Time, Timing, and Trucking

A company is the sum total of its components just like a watch. If any one of those components fails, the whole watch is affected in its ultimate function. All the components are important to the task; but each component is individual in its function.

Just over a hundred years ago, Hans Wilsdorf capitalized on Swiss watch movements by registering the name Rolex and using those movements to power his watches. The rest is history. The quality of the movements gave credence to the brand name on the watch.

Trucking has been trying to do the opposite for many years. They have been advertising at very high costs and seeking to hire recruiters who care only about "making the sale" in order to bring in the necessary numbers. They have established a paradigm of trying to build a quality brand while ignoring the actual quality of what they're trying to sell.

This has resulted in the chaos caused by turnover and the costly instability it creates. Maybe trucking ought to take a hint from Mr. Wilsdorf. After all, who wouldn't want to be the Rolex of trucking companies?

This is where a Retention Specialist who knows the industry from the ground up becomes very useful; but only if the company is willing to do more than pay mere lip service to recommendations made after a thorough assessment of the company's operations. Hiring a specialist just for the sake of advertising the fact that "we can appear to care" is just another way of exacerbating the problem.

The only way to repair a non-working watch is to open it up and examine its parts. An experienced watch repair person can have it ticking on time again if the owner is willing to pay the cost to have it repaired. If the owner just wants a "patch" job, it may not be long before the watch breaks again in the same place.

We need to understand that this is no longer "our grandfather's" Trucking Industry. Also, we need to realize that this is a new era altogether for all industries. If we do so, we can get ahead of the pack in securing and retaining the best talent out there in the fields our industry has. If we fail to, we will watch the Wildorfs of the Trucking Industry put their brand on movements that we could have branded as ours. Even so, this is more than just about time; it is about timing! It is about being early rather than late and emulating that proverbial bird that gets the worm. Tudaloo and Happy Trails!