190 Drivers | OTL | Truckload Fleet

Key Takeaways:

• Veriha unlocked full visibility into their training and onboarding program, cultivating a culture of accountability
• Veriha centralized their driver data in a single location, enabling better risk identification and new reporting capabilities
• Veriha saw a 63% reduction in preventable Accidents per million miles and a 43% reduction in total accidents

Veriha Trucking is a transportation solutions provider based in Marinette, Wisconsin, that offers truckload, entertainment, compressed natural gas, and 3PL services. The carrier’s core values of safety, personal development, people first, go the extra mile, and sustainable results guide their over 200 drivers and inform all operational decisions made.

Like many truckload fleets, Veriha sought to improve their retention rates and build a safety culture in a high turnover sector. At the same time, they also sought to overhaul their system of identifying risk and assigning corrective action, both in an effort to improve their safety performance and also to reduce terminable accidents. Veriha found their answer in the Idelic Safety Suite®

Before Safety Suite – New Drivers, Recruiting, & Retention Difficulties

Veriha was not immune to the problems all truckload carriers face. Despite a drop in driver turnover due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the large truckload sector’s average sat at 90% for 2020. Additionally, Veriha hosts a training school for new drivers, giving them a unique set of challenges most carriers do not face.

The fleet was pouring a large number of resources into recruiting drivers. On top of this, their training school graduates—being so new to driving—had a disproportionately high accident rate that contributed to turnover and rising costs for Veriha.

While Veriha did its best to identify at-risk drivers and tackle the root causes of their risk, their disparate systems made reporting on accident predictors difficult. Switching systems, running reports with incomplete data, and a lack of visibility into the onboarding and training processes was holding the fleet back.

After Safety Suite – The Complete Picture of Fleet Safety

“We wanted to keep an eye on our drivers and keep them happy. Safety Suite really put that together—that exact plan.”

Alison Heider, HR & Risk Manager, Veriha Trucking

With Safety Suite, Veriha consolidated their driver data into a single, comprehensive platform. Safety Suite pulls in data from a fleet’s ELDs, cameras, HR systems, training provider, and more to enable a wide array of reporting functions and give a fleet a full picture of their risk. Safety Suite’s PDP Module also enables fleets to assign, track, and manage all of their professional development plans (PDPs) in the same system they use to identify risk—a huge benefit to efficiency-minded fleets.

Increased Visibility: Using Safety Suite to Onboard Drivers

After a new driver completes their training program, Veriha assigns them an onboarding plan in Safety Suite. Under this plan, drivers meet with team members from Maintenance, Safety, and Operations, at least once a week for their first 12 weeks on the road. Their onboarding continues for a full year, with consistent, planned check-ins between drivers and their managers every few weeks from 12 weeks on.

“The accountability of the system is a huge help. It comes from the visibility Safety Suite brings us.”

Alison Heider, HR & Risk Manager, Veriha Trucking

With Safety Suite, managers are given a bird’s eye view of their full onboarding program. Fleet leadership can check the progress of each onboarding plan, see what events are coming down the line, and leave notes on every check-in. The increased visibility into the system enables leadership to hold their managers accountable to the onboarding plans they assign, which reduces turnover and bolsters safety culture by ensuring every onboarding plan is carried out to its fullest.

Task Reminders: Using Safety Suite to Manage Training

When a driver has a performance issue, Veriha assigns them a custom training plan they designed in Safety Suite that relates to their specific risk behavior, such as unsafe backing, HOS violations, or improper U-turning. Typically, these plans are four weeks long and feature two discussions per week with dedicated training personnel. Their drivers are also assigned video training on the behaviors relevant to their plan.

“The task alerts are our favorite part of the program. It is so easy to lose sight of who you need to reach out to if you just put it on your calendar. Safety Suite fixes that.”

Alison Heider, HR & Risk Manager, Veriha Trucking

For each training and onboarding plan, managers can view a list of all past and upcoming tasks associated with that plan, including driver meetings, video assignments, and more. The visibility this brings is two-fold, because not only can managers see their upcoming tasks, they can also receive notifications for them. This ensures that a task is never missed and that managers have adequate time to prepare before a driver check-in.

Significant Accident Reduction

With full visibility into driver safety and a clear plan to execute coaching, Veriha saw an impressive 63% decrease in preventable accidents within 24 months of using Safety Suite.

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This decrease contributed to an equally as impressive 43% reduction in all roadway accidents.

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Conclusion

With Safety Suite’s PDP Module, Veriha has built a training and onboarding program that is truly accountable to the safety culture they’ve cultivated. Veriha is a prime example of a fleet that is using technology to confront an industry-wide issue head-on. Their ability to quickly address the root causes of risk behaviors, more consistently engage with drivers, and seamlessly onboard drivers into their culture is proof that technology like Safety Suite can serve as a powerful tool for responsible fleets.

If you’d like to learn more about how you can take your training and onboarding program to the next level, sign up for a demo today.

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