Dealing with underperforming drivers

Good morning everybody. Welcome to day two of the Driver Safety Theatre. Thank you all for coming. The first session this morning is going to be around dealing with underperforming drivers, which I am sure is a topic many of you struggle with. 

There will be Leo Taylor from Drivetech introducing the panel for the session, and we are going to have a discussion around some of the issues that they have to deal with. So without further ado, Leo, if I can ask you to introduce your panel, please. 

Okay, thank you very much. Can you all hear me? Good. Thank you for the warm welcome, Simon. A key topic for us, and I am delighted to be here today to welcome three esteemed guests. 

To my left here, I have got Ben Graham, Partner and Development Manager for Waitrose. I have got Diana Salmon from Allianz UK, who is Head of Occupational Health and Safety. And Dr Lisa Dorn, Associate Professor of Driver Behaviour. 

Like Simon said, we are here today to discuss dealing with underperforming drivers. This is not just going to be a PowerPoint presentation, it is going to be an interactive fireside chat. Then we would love to open it up for a Q&A, because we know when poor driving goes unchecked, the impact goes far over and above the road. It can lead to incidents, vehicle damage, downtime, claims, complaints, and additional costs. 

It can expose gaps in management oversight and safety culture. So this is not only about individual drivers, it is about how well an organisation identifies and deals with that risk. 

So Ben, in a busy operational environment like Waitrose, how do you measure driver risk and identify higher risk and underperforming drivers? 

We have a number of things. At the start of a driver's journey, we have a system, Fleet Risk Manager, a DriveTech system that helps us identify drivers thinking, and that can trigger some help. 

We also use telematics so we can see how drivers are behaving on the roads, and things like collision history also give us an idea of problems. We also have our own assessors at branch who are involved in a driver's induction period. Those assessors can say at any time that there is a problem and we need some help, so we can bring in support and try to lift the driver rather than discipline them. 

So culture is key. Diana, many organisations struggle to create a culture where driver health and safety is constantly prioritised. What challenges have you seen in driving engagement, and what would you advise other businesses to do to drive positive culture and adoption? 

Problems we have noticed include not identifying all the drivers who should be identified. We are okay picking up our fleet drivers, but quite often we do not notice our grey fleet drivers. 

There is also inconsistency in how managers manage drivers, particularly where there is a conflict between getting the work done and time allocated to training. Some managers do not have the skills to have those conversations that improve driver awareness of risks on the road. 

Another issue is fragmentation. We have fleet teams managing vehicles and licence checks, HR teams doing their part, and health and safety teams working on measurement, reporting, and improving safety. It is quite fragmented. 

We would recommend improved leadership so that driver safety is prioritised, and managers are upskilled as well as individuals. We should make learning easy, rather than making it such a complicated process that people do not engage with it. 

We should also use leading indicators instead of just measuring accidents and who is having them. We can gain insight through telematics and other data sources. 

Lisa, what are the biggest reasons drivers underperform, and why is it important to understand the cause and not just react to the outcome? 

One key factor in human error is the difficulty of the driving task. When people are on the road, they must make decisions in real time using their eyes, mind, feet, and hands. From a psychological perspective, everything is engaged, which creates many opportunities for error. 

Especially when people are stressed, under pressure, fatigued, or distracted, they can easily miss emerging issues. 

Most human error comes from an information processing perspective. There are also issues of inexperience where people do not have the right training. It is important to recognise that people do make mistakes, but that does not mean you blame the driver. It is about managing risk, and there are systems available to help managers with that. 

Ben, when you identify a driver who needs help, what approaches have you tried, and what has worked or not worked? 

Initially, drivers often need help with basic competencies, so that is our starting point. If a driver comes through our systems, we will look to on-road training, as we do find competency issues. 

If they go through that and show they are capable but continue to have incidents, then we consider that they know what they are doing but are not doing it. The question then becomes whether they behave differently when not being watched, or whether there are pressures from the business. 

We have to balance productivity and safety. Sometimes productivity overtakes safety in people's mindset. We have all followed the car in front more closely to get there sooner, even though it makes no real difference. 

At that point we start thinking about mindset, which may require conversation rather than training. We also need to support managers, because they do not always have the skills needed. Helping managers on that journey is a win-win. 

We are also seeing more use of on-road training again. More customers are going back behind the wheel rather than relying only on digital learning. 

Diana, when driver risk is not managed early enough, what are the wider business consequences that leaders often underestimate? 

You can break this down into direct costs, people costs, operational costs, and cultural impacts. 

Direct costs include vehicle damage, repairs, hire cars, and staff being off the road. There are also increases in insurance premiums, excess costs, and sometimes drivers becoming uninsurable. There may also be legal costs. 

On the people side, there can be serious injuries or fatalities, which can have knock-on effects on teams and wider organisations. There is also the cost of investigation, which may involve police and health and safety bodies, improvement notices, and prohibition notices that could remove drivers from the road. 

Operationally, there is downtime during investigations and disruption to work. Culturally, repeated incidents can reduce engagement. People may start to question whether the organisation is managing safety properly, leading to increased absence, turnover, and difficulty recruiting drivers. 

There is a significant wider impact if it is not managed properly. 

Ben mentioned interventions. Lisa, what types of interventions are most effective in creating lasting behavioural change? 

One thing that has become more common is telematics-based interventions. There is evidence that they are effective, but like any tool, they need to be used appropriately. 

It's how you use it. 

And if the data is used in a way that makes people feel blamed for the mistakes that they make, then that's not a very helpful way of using the technology. 

Far better to use a meaningful coaching conversation to help nudge them through small improvements towards some goal. There is plenty of evidence that when you compare feedback in the vehicle or feedback on an app or after the journey, that is not as effective as a coaching conversation. So we are currently doing exactly that same thing, helping people with their communication skills and helping driver managers with making sure that they use the technology in a way that is supportive and not punitive. 

So Ben, can you give us some of the biggest challenges you have faced in dealing with underperforming drivers, and what practical advice you might be able to give us here? 

One of the challenges we have is trying to resource driving and that can work against us. So if we have a driver who is really underperforming, managers are reluctant to take action because they are worried about how long it is going to take to replace them. So that can have an effect. 

But I think there is also this culture of "well the driver has got it wrong, it must be down to the driver." And actually we do have to look inwardly and think what pressures are we putting them under. Many of our drivers are very customer focused. 

They can leave the branch and they are thinking about "I must get to Mrs Jones in time." They sometimes forget we are delivering oranges, not organs. 

And it is trying to get that culture right. Of course we want to get to Mrs Jones on time, but getting to Mrs Jones safely is a million times more important than getting there on time. And at the end of the day, if you have left late or got held up, that is one of those things. We need to be honest about those and have honest conversations so we are not piling it all up on the driver because the driver tends to get it in the neck for causing damage. 

Whereas we really need to reflect back on the company if they are running late for reasons that are outside of the driver's control. So that is perhaps an issue we need to reflect on. 

The general rule I would suggest is if we always leave on time, half our collisions do not happen, because drivers do not feel that pressure. So that is something we need to focus on. It is not just about the driver. 

Thank you, Ben. 

Diana, what does good look like to you in an organisation that is managing underperforming drivers as well? 

It would be identifying the triggers that have occurred. So are there repeated speeding incidents or repeated minor accidents happening? Is there anything we can pick up from complaints that are coming in, or anything else from the telematics, such as people who are heavy braking or taking corners at speed? 

Is there anything we can do there to manage them proactively? Is there anything we can pick up to help with their capability? So looking at their health, whether they are tired, whether we are asking too much of them, or whether they have things going on outside of work. 

Getting to know the drivers. Are we paying them enough so they are not having to take on second jobs or taxiing in the evenings? 

Having a good coaching and training process in place. Thinking about the job itself. Are we asking them to do the most appropriate routes? Can we look at redesigning those routes? 

And having a wellbeing package in place for them. Then again, having good training and smart targets so that we know at certain triggers, actions actually happen. Those are reasonable and achievable, and we are checking in with them regularly. 

Lisa, from an academic perspective, what should businesses be doing differently if they want to improve long-term driver behaviour, not just short-term fixes? 

There is a lot of really great work being done right now, but I do feel there seems to be a lack of focus on understanding human factors. 

I developed a course three years ago. It is incredibly popular and it really helps managers understand some of the basic principles about why drivers either commit errors or commit violations. There are distinctions between the two. 

Errors are much more associated with information processing limitations and capacities. Violations, where drivers deliberately and intentionally break the rules, require a different approach. 

For those, you need to understand people's motivations, emotions, and how stress is changing their focus of attention. You need to help them develop self-reflection skills so they can put in place what they know to be the safe way of doing things. 

At the same time, as Ben said, you have to have an organisation that keeps on top of these violations. There should always be a safety net, rather than coming down on people, because ultimately if they leave the business, they go somewhere else and have not learned anything, and you see the same problems coming through again and again. 

So it is a good idea to encourage safer driving even amongst repeat offenders. 

And how important is diversity of content now? Traditionally it has been a licence check, risk assessment once a year, and then some e-learning. We now know one size does not fit all. How important is having different materials available? 

It is really important. Some of my previous work has been around assessing individual differences, looking at vulnerability to fatigue, stress, time pressure, thrill seeking tendencies, and frustration with other drivers. 

These factors change decision making. From a coaching perspective, you can profile that and identify vulnerabilities, then change your approach accordingly, rather than using a single approach where everybody gets the same thing. Everybody is different, and that is the human factor. 

Diana, you mentioned grey fleet at the beginning. It is often a pain point for many businesses, and BVRLA stats show cash for car is increasing. Do you manage that in the same way as company car drivers? 

We do, yes. Same policies. 

It is about trying to get leadership engagement to recognise there is driver risk there. At the moment, treating everybody the same is almost the safest way of doing it, because at least they are getting something. 

Taking it further is, for some organisations, too much of a challenge right now. 

Ben, do you believe businesses are still too focused on incidents rather than warning signs? 

Some things do work. Driver hours is a good example. If you ask car drivers how long you should drive before a break, most say about two hours. 

If you ask lorry drivers, they say four and a half hours, because they are legislated. There is a mindset of "I can keep going." 

Our advice is that if you are feeling tired, you might only have been driving half an hour and you should still stop. 

We need to allow for that. If a driver keeps having to do that, there is an underlying problem. 

We can all get to work having had a bad night, but we need to look at what is leading up to incidents. Are we putting pressure on drivers? Are they putting pressure on themselves? Are they driving when unwell? 

For some drivers, taking a day off sick is not viable because of cost and processes. So we need to look at all those things. 

There is a danger that we fall into discipline rather than help. We need to focus more on helping first and lifting the driver into a better place. 

It is a lonely job. 

That helping mode then creates the culture, doesn't it? 

Absolutely. 

Would love to have some questions from the audience. 

Could you talk a little more about leading indicators? You mentioned telematics, but are there other areas that can help improve safety? 

Telematics has really captured that space around leading indicators. It is very compelling to have a camera in the vehicle. You can see what the driver is doing, whether they are yawning, blinking, or nodding off. 

You can use that in conversations, especially around fatigue. If you have had less than six hours sleep, it takes two good nights sleep to recover that sleep debt. Many people do not know that. 

It is about managing fleet safety through understanding fatigue processes. You would not know that without cameras. 

But drivers often do not like cameras because of privacy concerns. However, once they see how it supports safe driving, it is usually more accepted. 

Any more? 

Processes and procedures have not really been mentioned. How important are they from a risk reduction perspective, for example fatigue policy and how to implement it? 

From a large organisation perspective, you need a fairly uniform approach to processes and procedures. There is both a disciplinary process and a driver development process. 

We do not want managers to be heavy-handed after a first incident. Most first incidents are minor scrapes rather than serious misconduct. 

We are trying to give help and support, but there comes a point where repeated incidents require disciplinary processes. You cannot ignore that behaviour. 

We need to balance capability versus conduct: is it a help issue or a behaviour issue? 

Does that answer your question? 

No, I kind of kind of I mean staying with process and procedures, how do you bring those to life? I think all of us in the room receive a 52-page document which tells you what you should be doing. How do you go about communicating those and bring those to life and getting people engaged? 

Well, I mean, we have management guides which are available for anyone to look at so that they're not hidden. It's one of the ways the partnership works is that there is visibility on things. So we're not hiding anything from anyone. But it does start with conversations and any collision, for example, will result in a review of the incident and a discussion with the driver, which they then may go on to a more formal process depending on what we find. We do lay these processes down which anyone can look at. 

But it can be a bit dry and one of our jobs as the training team is to try and bring these things to life. So we have regular workshops with our managers to try and bring our policies and procedures to life. So rather than just reading a dry document and going, I do not really know what it means, we use real life examples and try and get that across. 

When our training team are having conversations with our drivers, with a manager involved, they start to see a little bit more insight into what it is that we are looking for and how to encourage better behaviour. So it is not just about getting a big stick and hitting them. We want to try and lift people as well. 

Dino, anything to add to that from Allianz UK? 

I think the challenge we have is the fragmented part. We are quite disparate as an organisation in having lots of different locations and lots of business. If you have a fleet of delivery drivers, they are all doing the same task. We have engineers that are out on the road all the time. We have a grey fleet. We have different teams doing different work within that. 

We may have somebody who is only driving very occasionally to go to a work event, right through to somebody who is travelling halfway across the country to meet a client to sell to. Each of those are coming from different branches and there are different cultures within those branches about what is acceptable. 

So it is fragmented out on the delivery side, but it is also fragmented when you have fleet looking after and putting down rules that the car has to be treated in a certain way. Then that is coming from a hire car company that is making rules as well. You have HR who are saying certain policies and things have to be done. There are triggers for absences and they get reviewed. Then you have my team who are trying to oversee and look after safety, health and wellbeing, but there are conflicts between all the different things there. 

So it is a very difficult world when you are trying to manage a process for driver safety effectively. 

Yeah, good. Thank you. Any other questions? 

Thank you. Do you have any advice for us? We do really good induction drivers. I work in the waste department down in South Devon, so we have lots of windy roads and big vehicles. But as soon as we introduce agency drivers, we get an increase in accidents. They have the same induction process, same training as our in-house driving team. I just wondered if you had any advice for what we could improve with our agency drivers. 

Ben, do you use agency drivers at Waitrose? 

Every seven years or so someone will come and say agency drivers are our solution, and three months later we realise that was not okay. 

In our van world, in our big depots, what we call a customer fulfilment centre, we do use agency drivers and they are quite successful because they are more transport orientated. In the lorry world we do as well, and some companies attract lorry drivers who are off around the world doing different things. At Christmas time it is steady income and a lot of companies have returning drivers. 

But in the van world we have found that it has been problematic. The sort of people looking to be agency drivers might have gone to a job agency and ticked a box to say yes, I have a driving licence, but with no aptitude or desire to multi-drop deliver. It is quite a different thing. Whereas if you have an agency lorry driver, they have clearly qualified, kept up to date with driver CPC and so on. So you are looking at different animals. 

Is it mainly lorry drivers in your business? 

Yes, it would be the big fleet waste vehicles. 

You are right, because it is easy to think an agency driver is a shortcut, but if we do not tell people what they need to know, it is no wonder they get it wrong. It can take just as long to induct someone who is only going to be with you for two weeks as someone you hope will be with you for many years. 

That is the trick. What do we cut out? A lot of things you cannot really cut out. You still have to show people how to do things. 

Can I ask, do you do any pre-qualifying yourselves or is that all left to the agency? 

They are pre-qualified with the agency, but we are still seeing accidents are far higher, around 50% of vehicle accidents being related to agency drivers. So my recommendation, as a health and safety training officer, is if we cannot use agency drivers, that is my recommendation usually, but operationally it is not always possible due to demand. 

In an ideal world, the agency would ensure drivers are of a certain standard and capability, because that makes the agency more able to market those drivers to different organisations. They might spend time with one organisation and then move on to another, and the agency would own that development more. 

But then how do they do that if agencies do not have vehicles available? There needs to be a buy-in and relationship with companies to bring those skills up. 

Maybe I could come in there and say it is often a completely different motivational strategy for people who work for an agency compared with people who work for the organisation. They do not embed the values and norms that your organisation would, so they are not as committed. 

Recently the police analysed people killed and seriously injured by month of the year and found most KSIs happen in July. They attributed that to agency drivers covering holidays. So there is a specific risk. 

What companies like Waitrose can do is ensure that procurement processes for agencies include exactly the same policies and procedures as their own drivers. 

Good, thank you. Great question. Any more? 

I just had a quick question surrounding automated coaching. I was wondering if you utilise any of that in your fleet currently, whether through telematics or a safety provider, more so monthly or weekly. It compiles video evidence of what the driver is doing and provides it to the driver individually so you do not have to take time from a safety instructor. I am wondering if that could be beneficial for early intervention and reduce reactive coaching. 

Sorry, I am struggling. 

Yes, we struggled here. Was it about the video? Sorry, we cannot hear. Utilising AI and video? 

Yes, utilising AI and video. We are seeing that come up quite a bit, being able to pre-empt accidents before they happen. There are telemetry and camera companies here today demonstrating those. I do not know if you are adopting any of that camera technology. 

Funny enough, a meeting invite dropped into my diary last night for a conference. 

My general response to AI is 25 days. If anyone is a Terminator fan, you will know what that means, when Skynet became aware and tried to annihilate us. 

But there are things we can do with AI. As a company we are embracing AI in many systems, but how we use it for driver training is still in its infancy. I am interested to see what it can do. 

I think nothing replaces the human relationship, but if AI can help us get to that human interaction more quickly and effectively, then that is a step forward. 

Diana, I know Allianz is a German business with a strong works council. Has there been any discussion about inward-facing cameras? 

No, not at all. It is quite difficult to get subjective driver safety on the agenda for Allianz. They are still thinking about other risks first. 

They are embracing AI, so if AI could be integrated into vehicles that might interest them and bring driver safety into focus, but it is not currently being pushed. 

From an academic perspective, there are some really amazing systems out there. I have been working on bridge strikes for two or three years. Some technology is problematic because it is GPS-based and alerts drivers when there is not actually a low bridge on the road, just nearby. Psychologically drivers then switch off because it feels like crying wolf. 

With AI, if it can visually identify a low bridge and provide an audio warning like "low bridge ahead", then drivers are more likely to respond and stop. Those systems will be improved by AI in the future. 

Time for one last question. 

No. Well, thank you very much. A warm round of applause for our panel. I had one question for you. I spoke yesterday about inducting younger drivers and novice van drivers. I said it is important that young drivers come into a culture of safety and compliance because they copy existing behaviour. How important is it to ensure younger drivers are separated from poor performers and placed with good role models during that formative period? 

Well, we do not have an age limit on drivers. The only limit is 18 due to delivering alcohol and sharp goods. We do have branch assessors who can signpost if someone needs help. 

We do recognise that with new drivers, especially since some manoeuvres have been removed from the driving test, we see less capability in making decisions like turning a van around. 

We do a lot of work on that. We are looking at what we can do with newer drivers. We find it is newer drivers to us rather than young drivers generally that we have concerns with. They can be overrepresented in bumps, so we have strengthened the induction programme. 

But focusing specifically on younger drivers is something we are still looking to improve. 

Brilliant, thank you very much. There was a lot of talk about telematics in that session. One of the free resources at the Driving for Better Business stand is called Fleet Data Outcomes. It is a study into fleet operators, the data they collect from telematics, how they use it in coaching and interventions, and the outcomes. There are a few hard copies available, otherwise scan your badge and we will send you a PDF. 

 

 

 

 

 

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