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Explore the world of driver recruiting with the HireTruckers Podcast! Join us as we talk to recruiting experts, offering industry insights, marketing trends, and motivation to enhance your recruiting skills. Whether you're a seasoned recruiter or just starting, our podcast is here to help you level up your game in the trucking industry.
Welcome to the Hire Truckers podcast, where we interview experts in driver recruiting. We provide industry insights, marketing trends, and motivation to help you level up your recruiting game. Welcome to the Hire Truckers podcast. I'm your host, Erin Craddock. And today, we have Terry Tesh with RB Stewart Petroleum Products.
Aaron Craddock:We're super excited to have him on the show today. And, we've been talking about getting him on for, I think, a couple months now. Is that how long it's been, Terry?
Terry Tesch:It seems like that's about the right timing.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. And so some context, like, after we released the first, I think 3 or 4 episodes, we had Terry reach out to me on LinkedIn and he's like, hey, like, one thing that would really add value to the market is talking about driver retention. Like, not just the marketing side and recruiting side, but, you know, if you can't keep them in the company, then, you know, you're kinda wasting a lot of money on the recruiting side. And so I asked Terry, I'm like, well, who, you know, who could I talk to about that? And he's like, well, I've got some experience in that.
Aaron Craddock:And then the more I dug in, he has a lot of experience with that. And so just for some context, Terry's been in wholesale fuel for 33 years, which is very similar to the transportation industry in in that it's a tight knit community. And then he's also and then he's grown into the transportation side, over the last 11 years and then also still on the fuel side. And Terry is saying when he goes to industry events now it feels like a family reunion, just where he's seeing all his old friends. And I I really get that just even, you know, being in the transportation industry now for, I think, 13, 14 years, I lose I lose track.
Aaron Craddock:But, yeah, when I go to these events, it's just so cool to see familiar faces. And, yeah, it's just an industry that can be really good to you if you, yeah, if you look out for other people, and bring others up alongside. So where I wanted to start today is, like, I'll give a little backstory on my moving to Austin, and then I kinda wanna hear hear of your story of moving back to Texas after getting laid off. So so one thing, like, that Terry and I have in common is we've been laid off in our careers. And, you know, at, you know, at the time when I got laid off almost 5 years ago, I, you know, it was a really hard thing.
Aaron Craddock:But I knew, yeah, that God had a plan and I started on this company the next day. And then kinda flash forward to a year and a half ago, my wife and I felt like we should make a move, then we decided on Austin. And we're like, yeah, we'll move in, like, a year and or so after all these things fall into place. We have to sell our house. She has to have tenure, we thought it was gonna be another year and then find a daycare, find a house, list our house.
Aaron Craddock:Anyways, a list of like kind of some big things and, you know, sometimes when God starts opening doors, they all open. So we found ourselves in Austin less than 2 months later after starting talking about it. Wow. And we had a new baby on the way. So now we have a 1 year old And July, we will have been in Austin for 2 years.
Aaron Craddock:And absolutely love it. When I was getting back at the airport yesterday after visiting a couple fleets, you know, I just took a picture of the cityscape kinda like I have behind me here, of Austin. It's just changed a lot in a very short period of time, and there's multiple taller buildings going up now. But just cool how it's become a home in a such a short period of time. So so, Terry, if you wanna walk us through just, yeah, the story of you moving back to Texas after getting laid off years ago.
Terry Tesch:Yeah. I had taken the gentleman that actually got me into the fuel industry got hired by, of all people, the 4 letter sports network, ESPN, and asked me if I wanted to follow him into that industry. Obviously, I had no experience in it, but it was more of a marketing and sponsorship role, which is kind of right in my wheelhouse. Little did I his sponsors sponsors on that side of the business left the organization and he became part of a pretty significant power struggle that ultimately he ended up losing. And the next morning they called me and said, hey, by the way, we don't wanna split management team.
Terry Tesch:And so we're gonna ask for your keys. Now at this point, this is in 2006. I haven't looked for a job since 1980. I had been transferred from role to role and followed this gentleman from one company to a second. And, I remember going driving home.
Terry Tesch:I got terminated at the Hyatt Hotel at the Orlando airport. And they took my cell phone, my keys, they wouldn't even let me back in my office. And I remember driving home and thinking, I've got to walk in and tell my wife that I no longer am employed. We're 18 month we're, 18 months removed from Texas and which was really home for us. I'm blessed as your 1 year old is now to be a native Texan.
Terry Tesch:And it was a very scary moment and was really wondering what I was going to do. Didn't have the network in Texas or in Florida that I had in Texas. And so, I went home and told my wife what happened. And first thing she said is, Well, I think we need a glass of wine. So we got we opened a glass a bottle of wine.
Terry Tesch:And I said to her, I said, Janet, I said, do you Do you want to stay in Florida? Do you like it enough to stay here? And she said, Terry, she said, I'm going to tell you right now. I can't wait to go back to Texas. I just didn't know how to tell you.
Terry Tesch:And so, it was at that point that my mentality changed a little bit that I thought, you know what? This isn't a setback. This is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to make my wife happier. This is an opportunity to go back to a place that I love, that I had contacts, that I had friends.
Terry Tesch:And long story short, I reached out to 2 or 3 of the folks in my network. And within a week had a job offer. And within a month, Janet and I were moving to back to Houston. And there is no other way for me to explain this other than the Lord took his hand and said, this is where you're supposed to be, young man. And this is where I'm at.
Terry Tesch:And it led to, a couple of interactions. A headhunter called me a couple of 3 years later, moved me to a better opportunity than what I came back to. And then the ownership of this company, who I had called on before I left Texas, reached out to me about, it'll be 12 years in September. They reached out and said, Hey, would you like to come join us? And I had great respect for the organization.
Terry Tesch:I said, absolutely. And they'll I joke with the ownership. I came in vertically. They're going to have to take me out horizontally. So it is truly it was just another one of those just real world examples where if we will just trust in the plan that God has for us, it'll work out.
Terry Tesch:It'll be just fine. And, that's sometimes hard to remember in the midst of tribulation and and and troubles. But, he's taken care of me and my family. And and I'm, I'm thrilled to be here today and and be able to share that story with you.
Aaron Craddock:That's awesome, Terry. Yeah. I can I can really relate to that? Just, you know, changing perspective very quickly of going from, like, the the victim mentality to, like, hey. This is God's plan.
Aaron Craddock:Like, I don't see all the pieces, but, you know, I could start to see him line up pretty quickly, after getting laid off. And, yeah, and then just trusting. And I hope that kinda puts hope in some people that as they get laid off, lose a job, make a career change, make a move, you know, with that goes contrary to their plan, and then it seems like it's just chaos. And and I just just hope that it gives you know, just hearing Terry's story and then hearing hearing my story just gives you hope just when when things are hard just to lean in and trust. And, yeah, so appreciate you sharing that, Terry.
Terry Tesch:I saw a, believe it or not, this morning, I saw a post on LinkedIn. And basically, the essence of it was your how you go through your struggles today will be somebody else's roadmap tomorrow. And I I thought that was that was pretty cool and pretty appropriate.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. That applies to today and when we release this episode. I love it. So the next thing I wanted to dive into is what we're talking about with retention. And so, you know, you'd said, hey, I have some experience in this area.
Aaron Craddock:And so when we're talking on our pre call, you said you became passionate about retention 5 or 6 years ago. And you thought you were rock stars at 55 to 60% turnover. Which I, you know, I would kinda say, you know, for a lot of fleets with a 100% turnover industry, that is that is a rock star. You're cutting in half. So kinda walk me through that journey of how you've been able to even improve retention over that 55 to 60% turnover rate?
Terry Tesch:So 2 things have happened for us that kind of drove the decision making process. And one was, it was just frustrating the amount of time, money, effort, and energy we were spending to bring in people that to drive for us that really, in the long run, post analysis, they just weren't the right fit from the beginning. And so we began to think a lot about, how do we communicate better what to what a what a driver should expect when he comes to work for us, not just what we're gonna expect of him. And then secondly, we were beginning to enter a period in our company where our parent was going to significantly ramp up their growth, and our fleet was going to, have to expand significantly. And we were going to have to expand our geographic footprint.
Terry Tesch:At this point, we were just in Texas. I had the ability to go see every one of my drivers literally on a day trip. So I thought to myself that, you know, if we're going to manage a fleet that today we're in 9 states, back then we were probably something in the neighborhood of 30 or 40 trucks. And today we're a 132100 plus drivers. We weren't going to be able to afford nor have the manpower to replace 50 to 100 drivers a year.
Terry Tesch:So got together with my team and we began to talk. And the term that really came out was we had to become intentional about retention. And we had to become intentional about building a culture that drivers wanted to not only be a part of and were willing to take a risk on coming to work for us, but once we got them here that we were the employer they thought they were getting into. And doing all of that while adhering to, obviously, safety standards, the litigious nature of the industry we work in, you The billboard attorneys are everywhere. And if you're not doing the right thing, they'll find a way to tell you you're not doing the right thing.
Terry Tesch:And so we just got really intentional about it and began to work to change our culture first inside of our office. There was no longer was it going to be allowed to have an us versus them mentality with drivers. It was going to be And I use the term in our organization, there are no just jobs. I'm not just a driver or I'm not just a biller or I'm not just a dispatcher. Every one of us is required to make this thing work.
Terry Tesch:And for us to really make the drivers feel a part of that, we had to quit painting with the broad brush of all those drivers. So that was the first step. And then it really began to I really began to notice this, that communication was really what drivers wanted. A lot of times, I don't necessarily like the decisions I make. We have a very, we have literally a zero tolerance cell phone policy.
Terry Tesch:And it was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made in my career 9 years ago. But we took the time to explain to the drivers why. We took the time to really communicate it in advance of the decision and not just drop it on them like a like a 100 pound weight. And it it resonated with me that communication with drivers was important. You know, my wife and I are gonna be married 37 years in September.
Terry Tesch:We don't agree on everything, but we talk through everything, and we end we try to understand each other. And that's what I'm trying to do now with our driver community is help them understand the why behind the what. And and I think that's helped us. And then finally, I found myself very early on as we stepped outside of the state of Texas and saying, well, I'm just, know, I'm not going to be able to go to Alabama. But I've made it a point to say, I'm going to go that the 1st few years, I'm going to go see every market at least once a year.
Terry Tesch:And fortunately, now we're large enough now, it's about once every 18 months, but I've got a lot of my senior leadership team that are following behind me and doing that. And I was sitting at a dinner, a holiday dinner with our group in Mobile, Alabama. They had been with us about 18 months at this point. And part of the problem we had in hiring was they said, well, you can't be as good as you say you are when we were hiring them. And so I just point blank asked the question.
Terry Tesch:I had 4 of the original 6 drivers that were still with us at that point. And I said, are we as good as we say we are? And they said, yes. And I said, what makes us good? And had a driver look at me and he said, you know, Mr.
Terry Tesch:Terry, he said, I've driven truck for 40 years. He said, not only have I never known who the vice president of the company was, I sure as heck never had dinner with him. And it resonated with me on my drive back to my hotel that night, that being present for our drivers is important. And that can be virtually, that can be via phone, that can be in person. But we have to be present for them and make them feel a part of the team because that doesn't just happen by osmosis.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I loved I loved your analogy on just the marriage relationship and communication. Because I think about my wife and I, we've been married, it'd be 14 years in June Yeah.
Aaron Craddock:20 I'm, like, doing math in my head. 13. 13 years. Anyway, 2011, be 13 years in June. And, yeah, now we just you know, even in the 1st year of marriage, like we didn't, like we had a lot of conflict and it was because we didn't address things head on and communicate.
Aaron Craddock:And that that's kinda how things have changed now is like if we're feeling something and start to get frustrated, like just communicate it head on and talk it out. And, you know, I'm a lot earlier into the game, into the marriage game, but I can already see those steps kinda paying off. And then and then the other thing that I agree with you on is, like, getting in front of your drivers and in person. And I think in the age of, like, social media and, like, having, you know, surface level connections with a lot of people, like, actually getting face to face in person. Like, I hope we can grab lunch, you know, at some point Absolutely.
Aaron Craddock:Face to face. You know, this is good, like, via video, but it's even better when you sit down. Like I had an opportunity earlier this week to sit down with 2 of our current clients. And, you know, we grabbed a meal with one of them and spent 2 hours and then we went to, swung by the terminal or main office of another fleet. And yeah, just, yeah, getting to just talk and and again, no business came up.
Aaron Craddock:Like, it was just building that relationship. And, yeah, just that that and that that was actually our final leg. And then, you know, we're not not a gigantic company right now. And so we were able, between me and a couple other people on our team to we've gotten face to face with everybody that we work with in Q1, which is is kind of crazy. Like like we just wrapped it up.
Aaron Craddock:And, yeah, you just get better feedback and yeah. And then people just want that authentic relationship. And so, I think that that's super important. So so what did you see, like, kind of as an impact? You were at 50 to 60% retention rate, 55 to 60% turnover.
Aaron Craddock:What's your turnover rate now?
Terry Tesch:So we are averaging over the last 3 years, 2023, 2022, and 21, about 14.5 percent turnover.
Aaron Craddock:Wow.
Terry Tesch:Of that, we invite about 3 quarters of those folks to leave for a policy violation or whatever. And only about a quarter of that number is choosing to leave us. And so, you know, I'm pretty proud of the fact that our fleet has grown. Our driver count has grown an average of 20% a year over the last 5 years. So we've done a lot of hiring just to fill new spots and satisfy growth.
Terry Tesch:And to have a retention rate in the 96, 97, 98 percent range when you're doing that kind of hiring makes me feel very, very good about what we're doing. We think it starts in the recruiting process. We are very upfront in that we do things differently. That one of the things we do first day that every every employee in this company comes on board, they have a session with me and 2 other members of my senior leadership team. And I tell them, it's literally just to let them see that I don't have horns growing out of my head or one eye on the side of my forehead or something like that.
Terry Tesch:We're real people. Nobody likes to have business and laugh and giggle and then I have fun in this business or laugh and giggle more than I do. And so I want them to see the human side of me, not the title side of me. And I tell them that this is going to be the hardest, best job they've ever had because my expectations for them are greater. So what we try to do is before we get them into that onboarding, tell them what the expectations are.
Terry Tesch:Ask the questions that say, there are drivers that today will tell you, I can't survive without my cell phone. You're not for us. We give a driver an opportunity to use his cell phone because our we're a fuel hauler. So we're terminal to store. And then we've got time at store to drop and all that.
Terry Tesch:I get it. Work life balance is important. If they wanna make a phone call and check on how's the baby doing, what time is the PTA conference, what time soccer practice, hey, what time are our dinner reservations? Make that phone call 5 or 10 minutes before you get back on the road. I don't mind.
Terry Tesch:And in fact, we pay hourly. We don't even make them clock out to do that kind of stuff. So we set the expectation early and then we try to communicate often. We try to tell them about the opportunities that exist within our business, in terms of growth and you know, do they wanna drive forever or not wanna drive forever? That kind of thing.
Terry Tesch:And then it just becomes the ongoing consistent effort around communication through the entire organization. I force our finance and accounting team to interact with drivers. And I force drivers at times to interact with dispatchers when they don't want to or when with HR when they don't want to or with our general counsel. And by making it a whole of the enterprise effort, now all of a sudden, they don't feel like they're any different. They're just a part of the group.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. Yeah. I love that communication piece. Today's sponsor. Do you hire truck drivers in hard to fill areas, or do you need help creating efficiency in your recruiting department?
Aaron Craddock:You're not alone. With 50 plus years experience, TruckingClik specializes in data driven strategies, industry leading customer experience, and custom solutions that'll get you to your goal. Trucking Clicks is your go to place for high quality direct leads at scale. Visit trucking clicks.com or call 512-982-0816 today. What's your view on promoting within versus, like, hiring from the outside, and how have you seen that kinda impact some of the stuff we're talking about on retention?
Terry Tesch:So we are huge believers in promoting from within. Every member of our dispatch team, every member of our operations team except 1, and our safety director have all had their tails in our truck. And so what we do in those initial meetings when I talk to drivers specifically, I tell them, you know, I hope I've hired you to retire you because we've got these opportunities that are going to present themselves in a fleet and a company that's growing, that's well capitalized, that has great ownership. We have the opportunity and what I think to promote from within. Now, I We don't have a ban on outside hiring because I think sometimes fresh perspective is really important to an organization.
Terry Tesch:So we've done a couple of those kinds of hires as well. But by having a promote from within philosophy in the fuel hauling, I think the last number I saw, the average age of a fuel hauler is like 54 years old. And so what we're trying to do is attract a younger demographic to our fleet. And I think that the way to do that is to show them that there are opportunities beyond being behind the wheel. And we're starting to see some impact from that.
Terry Tesch:We're starting to see a few more late thirties, early 40 year olds come in and trust the us to be their employer of choice. Because let's face it. When you're a driver and you're ready to change fleets, it's not a matter of are there any opportunities out there. It's which one am I gonna take advantage of. And particularly as a hazmat hauler, our guys can drive dang near anything on the road.
Terry Tesch:So we have to compete with everything from the Walmart OTI local regional distribution model all the way to, you know, a hazmat hauler. And by having those opportunities promote from within and grow the company and give them an opportunity to enhance their and further their careers, I think it's beginning to also be a point that people look at when they try to make their decision. Do they wanna come to us? Is, hey. I may not have to be in the truck forever.
Terry Tesch:Now, there's some guys, that's all they want to do. I had a truck driver tell me that, Terry, the reason people die of trucks is so that I have to put up with people like you in an office every day. And, and I get that. Right? That's it's a lifestyle and and they like it.
Terry Tesch:But, we think that's hugely important. And we think it's going to continue to be important as the truck driver age and retirement begins to really take impact over the next five to 10 years, it's gonna be critical in helping us recruit the right talent to our organization.
Aaron Craddock:Mhmm. Yeah. What do you kind of foresee on that front? Because we have, you know, a lot of different fleet executives listening in and directors are recruiting. Like, what do you what do you think the impact on the driver population is gonna be the next 5 to 10 years?
Terry Tesch:I will be honest with you. I'm more optimistic today than I was, say, 3 or 4 years ago, say pre COVID. And part of that is because we have recognized that drivers are an essential piece of the economy in this country. And so we are now recognizing that you have to pay them well. You have to treat them well.
Terry Tesch:You have to invest in them just like you do in whether it's your in house general counsel or your fuel wheelers or your analysts. So I'm encouraged by that, that hopefully that will allow us to attract and retain more talent and younger talent. But I think there is going to be an impact. I mean, it is it is not a lifestyle that's for everybody. It's an incredibly challenging business.
Terry Tesch:Again, the billboard attorneys, they scare a lot of folks and particularly the guy that wants to, just before we got on here, and I got a notice from my director of ops. We have a driver in Florida that's gonna leave us, not because he's unhappy, but he's decided he's gonna take the the jump. And he's bought 2 trucks, and he's going to go out and start his own fleet. I worry about that guy in the litigious environment that we operate in. But I'm encouraged.
Terry Tesch:I I think I think truck driving and and the the push in our country away from you have to have a 4 year degree to be successful. I'm living proof of that. I don't have a 4 year degree. I was not at 18, I was more interested in girls and cars than I was education and books. So I had to kind of knuckle down and work my way up the ladder.
Terry Tesch:But I'm encouraged that we're recognizing not just drivers, but skilled trades as a whole as a real viable career opportunity and a real viable career opportunity that can provide a very comfortable living for you. My average driver last year made close to $100,000 And that's not working 65 or 70 hours a week. That's working 50 to 52 hours a week, because we think the 60 to 70 becomes a safety concern. And it becomes a work life balance concern. It becomes a mental health concern.
Terry Tesch:And those are the things that I wanna try to do to make this this industry more appealing to everything from young folks that say I'm not college ain't for me or the veteran transitioning out of his commitment that has driven a truck in in the military. You know, those kinds of things will continue to build this industry. We'll offset the losses from from the baby boomer generation retiring, which is where a lot of the truck drivers have have have occupied the space.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. Yeah. I, when I was at the Mid America Truck Show, a few weeks ago, or couple weeks ago, I noticed it was kind of encouraging, like just more enthusiasm in the industry, compared to the last, like last year for instance. And yeah, it was just really encouraging and kind of unexpected just because with spot rates still being low, I kind of expected it to be like last year where people were just kinda down and out as a large, you know, most people. But I just saw more of an investment in marketing and booths and boots on the ground and just, you know, 60, 70000 people showing up, to mid America this year.
Aaron Craddock:And, yeah, it just really encouraged me. And then there's a lot of new players like startups, innovative businesses. There's all these initiatives to bring young drivers in and to get ahead of the diesel mechanic shortage and
Terry Tesch:Yeah, which is real.
Aaron Craddock:Oh, it's real. That's, you know, one of the hardest positions to do marketing on to recruit for because those guys just aren't aren't actively looking like drivers sometimes are. And so, yeah, I think, you know, there there are some challenges with demographic shifts and people getting out of the market with an aging population. But yeah, I think there's just, yeah, there's a lot of enthusiasm towards, like, we can solve this as an industry. And then I was at the Truckload Carriers Association event in in Nashville, the annual event right after Matt's.
Aaron Craddock:And, yeah, just just hearing from fleets just, you know, there there were some there are some because I plan on being in this industry, you know, you've been in it 33 years, like in fuel oiling and transportation. I was thinking yesterday somebody was talking about retiring at 65, which I don't ever plan on retiring. But I'm like, I'm only 37. I got at least 30 more years in the industry. Like, I got, you know, 4 or 5 decades in transportation is the plan.
Terry Tesch:So There you go.
Aaron Craddock:And, yeah, so kind of the the next question I had was, one of the things we talk about is marketing insights on this podcast. And so I thought kind of your take on, because you're not doing a ton of Google advertising and Facebook advertising and and things like that. I wanted to kinda hear or have the audience here kinda what's what's working for you guys? What are you investing in right now in terms of recruiting? Because you still are growing your fleet, even though you have very few drivers leaving, you're still adding drivers every year.
Terry Tesch:So we have basically, you know, as I told you when we first met, I'm the worst prospect in the world for you because I've got my own recruiting team on board. But what we've done is we've invested in in house recruiting. We've invested in a more robust system to let us stay in touch with candidates even when I don't have an opening. You know, my goal, my challenge to my recruiting team and to my HR team is I want to have a candidate pool in every market so that I don't get handcuffed with a situation that I can't term a driver that I need to because of an operational impact. And so what we've done is invested in building that candidate pool.
Terry Tesch:We've invested in communicating through social medias and that kind of thing to say, hey, here's who we are. Again, we recognize we're not for everybody. But if these things are important to you, if safety and maintenance are important to you, if work life balance, if home time, if getting to a company where you know who the vice president is and maybe someday you'll have dinner with him. If if those things are important to you, then, hey. Give us a look.
Terry Tesch:Then we've invested in our onboarding and recruiting process or our onboarding process, I should say. Our onboarding now, this is going to scare some people, but it's a full week process. We have internally what we call the RBS way, which basically boils down to an unwavering commitment to serve the communities, to service our communities with technology, customer service, and an unwavering support of our people. And so what we do is we spend a lot of time talking about the RBS way and our onboarding and talking about what that means. It's not just a sticker on the back of my iPad.
Terry Tesch:It's a way of life for us. We talk about that literally every day in our company of are we doing this the RBS way? Whether it's a pre trip inspection, whether it's a billing process, whether it's our safety award program, which we're getting ready to pay our first safety awards out on a very, very significant safety award program that we've had. So what we've been done is we've invested in the process to let people see who we really are. And I think based off our results in most markets, we do have at least a 1 or 2 candidate waiting list.
Terry Tesch:We continue to struggle in new markets because people just don't think we can be what we say we're going to be. And so we have to go and improve it. But typically, what happens to us, we'll be in the market 6 months. We'll get that initial cadre hired and we'll be in the market 6 months. And all of a sudden, the guy that calls and says, Well, I told you I wasn't really interested in you 6 months ago.
Terry Tesch:Yeah, I think I'm interested now. And so, we really are trying to invest in the process. We're not trying to make it, can you fog the mirror and we're going to give you a seed. We're trying to make it, let's find the right person, the right fit that has the same beliefs and cultural beliefs that we have. And then let's go make magic.
Aaron Craddock:I love it. So what is the what is the RBS way?
Terry Tesch:It is literally doing things above and beyond what is expected. If I were to boil it down to its simplest sentence. With our drivers, the cell phone policy, right? 0 tolerance. Unfortunately, I fired far too many people because they couldn't stay off of their cell phone.
Terry Tesch:But this organization, as well capitalized as it is, can't afford a $90,000,000 Werner verdict. If we get that, all of us, including the vice president, better have their LinkedIn resumes polished because ownership is not going to assume that risk. So from a safety perspective, it's doing advanced training. It's doing constant coaching and mentoring. We were involved in a very minor collision about 2 years ago, and we had some culpability.
Terry Tesch:There were $1600 worth of property damage to the second vehicle. We've been a mud flap hanger. We paid the $1600 worth of damage, and we got sued for a $1,000,000 And in discovery, we found out that the person driving that vehicle, not only did they not have a current driver's license, they had never had a driver's license. And we still ended up writing a check for $50,000 And the reason we went to mediation was the driver that was involved for us had been with us 7 years, never had a ticket, never had an accident, had over 400 trainings logged on his training manual, and plaintiff's attorney called it check the box training. So we're now trying to go above and beyond in the training and the coaching and the mentoring.
Terry Tesch:I think I told you the story. I tell drivers, we're going to coach them more aggressively than they've ever been coached. And I like it to the story of Aaron Judge and Tiger Woods. Aaron Judge 2 years ago, hit more home runs than a right handed hitter in the history of baseball. And he took batting practice every day.
Terry Tesch:Tiger Woods was the number one golfer in the world of golf at one point for over seven and a half years consecutively. And has said in multiple interviews, he hit 1,000 golf balls a day. Well, if elite athletes at the peak of their performance with zero chance of dying on the job are willing to invest in their craft every day, why wouldn't we that are hauling around £80,000 of flammable material in urban environments where people aren't paying attention like my guys are. So it's the coaching. The RBS way goes into maintenance.
Terry Tesch:You know, we our drug and alcohol random pool is much greater than the federal minimums. Our maintenance program, we replace steers at 6:30 seconds instead of 4. We replace all other positions at 4 instead of 2. The cab airbag blows out. We replace all of them at one time instead of waiting for them to blow out individually.
Terry Tesch:Dispatch, it's we've changed our dispatcher's mentality. It's not about creating loads and managing inventory. It's about being customer service agents for our drivers. It's about senior leadership being available to talk to everybody in the organization. My door is always open.
Terry Tesch:Drivers are given a card at the beginning of their service with us that have my address, my email address, and my phone number on. And I will take a call from a driver 247 if I have to. And so that the RBS way is really about just not saying we're going to do the bare minimum. Because if we have that catastrophic event, I don't want to have to tell the plaintiff's attorney, I just did the bare minimum. I want to be able to say, hey, look at all the things we went above and beyond to try to mitigate this.
Terry Tesch:By doing that, creating that culture of safety and responding to our people and that kind of thing, I think it's helped us build this retention rate. And because I get the retention rate, now I've got guys that I know were bought in because they're not leaving me. And I think that's driving down our safety scores. I mean, I'll give you an example on our maintenance side, Aaron. Industry average is 20.7% out of service rate for a road side or weigh station inspection.
Terry Tesch:Ours is less than 1%. We've gone 2 out of the last 3 quarters. And in Texas, as you know, we suffer a lot of of, inspections because of all the mix app units across the state that we don't necessarily see in the other states we operate in. So that's with over 230 inspections on our record. And I've got an out of service rate of less than 1%.
Terry Tesch:It's about 0.9%. Wow. That's what the RBS way is.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. I love that. Just because one of the things, like, we stand for in my companies is just a growth mindset. And I just see you applying that growth mindset just going above and beyond just in the safety and accountability with drivers. And, you know, and one of the things I've found is just people like rise or fall to whatever standard leadership sets.
Aaron Craddock:And so by you even setting a standard of you're gonna show up, you're gonna be available, and, you know, here dispatch is your advocate, you know, and helping you. That's just, you know, so contrary to a lot of fleets that just do the bare minimum and do check the boxes. And so and so I think yeah. I just I'm super encouraged by that because I think you can, you know, even fleets listening to this can be like, wow, we can we can raise our safety standards and continue to make the industry, you know, just safer. Because to your point, the driver, you know, may have all this training and have done everything, but the 4 wheelers £80,000 of
Terry Tesch:£80,000 of flammable liquid.
Aaron Craddock:So Flammable liquid. So, yeah, you have to you know, that just you know, I'm kind of a defensive driver just assuming everybody's gonna cut me off and things like that. And and thinking ahead, like, if that car pulled off, where would I swerve? Things like that. But I can't even imagine in fuel hauling, it's just a whole another level of slowing down ahead of time and moving over ahead of time and and just, you know, keeping that space, never getting in a hurry.
Aaron Craddock:And then, yeah, I love the just zero tolerance on the the cell phone policy because it, you know, it only takes one second of being distracted. And, you know, it's one thing for me to hit somebody in my SUV. Like, it's another thing to hit them with £80,000 of fuel. So that's super encouraging.
Terry Tesch:The other thing we're starting to see, particularly in those distracted driving, occurrences is criminal charges being brought against drivers. My general counsel, we're gonna we're being getting very active in in an effort here in Texas to chase some further tort reform measures in the upcoming legislative session, building on house bill 19 that was passed in the 2021 session. And we're seeing criminal charges based off of some research we've done, negligent homicide, vehicular homicide, those kind of things in a distracted driving scenario. And I tell our drivers, you know, I can handle anything this business throws at me, except I'm not sure I can handle knocking on their door and telling their family they're not coming home. And so we talk a lot.
Terry Tesch:That's a lot of the why behind some of the what's we do is and I literally plead with them every time I see them. Don't make me make the knock. And over the course of this 5 or 6 years from when we changed our perspective of just hiring to hiring to retain, we have drivers that are bought in on that. And drivers that will tell us, you know, I used to work at a fleet where I could tell them for 3 weeks that the tires were bald. And they'd say, we'll get to it.
Terry Tesch:We'll get to it. Here, I have to get used to the fact that when I say it, you're probably gonna make it happen. And that's a really good thing to have in our industry. Because the only way for us to counteract a lot of what's going on, I believe, the negative perception in the industry. I had an expert witness tell me one time.
Terry Tesch:He said, you know, everybody's had somebody in their family, whether it be their grandmother, their wife, their daughter, their kids, whatever, who's been cut off by the 5% of the drivers in our industry that are not doing the right thing. And now all of a sudden they're on a jury where a driver was involved in a fatality accident. This is their chance to get even. And so if we can work as an industry from the inside out to change our perception, to tell our story, to tell people that these really are some of the most the safest professionals on the planet. I think it will help us when we get into some of these judicial hell holes where we have to try these things and turn juries and not allow plaintiff's attorneys to make us out to be the bad guy, but say, this was an unfortunate incident, but look at all the things we did to try to prevent it.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. Yeah. Because there's no, I mean, a 100% prevention of just accidents happening, but I just love how far y'all are going above and beyond the minimum mandates, to make it safer on everybody on the road, not just your drivers, but not having to knock on somebody else's door too. So
Terry Tesch:Exactly. Exactly.
Aaron Craddock:Was there any question that I did not ask that I should have asked?
Terry Tesch:You know, I don't think so. I think, you know, if I were to to wrap with one thing, I just say, you know, doing the right thing, whether it be in your recruiting effort, whether it's in your operations, whether it's in how you treat your people, sometimes it's not the cheapest way to do business. But, you know, we in our business, as an example, have determined it's about $17,000 to recruit, hire, and train a new driver. And so with, you know, for simple math with 200 drivers with a 20% turnover rate, that's 40 drivers a year. Even at that number, it's literally over a half a $1,000,000.
Terry Tesch:But if I was at that 65, 70, 80, 85 percent rate, and I'm hiring 120, 130 drivers a year, that's money that I'm ultimately going to say that I can invest in doing the right thing by my fleet, my ownership, and the motoring public that we operate around. And so sometimes you have to take the leap of faith. And I was fortunate enough that our ownership believed in what I was talking to them about. And now we look back and go, man, we're really glad we made that move. So I would encourage people to begin to think about doing things the different a different way than you've already done it.
Terry Tesch:Because what you're already doing is just giving you the results you've got. If you don't try something different, you never know whether it'll work or not.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And kinda, you know, one of my biggest takeaways from what you just said is just having all leadership bought in. Like, you know, sometimes you hear of, you know, just an executive, but then the VP of recruiting and ops isn't in alignment or safety isn't in alignment or like it's just cool.
Aaron Craddock:Like, they just have this RBS way culture across your organization where everybody's on the same page. And and if you're not, then that's not the right place for you. And Yeah. I just love that transparency and then just the radical honesty towards drivers of, hey, this isn't the easiest job. Like, you know, here are the downsides.
Aaron Craddock:I just think drivers just love hearing that. Just the honesty of here's the good, here's the bad, here's the challenges, here's how we're advocating for you. Because I think so much time they hear, here's how we're advocating for you. And then it doesn't, you know, like reality doesn't line up with expectations that were set to the good side. Yeah.
Aaron Craddock:And then on the bad side, like, they didn't expect some of these challenges. And, you know, the the radical accountability and things like that weren't established upfront. And then, yeah, that's when your turnover rates, you know, back up to 50, 60%. So
Terry Tesch:You know, we just did an employee survey and we broke it out into admin positions and driver positions with over 2 I think we had 203 drivers on the roster at the time we did it. We got a 91% response rate from our drivers. And they were brutally honest in some of their comments. Right? There are things we don't like.
Terry Tesch:We'd like to see change. That kind of thing. But overwhelmingly, it was 1, thank you for the opportunity to at least say what we're thinking. But, yeah, I told our HR team, you know, we're gonna get 15, 20, 25 percent, and and we're gonna think it was a great deal. We got 91%.
Terry Tesch:It tells me that our folks were not just an employer. They're invested in the future of this company. And, man, that's magic. That is just magic.
Aaron Craddock:Yeah. Because you, yeah, you have to be invested to take the time to give that feedback. That's that's so cool. I don't think I've ever heard of that kind of response rate.
Terry Tesch:I was blown away.
Aaron Craddock:That's awesome. Well, thank you thank you for your time today, Terry. We really appreciate having you on the show.
Terry Tesch:It's been my pleasure, Aaron, and look forward to getting together in Austin sometime soon and having lunch with you.
Aaron Craddock:Let's make it happen.
Terry Tesch:Alright, brother.
Aaron Craddock:Our goal with the Hire Truckers podcast is to provide industry insights, marketing trends, and motivation to help you level up your recruiting game. Thank you for joining us today. And if we added value, please take 10 seconds to share this with your network.