A truck standing still earns nothing. Neither does a new driver stuck in a meeting room. Yet onboarding in transport often starts with a day of slides, lukewarm coffee and forms. Death by PowerPoint, engine off.
There is another way. At De Rooy, new drivers carry their onboarding in their pocket. Three weeks of it, on their phone. From the digital tachograph to the paperwork for crossing to the UK. Every week ends with a short test. And drivers finish them in droves: 95 to 100 per cent.
So how do you make it work? Five tips for in-house driver training that keeps your drivers on the road.
A new driver need to know quite a lot before getting the keys. How the company works, what the code of conduct says, what to do after damage. None of that needs a steering wheel. So put that knowledge in an online learning environment that works on a phone. Your drivers can then learn wherever and whenever suits them.
At De Rooy, the first week is all about the company, the rules and setting up your vehicle. 93 per cent of drivers complete the module on working at De Rooy. Once they are in the yard, all attention goes to the truck itself.
JET's couriers move up another gear. With CLX, they are ready for their first ride within hours.
A driver heading to Germany has little use for a lesson on loading and unloading in a city centre. And a courier in Utrecht can manage fine without British customs rules. So work with groups, each with its own content. That way, everyone learns what fits their own route.
DHL eCommerce does this with thousands of couriers across 179 CityHubs. Every role gets its own training, with safety and compliance woven in.
Use the same learning environment to show where the road leads. From driver to transport planner, or to team leader. Good drivers are hard to find. Drivers who can see where the road goes next are more likely to stay. Read more about growth paths that keep your people on board.
Everyone in logistics knows it. Delivering exactly when it is needed saves a lot of hassle. Knowledge works the same way. Is your driver heading to the UK for the first time next week? Then you want the paperwork to come up again just before they leave.
That is why De Rooy gives every country its own module. What do you take to Germany, Belgium and the UK? How does the crossing work? What should you watch out for at the border? All 59 drivers who received the module on these three countries completed it.
In Formula 1, a car stands still for a few seconds, then roars off again. Learning on the road works the same way. A lesson of a few minutes fits between two runs, or into the wait while loading. Does the tricky material come back a few days later? Chances are it sticks.
De Rooy breaks its onboarding into more than seventy short modules. Toll boxes, restricted viaducts, refuelling and the CMR consignment note each get their own moment. And one of the weekly tests is called, you guessed it, Pitstop.
On Europe's motorways you hear Polish, Romanian, Portuguese and Dutch side by side. A safety instruction in your second language only half sinks in. In a 40-tonne truck, half understood is not quite enough.
So offer training in your drivers' own languages. In the TinQwise learning environment, you translate a module with AI in a few clicks. Then have a native speaker check it. That takes some time and money at first. Every new driver who joins earns it back. Want to know how TinQwise works with AI? Read all about it at AI at TinQwise.
Curious what this could look like for your drivers? Tom will walk you through De Rooy's onboarding in half an hour. Coffee is welcome, the slides stay short.