Where to begin. CHES likes to squeeze every last nickle of value out of its equipment. Consequently, much of our OTR fleet is in a steady state of being repaired. There seems to be a bias against anyone working in the West. We always get the scraps and stems. We have some drivers that have yet to drive company owned equipment. Most of our fleet (tractors) is in excess of 12 years old and many have in excess of 1 million miles.
New trailers are being purchased at a glacial pace. However, whoever specs them out does not spec them out to be able to safely secure anything smaller than a 55 gallon drum. The management is uninterested in taking input from the production level employees in this regard.
Equipment resources are so scarce that competition for said resources that it has created much conflict between facilities with some employees showing favoritism toward one group and against another when allocating these resources.
Pay is stagnant. When my group was moved over to the corporate transportation group we received a bump in wages, but it has been frozen in place for several years now. We have a per diem allowance, but it is not that which is fully allowed by the IRS.
For the OTR driver, vacation pay is a joke. They pay on a 40 hour basis, which in my particular instance (after taxes and voluntary deductions) can result in a paycheck so small that it would cost more to process the paycheck than would be paid to the employee. In previous employment, the company would take a previous year's earnings and divide it by the number of weeks in a year to determine a week's vacation pay. Even an average daily wage (not including per diem) would be much improved compared to the employee's hourly rate x 40 hours. It's for this reason I've not taken a full week of vacation in the last 3 years. My family likes food, clothing and shelter.
Benefits menu is so so. The most troubling is the health insurance deductible which is currently at $7000 before the insurance applies with the customary 80/20 split after the deductible is satisfied. In other words, unless one has a catastrophic health event for a family member one is paying for coverage that will not be used. There is no reason to believe that the deductible will not increase in the near future.
The company does offer longevity awards, however they are so weak (kindest phrase I could use). I received a 5 year award and had to have a magnifying glass to see it clearly. There is no recognition for drivers who achieve significant years/miles of safe driving. At two previous employers drivers were recognized for one, two , five, ten, ..etc years and miles of safe driving. I'm confident this company has several million mile safe drivers, yet there is no recognition of these significant milestones and does not appear that such will be recognized.
Driver retention is a concept so foreign a concept that it would seem the words are unpronounceable at corporate.
The CEO has repeatedly announced that a quest for efficiency. Yet current practices only to serve to make the work and allied paperwork more and more complicated and with a constant emphasis on cost rather than quality-quality constantly suffers. In a push to consolidate facilities, time after time , examples abound of inefficiency grow with that consolidation. An example would be moving from a facility which designed for distribution to repurpose an older facility and just make it work. Spend what is needed to make it work and hang the costs and future expenses. It's as if it's change for the sake of change without examining potential negative consequences. One is left with the impression of showing those who are affected by the change that we from the corporate offices are show the pheasants that we ARE in charge. There are management employees within the company that have a greater depth and breadth of experience than those who are running the transportation and distribution, but as usual corporate at best ignores them and what they could bring to the table. I thought the idea was to work smarter. Instead it is just work harder.
Since the company is so strong in using the company cell phone apps for so many tasks that we perform , how about asking us what we could use to make our lives simpler. The paperwork is far too complicated and too much.
Training is a one size fits all. Much of the training (99.9%) I have received has been for other job descriptions than what I do. Very little is aimed at my specific job. Rather much is aimed at a broad sweep of the employee base, resulting in taking the courses just to pass, rather than improving ones skills and understanding. And training is a sacred icon in this company irregardless of its usefulness to the job in hand.
Decision making that affects my job moves at a glacial pace and often we are left to improvise and make out with what we have. I have been awaiting decisions that will affect my job for three years while corporate dawdles.
