September/October 2005
Recyclers often can’t pay as much for truck drivers as other industries.
That’s why it takes creative management and various incentives to keep good drivers in the scrap recycling fleet.
By Robert L. Reid
When it comes to finding and keeping good truck drivers, recyclers can face a rough road. For starters, there’s often stiff competition for drivers from other industries with deeper financial pockets, such as long-haul firms and the waste industry. Recyclers also must deal with drivers’ misperceptions of what the modern scrap industry is like and what it needs.
The nationwide shortage of qualified truck drivers is a well-known story, with long-haul trucking firms in particular facing a shortfall that one study puts at 20,000 drivers. What’s more, that shortfall could grow to 111,000 by 2014, according to the American Trucking Associations (Alexandria, Va.).
To keep their trucks on the road, then, recyclers often must rely on their business savvy and creativity in terms of incentives, training, employee empowerment, and even the industry’s family-oriented traditions.
Money, Experience, and Other Roadblocks
If money makes the wheels go ’round, then recyclers are at a serious competitive disadvantage. In the Chicago market, for instance, waste haulers have sometimes paid drivers as much as $6 an hour more than what recyclers pay, notes industry veteran Frank Cozzi, president of Cozzi Enterprises Inc. (Burr Ridge, Ill.). These higher wages, he says, limited the pool of good drivers available to recyclers and lured away experienced drivers from scrap companies.
“It would take a considerable amount of time to teach a guy how to operate a load-lugger or roll-off unit,” Cozzi notes. “Then, after you trained them, they’d go into the waste industry.” This recurring situation made him feel, at times, like a training facility for other industries.
Finding qualified drivers with the right amount of experience is another challenge. Drivers for the secondary metals processing division of Commercial Metals Co. (CMC) (Irving, Texas) need at least one year of experience with a commercial driver’s license (CDL), plus they need to demonstrate both their driving proficiency and their knowledge of the truck itself for the division’s trucking supervisor, says Alan Postel, president of the division. Only about one in 12 applicants has the experience and skills that CMC seeks, he notes.
Having the right sort of experience is also critical. OmniSource Corp. (Fort Wayne, Ind.) only looks at drivers with at least two years of experience on the road. “But if they’ve been driving an ice cream truck for two years, that won’t do,” notes Ben Eisbart, executive vice president, administration. Instead, potential OmniSource drivers need experience with tractor-trailer hookups.
Likewise, Annaco Inc. (Akron, Ohio) prefers applicants who are familiar with the recycling industry’s specialized equipment.
“When you put out an advertisement for a ‘truck driver,’ you’re going to get a lot of truck drivers,” explains Bob Toth, Annaco’s manager of human resources and safety. “Then you winnow it down immediately by checking: Do they have roll-off experience? Load-lugger experience?”
Other recyclers are willing to hire less-experienced drivers, even those fresh out of trucking school. Jerry Sjogren, safety director for E.L. Harvey & Sons Inc. (Westborough, Mass.), says he sometimes prefers a good new driver to someone more experienced who “might come with bad habits they’ll need to unlearn.”
Not Just Behind the Wheel
Many recyclers assign their drivers additional duties other than driving—which can eliminate certain applicants right away. At Annaco, for example, would-be drivers learn upfront that on slow days they might have to work in the yard, perhaps operating a loader. “A lot of drivers, especially younger drivers, say, ‘I just want to drive’ or ‘I’ll just sit in my truck and wait for the next load to be ready for pick-up,’” says Toth.
U.S. Tire Recycling (Concord, N.C.), a subsidiary of Pittsburgh-based Liberty Tire Services Inc., requires drivers to hand-load scrap tires into their trucks. Though U.S. Tire provides an assistant to help each driver, this requirement does eliminate “quite a few” applicants who “want to be truck drivers and nothing else,” notes Bob Johnson, manager of transportation and marketing. Moreover, sometimes an applicant who initially accepts doing loading work later changes his or her mind and has to be replaced—though overall turnover among drivers is low, says Johnson.
OmniSource’s Eisbart adds that some potential drivers don’t understand that the modern scrap industry works like a manufacturing process and that they can, therefore, get their trucks into the yards easily and get unloaded quickly. Instead, “some drivers see the word ‘scrap’ and think ‘junk,’ and they don’t want anything to do with it—so they might not even apply for the job,” Eisbart says.
There’s No Place Like Home
So how do recyclers overcome these challenges? In large part, they rely on one of the scrap industry’s greatest strengths—family. In this case, the driver’s family.
“We have very little turnover in our recycled fibers division, and I can tell you why,” explains Dave Poltzer, the Atlanta-based corporate transportation manager for The Newark Group Inc. (Cranford, N.J.). “It’s because in our division we work strictly Monday through Friday, and it’s all local work—the drivers are basically home every night.”
Annaco’s Bob Toth echoes that idea, noting that many long-haul drivers are paid according to the miles they drive. “When you’re out there for two weeks, driving 10 hours a day, the money does mount up,” he concedes. “But the trade-off is that you’re never home. So we offer a local job where you’re home at night.”
Thanks largely to that at-home factor, most of the recyclers contacted here report low turnover among drivers. For instance, City Carton Recycling Inc. (Iowa City, Iowa) relies on a core group of long-term drivers, some of whom have been with the company 20 to 25 years, notes Andy Ockenfels, vice president of operations. Likewise, Marty Forman, president of Forman Metal Co. (Milwaukee, Wis.), recently began to look for his first new driver in roughly a decade.
Annaco also just hired a new driver—only the third or so since 1988, says Toth—to replace a driver who is planning to retire after more than 25 years. It took Annaco at least six months to find this new driver, and other recyclers are likewise willing to invest the time and resources necessary to make the best decision.
“We want to get the right person, even if it means doubling up and running some overtime to cover our routes,” says City Carton’s Ockenfels. The firm also requires certain employees, especially mechanics and maintenance workers, to get their CDLs as potential backup drivers. Even John Ockenfels, the company’s president, has kept his CDL up to date and is listed as one of the qualified drivers in case he’s needed.
Finding Drivers
When recyclers do need new drivers, they tend to search for them in fairly basic ways—by asking current drivers or dispatchers for referrals, putting up notices around their worksites, placing ads in local newspapers, and contacting local truck-driving schools to interview their best students. The former Cozzi Iron & Metal Inc. (Chicago) even offered a bonus to current drivers if they recommended a new driver who then stayed for a specified period of time, says Frank Cozzi. The program produced “some success,” he adds, though not all drivers were willing to try.
U.S. Tire Recycling advertises for new drivers in the small newspaper published for its hometown, Concord, N.C., rather than the larger-circulation paper in nearby Charlotte, notes Bob Johnson. “If you use the local paper, you’re more likely to recruit people whose home is near your office,” he says. Thus, you can avoid wasting ad dollars on drivers who live on the other side of the city and who might not want to start and end each day with a long commute. Bigger newspapers are also likely to run many more employment ads, making it harder for your ad to get noticed, Johnson says.
Several recyclers maintain lists of potential drivers who submitted resumes when there was no driving position open. When City Carton discovers a particularly qualified driver this way, it tries to hire that person immediately and then find ways to use him or her around its seven facilities. “Managers do an excellent job of sharing them between plants,” says Andy Ockenfels. “We also have the ability to use these drivers to shuttle specific loads between plants or to mills when needed.”
Take a Good Look Back
Like checking the rearview mirror before backing up, recyclers know they must look into an applicant’s background—including driving record, employment history, and criminal record—before hiring anyone to operate a company truck. U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) rules, for instance, say truck drivers who cross state lines must be at least 21 years old and must pass a physical examination every two years that specifically checks their hearing and vision.
DOT rules also require employers to conduct preemployment and random drug screening for drivers and test for drugs after certain accidents. There are similar requirements for alcohol testing after a driver is hired.
When reviewing driver applicants, recyclers tend to look for red flags such as a certain number of moving violations in a set period of time, a number of rapid job changes, or unexplained gaps in employment.
These background checks, often conducted with or by the recycler’s insurance carrier, can uncover information that make recyclers wonder why the driver bothered to apply at all. For instance, Marty Forman’s insurance carrier once discovered that an applicant had been convicted of vehicular homicide while driving drunk—something the applicant then tried to dismiss as “just a trumped-up charge.”
City Carton knows that its insurer will compile a much more detailed record of an applicant’s background than the applicant will likely reveal, says Andy Ockenfels. That’s why City Carton won’t make a job offer to a potential driver until the insurance report comes back—a report that sometimes disqualifies a candidate who otherwise seemed attractive.
In addition to background checks, Marty Forman makes sure that would-be drivers fill out their applications in the company office. “A lot of times a person will come in, act as if they’re in a rush, and ask if they can take the application home or just give you a resume,” he explains. “What I’ve found is that they may do that because they don’t have the ability to read or write.”
Time in the Yard
Tight spaces, overloaded containers, and sharp pieces of metal that can wreak havoc on tires—all of these can be unfamiliar challenges, especially for drivers who might previously have just pulled trailers down a clean interstate highway, recyclers note. So training becomes a critical factor in getting new scrap drivers up to speed.
Some recyclers expect their drivers to be on the front line of quality control, making sure that the load of high-quality busheling or OCC being picked up is actually what’s in the container. At Annaco, for example, a new driver is sent out into the scrapyard for the first week to work with the metal sorters, mechanics, and maintenance crew to learn the material and see how his or her work affects other Annaco employees, says Bob Toth. Then the new driver rides along with an experienced driver to learn about pickups and deliveries.
At E.L. Harvey, new drivers spend four to six weeks in “a very strict training program,” notes Jerry Sjogren. They start by riding with a yard driver, then ride along with a driver-trainer or senior driver, until both feel comfortable enough to try “some off-the-road hoisting of the containers, maybe driving out with an empty container or bringing home a full container—with the trainer still watching them,” he explains.
Drivers especially need to learn the various types of containers used in paper recycling so they know the difference between, say, a “dog house,” which is a self-contained compactor with a square box and doors, and a “slant,” which is a self-contained compactor with a wedge-shaped opening on the back, Sjogren says.
This “slow, slow” training process also focuses on new drivers’ skills behind the wheel, such as whether they drive too close to the lane markers on the road or whether they anticipate going around corners. New drivers also get sent to a defensive driving school to learn about evasive tactics, how to control skids, and other proactive measures to avoid accidents.
Even after a new driver is truly up to speed, E.L. Harvey tends to keep that employee close to its plant for a while in case he or she has trouble on the road and needs assistance, Sjogren says. Traffic in nearby Boston, where E.L. Harvey collects a lot of recovered fiber, is notoriously bad so no driver is sent into the city until he or she feels ready. “Some drivers, it takes them a couple of years to get into the actual city,” he remarks. “We’ll keep them on the outskirts. We just don’t want to put somebody in over their head and have them get into trouble.”
Many recyclers describe their drivers as “ambassadors” of their companies, sometimes the only representative of the firm whom customers see regularly. That makes housekeeping issues extremely important, especially for drivers who might previously have hauled only boxed items, notes Annaco’s Bob Toth. But collecting containers full of turnings and borings, for instance, is quite different from loading the back of a truck with boxes, sealing the doors, and driving off. Instead, scrap drivers must learn to “get the broom out, make sure nothing is leaking, that the tarp is on tight, and leave the customer’s driveway as nice as they found it,” Toth says.
Rewarding Good Work
Good benefits, bonus programs, and other creative incentives also help recyclers attract and keep qualified drivers. Frank Cozzi, for one, points to a pay-for-performance plan at Cozzi Iron & Metal that gave drivers a percentage of the revenue from what they hauled. This plan enabled some drivers to actually earn more than they could get from competing industries.
At CMC, some plants started a tire-focused incentive about 10 years ago that pays drivers an extra $35 each week they don’t have a flat tire, notes Alan Postel. The program, which differs from plant to plant, has since expanded to include production, paperwork, equipment maintenance, safe driving, and other issues. Each incentive is awarded independently, he notes, and most drivers usually get some portion of the incentives each week. Overall, Postel says, the incentives have boosted driver performance “considerably.”
Recyclers also find that offering paid vacations, health insurance, and a pension plan or 401(k) can attract and keep good drivers since a number of drivers—especially independent truckers—still get paid only by the miles they drive and receive no benefits.
U.S. Tire’s Bob Johnson makes sure that applicants know he can offer them year-round work, with schedules set at least a day in advance and sometimes a full week ahead. Some drivers don’t know whether they’ll be working or not on any given day until they get a call that same morning telling them to hurry over, Johnson explains. So they appreciate the more structured work schedule of the recycling industry, which enables them to better structure their home life as well.
Empowering Drivers
Giving drivers greater control over their work is also key to keeping them happy, recyclers note. That’s why Marty Forman lets his drivers help pick out new trucks—even when their choice differs from his own. Just last year, one of his drivers chose a brand of truck with lots of expensive options that Forman would not otherwise have purchased. “But as long as the driver is glad to be in the truck, then he’s glad to be at his job,” he says. “And it’s worth a lot for me not to be out looking for employees.”
Forman also tells drivers that they don’t need anyone’s authority to have their trucks looked at by a local maintenance shop. Further, he tries to involve drivers in planning their own schedules, and he avoids being a stickler about time. “If all my loads are picked up,” he says, “then it doesn’t really matter to me if it took the guy seven hours or eight hours.”
In addition, Forman doesn’t make drivers go off the clock when they eat their lunch. “These guys are paid for eight hours and I realize they’re going to eat sometime during the eight hours,” he says. “What I prefer is for them to find a time that’s not costing the company money,” such as when they’re waiting for other trucks to be loaded or unloaded.
Empowering drivers is also a key goal at City Carton, which encourages drivers to help design their routes, select their own containers, and work directly with customers to resolve problems, notes Andy Ockenfels. He adds that City Carton drivers usually get to drive the same truck every day, which promotes an “ownership attitude” and encourages the drivers to take pride in their particular vehicle.
E.L. Harvey tries to take its drivers’ personal lives into account, such as PTA meetings, school plays, and other nonemergency situations that mean an employee might want to leave early on certain days. So dispatchers try to accommodate drivers who fill out a request form for time off, even planning the day’s routes to get a driver back in time for his or her event.
“It puts the human side back into the job,” concludes Jerry Sjogren, “and I think it helps us with retention.”
A Midwestern Rodeo
To hone its drivers’ skills and reward them for jobs well-done, OmniSource Corp. holds an annual truck rodeo. The voluntary competition, which last year had about 50 participants, includes maneuvering exercises, such as navigating a course of pylons within a specific time frame or parking the truck within markers that have tennis balls balanced on top. There is also a walk-around inspection of each truck in which the driver needs to identify deliberately planted violations, such as a light that’s not working or a tarp that’s improperly secured, notes Ben Eisbart, executive vice president, administration.
Held on a Saturday in the late summer or early fall, the rodeo is preceded the night before by a dinner for drivers and their families. On competition day, there are also games for kids, a cookout, displays of new equipment, and sometimes even a truck cab simulator that “kids can drive like a big video game,” Eisbart says.
In-House or Outsource?
Many recyclers who operate their own truck fleets also turn to outside firms for drivers, such as contract haulers. This occurs either regularly or just during busy periods, and the reasons include both the difficulty of finding additional drivers as well as nondriver factors.
The Newark Group Inc., for instance, currently employs 36 drivers, 23 of whom work in its recycled fibers division, says Dave Poltzer, corporate transportation manager. The number of company drivers used to be much higher, but five years ago The Newark Group decided to outsource about 50 driving positions, all of them in recycled fibers, he notes. In many cases, the same drivers who had been working for the firm then found jobs with the various 3PL (third-party logistics provider) companies that The Newark Group hired. These 3PLs generally send the same drivers and trucks to pick up containers from specific customers to ensure a similar level of service as company drivers.
Though companies often outsource jobs as a cost-cutting measure, The Newark Group is actually paying more for the 3PLs. So why make the change? To avoid the headaches of meeting DOT driver compliance issues as well as “the potential large downside if there’s a catastrophic accident or serious workman’s comp injury,” explains Poltzer. “We wanted to avoid the potential for a $1 million accident, the liability, the negative exposure in the press, and things like that.”
Other personnel challenges—from health insurance and pensions to sexual harassment and drug or alcohol abuse—also disappeared when using outsourced drivers. But the difficulty of finding drivers was not a factor in contracting with 3PL firms, Poltzer states.
So far, The Newark Group feels the outsourcing approach has worked “reasonably well.” The idea is still essentially an experiment, and there are no plans at this point to replace more company drivers with 3PL drivers. “There’s no overwhelming motivator or evidence that it’s better to outsource than to keep it in-house,” Poltzer concludes.
Robert L. Reid is managing editor of Scrap.
Recyclers often can’t pay as much for truck drivers as other industries. That’s why it takes creative management and various incentives to keep good drivers in the scrap recycling fleet.