By Dean B. Wisevarver
As safety consultants working with electric utilities in our national program, we are often asked to conduct driver training sessions. That’s fine, and we are glad to be able to help in this important area. Still, as an experienced, professional consultant I have some concerns about companies relying on group training sessions to manage an employee’s performance behind the wheel.
Background
Lots of things affect safe driving but we can probably group them all into just 3 main categories. In the first group are the driver’s physical attributes such as eyesight, reflexes, time and distance judgment, etc. These aspects are the basis for pre-employment physicals, annual eyesight acuity testing, and bi-annual DOT physical examinations. The next group covers the driver’s technical knowledge about vehicle handling, rules of the road, proper turning and following, using mirrors, vehicle maintenance, company policies, etc. These aspects are generally and appropriately covered during group training sessions. Last and most important is the driver’s attitude. Attitude includes things like courtesy to others, adjusting to traffic conditions, respecting traffic laws and rules, caution in danger zones, smooth technique while operating the vehicle, driving well within the driver’s and vehicle’s capabilities, and the driver’s conscious decision to exhibit these characteristics. After making sure a driver has the physical attributes and the technical training, good, safe driving comes down to the driver’s actual performance.
Lets’ face it, although your energized lines can be the source of very serious injuries and death for unwary employees or members of the public, vehicle operations rank at or near the top of the list in terms of the likelihood of something serious happening to your workers or to members of the public. At most electric utilities, the energized lines and other system components get appropriate attention – training attention and supervisory monitoring and feedback. Ask a lineman to recount the last time he had a supervisor pay attention to and be familiar with his performance doing actual line work and he’ll quickly give details. Ask the same lineman to recount that last time he had a supervisor pay close attention to and be familiar with his driving performance and he’ll probably fumble around trying to think of a time. Unlike performance doing line work, performance in driving is almost always taken for granted. It’s expected by management and generally viewed as something that may require training but does not require close monitoring and feedback.
Regular Positive Feedback Is The Key
Safety behind the wheel is, indeed, a performance issue. Like all performance issues, people build on what they believe they are good at. Regular positive feedback to individual employees about their driving performance is not going to take place in group training sessions. To provide meaningful feedback to individual employees about their driving, supervisors and managers need to know how these employees are doing. To know, the supervisors and managers need to monitor the employees’ driving skills just as they monitor other aspects of performance.
If you want to know how well your employees drive you have to find out first hand. Fortunately, there are some useful techniques to doing this. The most common approaches used by companies I have worked with over the years are check rides, end-of-day interviews, and direct field observations. Some companies actually use all three, although the most commonly used approach is direct field observations. Each of these approaches requires a bit of explanation.
Check Riding
Check riding requires a designated observer with specifically learned skills. It should also include some type of reminder list of things to observe during the check ride, although the items on the list should be so well known to the observer that the list need be checked only occasionally. The observer should look to see where the driver’s eyes are moving and looking under differing situations. Does he check his mirrors regularly? Does he check his gauges? Does he look down in front of the vehicle as he’s driving along or does he (more appropriately) look several hundred feet in front. Does he react early to other vehicles and their possible actions? Does he lift his foot from the accelerator early when it is clear he may need to slow or stop or does he go directly from pressing the accelerator to pressing the brake pedal? When coming to a full stop, does it end with a very noticeable jolt or is the final stop smooth? These are just a small sampling of the driver’s habits and techniques that the observer should be noting that require more of the observer than just noticing how courteous the driver is or how well he abides by traffic laws.
End Of Day Interviews
End of day interviews can be fairly free-form and brief and are intended to find out what the driver, himself, thought about his performance behind the wheel. There may be some specific questions the interviewer should prepare in advance, but the goal here is to get the driver talking about his driving experiences for the day and, in so doing, make it clear that the manager or supervisor doing the interview really is interested in the driver’s driving ability and habits. A driver that is attentive during his time behind the wheel will have plenty to say. One that is not so attentive will fumble around trying to think of things to say. If such a driver discovers he will be interviewed almost every day, he’ll begin paying more attention and, little by little, will increase his attentiveness to his driving.
Field Observations
Field observations are just that – getting out to watch employees actually driving. This activity almost always requires at least some degree of making unannounced observation, but it does not need to and should not take on an air of sneaking around to catch drivers without their knowledge. Compare this activity to normal supervision on a job site. The supervisor is there, the employees expect him/her to be there. The observations are expected and those being observed don’t begrudge supervisor doing so. The same level of accepted, normal supervisory observation could be accomplished for driving. Of course, one essential way to bring this about is for the supervisor or manager that makes the field observations to approach the driver (or drivers) he observed and provide thorough, well-balanced feedback, and to do so without the slightest hint that the one observing was sneaking around. And, balanced feedback means giving lots of attention to the things done well, not just the things that could be done better.
Doing field observations requires a bit of training, too. While any supervisor could probably do a reasonable job without any special training, he should receive at least some training to help him understand what he is looking for – all the subtleties in the driver’s actions that are indicators of skill or lack of skill. Plus, he should be carefully instructed on the concept that his goal is to tell the drivers he observes what they did well, not try to catch them doing things wrong.
Typical Monitoring Approaches Are Ineffective
The exceptionally good drivers I have met over many years take great pride in their driving performance and bring a well-developed, positive self-image into the vehicle with them. Their performance behind the wheel is an extension of their overall sense of professionalism, no matter what their primary job is. It doesn’t matter whether they are executives, sales people, plumbers, electricians, home health care providers, or electric utility employees. Their positive self-image is shaped by feedback from everyone they work with but particularly their supervisors and managers.
At most of the electric utilities I’ve worked with, the only feedback an employee gets on his/her driving skills is based on negative information – accidents, vehicle damages, moving violations, and complaints from people outside the company. Even normal accident and violation histories such as DMV reports are not a good basis for meaningful feedback because they are very old data, are a listing of failures rather than successes, and often can be misleading. (We all know good drivers that occasionally get tickets, and bad drivers that somehow avoid getting caught.) Even if there is no negative information on a DMV report, supervisors and managers rarely say anything – which does nothing to reinforce good performance.
The absence of accidents or moving violations may be your goal but it should not be the limit of your feedback to employees. It’s true that what gets measured gets done. But, what is it you want done? Is it really just no accidents and no moving violations? Or, is it excellence at all times while driving, good driving decisions and techniques that preserve and protect your equipment, and courtesy to others that see your company name on the side of the vehicles?
Conclusion
I believe that taking time to monitor actual driving performance and providing positive, reinforcing feedback to drivers is a much more effective way to inspire excellent driving performance than doing 10 safe driving sessions in the office. I’m not suggesting there is no need for formal driving sessions – there are important driving techniques that everyone should have a chance to learn. But, I believe that it’s naïve to expect group training sessions alone to translate into the positive self-image and professionalism one needs to exhibit excellence behind the wheel.
In all areas of worker performance, “What gets measured gets done.” and “People build on what they believe they are good at.” It’s the same with driving motor vehicles.
Editor’s Note: We, at Synebar Solutions, can provide you with more information and advice about the 3 monitoring techniques described in this article. If you would like to know more about them, contact us by clicking here and one of us will get back to you promptly. R. Bruce Wright