts.

I had a client who was probably one of the hardest working drivers I’ve known. The client maxed their log, maxed their preparations and hardly ever stopped their efforts to make money. With only that outline, the assumption was they should be very wealthy. But they were not. The operator had a gambling problem. It was uncontrollable (at least from where I stood). It was like they worked as hard as they could to support their gambling habit. The outcome, of course, is not hard to foresee. When they lost their truck, the explanation was that they had a higher-than-normal maintenance bill. Of course, that was not the full truth, but it certainly painted a justifiable demise. It scared many potential operators from believing in the benefits of a hard work ethic. “If he couldn’t make it, who can?”, was the word on the street. There are so many half-told stories that it’s difficult to determine reality. Sometimes it’s doing the “do not’s” that causes failure, not just “not doing enough” of the do’s.

8. Stay away from schemes (get rich quick or otherwise)

The Driver Inc. format has been on the radar for several years now. Trying to understand why someone would embrace an incorporated employment scheme is a little convoluted. It comes from two primary beliefs: it will reduce taxes, and it may be the only way to secure a job in the industry. Both beliefs have (or had) a measure of truth to them.

Canada has a self-proclaiming model of tax reporting. Taxpayers submit their returns under the honour system. If the return is found to be untruthful, it will be reversed. CRA has a very detailed method of finding out the truth… it is

slow but once focused, very decisive. On average 15% of self-employed people are audited but only 5% of corporations. That means that 95% of corporations are accepted as filed. The historical assumption is that the incorporation process is too complex for a simple cheater to utilize. It was a very reasonable assumption on behalf of CRA. Not so anymore. Online and independently filed (non-lawyer) corporations are more than 50% in most provinces. Technology has made a complex issue more independent. But, of course, it’s much more than just the incorporation process. Someone must complete a corporate income tax return (T2). Firms or private individuals would have to be complicit in the filing of Driver Inc. returns. Nobody files a T2 accidentally. Someone was and still is responsible. The problem comes in liability. I would hazard a guess that every Driver Inc. filed T2 was performed by someone who would NOT be held liable. In the end, it will be the driver who was and is liable for all tax implications. At best a driver could file a suit against the person who prepared the return in the event they can prove they were deliberately and fraudulently misled. In my opinion, it would be a stretch. The Driver Inc. scheme would easily fall into the category of what a person should NOT DO to be successful.

Since CRA will be changing the filings to a PBS (personal business service) any perceived tax advantage in the past will now come back to haunt the filers (plus penalties and interest). It will not look pretty.

Figuring out what constitutes a “scheme” and what is an authentic tax plan all comes down to liability. Will the firm/individual guarantee the filings with their own resources? Is there a waiver involved? What does the waver contain or not contain?

The history of Driver Inc. is filled with halftruths and misrepresentations. Explaining to someone the “benefits” of not having Workers’ Compensation (or paying for it yourself) is simply a ridiculous con-job. Telling someone they don’t have to pay CPP but failing to tell them that the portion they do pay will include both the employer and employee’s portion is numerically tragic. A carrier who refuses to hire an employee but will hire someone through a corporate contract isn’t fooling anyone… they are doing it to reduce their costs and liability.

When a driver under performs in any way and the carrier deducts a “fine” as compensation (damages or other) it is unconscionable. This is not what Canada is about. The trucking industry does not need to victimize the driver; we are in a driver shortage. Drivers are in the driver’s seat. Drivers should be interviewing carriers, not the other way around.

This holiday season we should be thankful for our country and the opportunities our citizens provide for each other. The trucking industry is critical to our society’s survival. Transportation of freight is the engine to all economic survival. It is a proud industry filled with tremendously successful and prudent workers.

The PODCAST is designed for industry information and educational purposes. It is not designed to make me popular or a social influencer. I seek to assist drivers in building long term financial wealth and stability, outside any dependence on government “cradle to grave” standards. Building wealth as a truck driver and/operator is not difficult if the right formula is followed. In fact, it’s probably one of the easiest industries to succeed in. I know plenty of very wealthy drivers and operators who are well prepared for retirement. You can be too.

About the Author: Robert D. Scheper is a leading Accountant and Consultant to the Lease/Owner operator industry in Canada. His first book in the Making Your Miles Count series “taxes, taxes, taxes” was released in 2007. His firm exclusively serves Lease/Owner Operators across Canada. His second book “Choosing a Trucking company” is the most indepth analysis of the operator industry available today. He has a Master’s degree (MBA) in financial management and has been serving the industry since he and his wife came off the road in 1993. His dedication, commitment and strong opinions can be read and heard in many articles and seminars.

You can find him at www.makingyourmilescount.com or 1-877-987-9787.

Ellen Voie

Women of Trucking Advisory Board

For over fifteen years the Women In Trucking Association has worked hard to advance our mission to encourage the employment of women, address obstacles and celebrate success. This goal to increase the percentage of women working in transportation jobs remains constant.

We are a trade/professional organization and are supported by our members who join the association by paying dues. We don’t receive government support or grants to further our mission. However, in July of 2019, we were very excited to be contacted by Senator Jerry Moran’s office (R-KS) to offer regulatory support for our mission.

We were thrilled to have this attention from the government, and we worked with Senator Moran’s office to write a bill to create legislation modeled after one the Senator has introduced in the aviation industry. We called it the Promoting Women in Trucking Workforce Act.

The bill included specific groups to be represented, including a large carrier, smaller carrier, professional driver, and training facility. We continued to revise and edit the language to create legislation that would be embraced by anyone

supporting our mission to increase the ranks of women in the trucking industry.

Senator Moran needed a Democrat to co-sign the bill to create a bipartisan bill. I reached out to my Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin who has been supportive of issues concerning jobs and gender equity in the past. She agreed to co-sign, and the bill was ready for the Senate and was introduced as S.2858 in November of 2019.

I reached out to my Congressman, Mike Gallagher (R-WI) who had taken a ride with one of our female drivers to better understand the industry, and he agreed to introduce the bill in the house of representatives, and H.R. 5145 became a reality.

The need to obtain industry support was the next goal, so I reached out to our members for their input. Every carrier and transportation association I approached readily agreed to provide the needed support and wrote letters of recommendation to the bill’s originators.

Our elected officials have an overwhelming number of bills to review and must determine if they will approve

or deny each bill according to their own and their constituents’ needs. We didn’t experience any push back and the support had a broad appeal. Trucking jobs are still prevalent, and women are still in the minority of truck and bus drivers.

We were ready to move the bills forward in both the House and the Senate, but the challenge was to find a way to bring it to a vote in both legislative chambers. In June of 2021, the bill was introduced in the Surface Transportation Investment Act. Although the House passed their version the reported $1.5 trillion package did not make it through the Senate.

The Promoting Women in Trucking Workforce Act was inserted in the Infrastructure Bill which received bipartisan support in the fall of 2021 and President Biden signed the legislation into law on November 16th. We were thrilled to finally have industry and government assistance in furthering our mission.

In February of this year, Secretary Pete Buttigieg authorized the Department of Transportation to move forward and three years of hard work in creating this bill was realized. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced a call for nominations in March of this year.

Specific groups were named in the legislation to ensure representation from organizations that would represent various size groups that would allow different voices to be heard. On August 29th the sixteen members were announced for this

two-year appointment. The group was called the “Women of Trucking Advisory Board,” (WOTAB).

The Women In Trucking Association is proud to have initiated and advanced this legislation. We look forward to increasing the number of groups that are supporting our efforts to bring more women into the trucking industry.

This has been our goal and our passion for over fifteen years. We will continue to create a more gender-diverse industry and to advance our mission to encourage the employment of women in trucking, address obstacles and celebrate the success of our members. It will be nice to have some help and support through the WOTAB group.

Ellen Voie

President/CEO/Founder of Women In Trucking, Inc. ellen@womenintrucking.org www.womenintrucking.org

Mission: Women In Trucking was established to encourage the employment of women in the trucking industry, promote their accomplishments and minimize obstacles faced by women working in the trucking industry.

Keep Your Company Moving With Online Training

During this time of crisis, we need to ensure two things continue to happen:

● Continued transportation of vital goods and necessary food items.

● Open communication with drivers, dispatchers, and other employees.

COMPLIMENTARY TRIAL ACCESS WITH ONLINE TRAINING

We are offering 30-day complimentary access to our system to assist companies in maintaining driver safety training, including tracking and reporting.

The Coronavirus pandemic has proven the critical need to Limit face to face interaction between employees. But how can your company encourage remote work and still bring on new drivers safely and effectively?

How can you keep your drivers up to speed on safety content that would traditionally be covered in safety meetings?

Remote online training allows you to do both:

● Ensures participation and comprehension

● Consistently delivers important elements of your orientation

● Quickly gets your trucks moving safely

● Saves time, resources and money

“Amazing support staff.”

● Simple to implement quickly and with very little effort on your part

There are no shortcuts when it comes to consistency and quality Infinit I Workforce Solutions offers a communication and learning management system that allows you to simplify orientation through remote, online training. Spread Coronavirus awareness by distributing messages and policies from your company to your entire fleet.

to increase the Take advantage of our 30-day Complimentary Trial efficiency of your orientation. Keep your company moving!

For

Ray J. Haight

One + One + One = Seven

In my company, we had a saying that went like this; one plus one plus one equals seven! The reference reflected the notion that often a person throws an idea out to the group, and the majority discounts the offering. Still, one person sees a little nugget of gold, and the next thing you know, the entire group is hyper-focused on creating and developing a great new process or solution to an existing problem. That is why whenever we created a new team, we always established ground rules for behavior, the most important being that there is never a bad idea because, quite often, that’s where the good stuff is revealed.

Now imagine yourself surrounded by transportation professionals who share a hyper-focus on the successful recruitment and retention of our industry’s professional truck operators, with full disclosure on their methods. You and your company are participating members of a benchmarking group that shares and compares retention and recruitment-related data. Other participants also reveal their successes and failures designed to address many of the common challenges each company faces regularly concerning Re and Re.

What would it reveal if your company were to storyboard your entire retention and recruitment process? Does your company have a process that it follows? Is that process helping or hurting your numbers? Would it be beneficial to review those numbers and

procedures with other companies in your group and to set them up with the same formula to ensure apples are being compared to apples?

What might you want to learn from likeminded competitors that might help your Re and Re efforts? I can come up with quite a few off the top of my head.

• The hire rate per 100 interviews

• The average cost per hire

• 30-60-90 – 1 year and long-term turnover numbers

• NPS Scores. What is yours coming from your driving force?

• Turnover by board & the average number of trucks per board by LP/OO/Co-driver

• The hiring program for current drivers? What is the hire rate, cost per hire and retention numbers versus bought drivers?

• What does your fellow group member’s onboarding process look like, including orientation and acclimation?

• What ongoing training is offered to their driving force?

• How do you train your dispatch managers in retention and how do they onboard to their boards?

• What new technologies are they using, and what have the results shown so far?

•

Is there a Re and Re strategy that their company follows? What does that look like?

• Do they hire entry level drivers? What is their success rate and what does the program look like?

With the support of my good friend and colleague Chris Henry of KSM Transportation Consultants, we have designed a new offering for the industry. It is a retention council, consisting of a manageable group of carriers that will meet once a month for ten months virtually and two times in person. During our time together, we will compare data derived from commonly agreed-upon formulas. This data will reveal the good, the bad, and the ugly, which is where significant progress can be made.

“A rising tide lifts all boats.” Most of us have heard this phrase before, but have you heard the opposite phrase to it? It goes like this: “A falling tide sinks all ships”. We have had a falling tide for far too long in this industry. Isn’t it strange though, that there are always outliers in every group, and retention in trucking is no different? We are all aware of those companies in our industry (who might even be direct competitors) who buck the trend. They thrive with sub twenty percent turnover, all the while the industry average is in the triple digits.

The turnover that we have become accustomed to is not reflective of this great industry’s lineage and it deserves better. I see this group separating themselves from the pack and excelling in creating the stable workforce it takes to become a preferred carrier in their respective markets.

When you think about those companies that are perennial award winners in safety, retention, Best Fleets to Drive For etc., a question always comes to me, what do they have that the rest of their competitors do not have? They have trucks; they have trailers; they move freight etc. Physically nothing is different; culturally, that’s a different story and everything is different. They have found a way to allow drivers to become comfortable in their surroundings and they take pride in their roles at their respective carriers. They ride for the brand. Those carriers follow a formula for this ever-evolving success, but never lose sight of their core values and how intricate the person behind the wheel is to them.

Will joining the North American Retention Council help your company turn the corner on Re and Re? I have no doubt in that, but it’s up to you. More information can be found at https://www.ksmcpa.com/ksmta-truckingretention-council/ . We currently have a core of some excellent, forward-looking, awardwinning carriers committed to this effort, but we need more. Please follow the link provided and decide if one plus one plus one might work for your company.

Safe trucking, Ray J. Haight

SAFETY DAWG Chris Harris

Companies Have a Legal Obligation to Train & Keep You Safe

Merry Christmas to all my readers. It is a beautiful time of year to get together with family and friends. I wish you all the best. I also hope you have a very Happy and collision-free New Year!

Why do most companies give you a policy and procedure manual to review and then train the heck out of you when you first join the organization?

And why do some companies get you to sign that you have received the policy and procedure manual, even though they may know that you have not read it, nor do you understand it?

Is the company playing CYA (cover your ass)? Companies are indeed required to have written policies and procedures. After a crash, the prosecuting attorneys will want to see the policy and procedure manual. That attorney is trying to see if the driver was adhering to the company policies. Company policies play a huge role in any court action. But it is more than that. The company has a legal obligation to train and keep you safe.

And the company policy manual plays a different role during an audit. An audit is much more likely to happen than a court case. The outcome of the two can be similar. By that I mean, both can put the company out of business.

Regulations stipulate that a company must train their drivers in fundamental areas such as hours of service, load securement, safe driving, and distractions. (This is by no means a complete list of required training, just some examples). The activity must be backed up by documentation and policy. So, the Policy Manual and the training do go hand-in-hand.

You can judge how seriously a company takes their legal obligations, at least in part, by their new hire orientation program. If they throw a stack of papers at you and tell you to sign them without any associated training, then the company likely is not very serious about their orientation. On the other hand, if much to your dislike, you must spend hours reviewing the documentation videos and perhaps, an in-person

training program, then the company is serious about meeting its legal obligations.

What should I tell you as a newly hired driver? I would much rather work for a company that takes their legal obligations seriously because I would assume that they would also take their other obligations of keeping me safe just as seriously.

It also signifies that they are likely to obey other laws and encourage me to do the same. These laws might be the Hours-of-Service regulations. Instead of dispatch pushing me to complete the load, dispatch may have also been trained in their legal obligations.

Dispatch must understand that it is part of their role to keep me safe and legal.

Notice that I put “safe” first? We all know of situations that may be legal but are not safe. (an example might be driving while tired but legally having hours available according to the law).

Dispatch will do precisely what management allows and encourages them to do. Drivers must come first in the dispatcher’s mind. In companies with a driver-first attitude, their retention is much better.

So, the company puts you into a new hire orientation and gets you to sign the policy manual. If this whole process takes hours and hours, then you might be working for a great company. If this process takes only minutes, you should

find a new employer, not one that tries to meet their minimum legal obligations. The companies that do the training and onboarding take trucking seriously and are in it for the long haul. Don’t work for the bottom feeders. You are a professional truck driver and deserve to work for an appreciative and safe employer.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Be Safe.

Chris Harris

Top Dawg, Safety Dawg Inc. 905-973-7056 chris@safetydawg.com @safety_dawg (twitter)

Santa, aka Tony H. a TransX Employee since 2001

Photo by Keenon R. a TransX Employee since 2012