Give Your Fleet Career A Jolt With 4 Foundational Principles

“As the man once said, the harder you work, the luckier you get.”

• -- Ted Lasso

From time to time, we all fall into the trap of resting on our laurels at work. Even if we are dedicated to our jobs, it just tends to happen. We get too comfortable in a role, and we stop pushing ourselves.

The minute you stop progressing, you stop working towards success. That doesn’t mean you’re not effective at your job. You might even be great in your role. It just means that you’ve stopped growing and progressing your career.

For some people this is just fine – they like doing the job they have and want to stay in that role. But for others, especially those who want to be leaders at their fleet operation, they need to keep working to grow their skills and develop their careers.

At RTA, we’ve spent the past year identifying what it takes for fleet operations and fleet leaders to succeed. We determined it largely comes down to these Four Pillars of Fleet Success.

Join us at the first-ever Fleet Success Summit, April 20-21, in Phoenix

Stakeholder Satisfaction

Living up to the expectations of those who depend on the job you do.

When we’re at work, it can be easy to live in a silo and focus on the task at hand and not think about the larger picture of who we are working for. Yes, we work for the company that cuts our paychecks, but we also work for our customers, our families, our customers’ families, our customers’ clients, and more. The list can be endless, depending on who your fleet operation serves.

It’s essential to keep this top-of-mind to ensure you are meeting your stakeholder’s expectations.

Intentional Culture

Purposely deciding the type of environment you want at your fleet and taking ownership to shape that identity.

Culture is something we don’t talk a lot about in fleet. We tend to be so focused on closing out work orders, performing inspections, and keeping our vehicles on the roadways that we overlook the importance of creating an environment where our employees want to come to work each day. This matters now more than ever with the Great Resignation and ongoing staffing shortages. The right culture can improve your employee retention, saving you time and money on recruiting and training.

To establish an intentional culture, you need to be very purposeful about determining what kind of environment you want to have at your operation, and what kinds of people you want on your team.

Resource Efficiency

Making the best use of your two most finite resources – time and money.

This pillar is pretty straightforward. To be successful, you need to manage your time and money to get the most out of both of them.

We all have the same amount of time to spend each day. What matters is what we do with it. To keep your staff productive, you need to find efficiencies and eliminate redundancies in processes. This can include helping your technicians perform a more effective vehicle inspection or establishing standard repair times for your techs. Doing this can help you identify training opportunities and highlight areas where your operation needs to be more efficient.

Money is something we are used to budgeting because we know we only have so much of it. It’s important to make sure you are using your fleet operation’s money wisely and are staying on budget. This can result in tough decisions on when you’re able to replace vehicles, when you can make new hires, and other expenses.

Risk Management

The proactive process of identifying, assessing, and controlling the threats to your organization and stakeholders.

Unlike a lot of industries, in fleet, we must deal with the real possibility that mistakes can lead to serious injuries, and even death. Because of this, it’s essential to ensure the proper precautions are taken at your operation. This can include being proactive about mitigating as many risks as you can, making sure employees are properly trained, and having a plan in place to address emergency situations.

While we can’t control all of the risks we face each day, there are steps we can take to limit as many as possible.

Join us at the Fleet Success Summit on April 20-21, in Phoenix, to learn more about these pillars and get tips on how to apply them to your job. The event will feature 12 speakers – including fleet professionals who have been in the trenches and can provide tips on how to help you and your fleet succeed.