It’s generally accepted that the New Zealand road transport industry is experiencing workforce issues. A survey of 630 trucking companies in March last year found more than 80 percent of them think the driver shortage is very serious or serious1. You can also find ‘Heavy truck driver’ on Immigration New Zealand's construction and infrastructure skill shortage list.
The US and the UK are experiencing similar shortages, with the UK facing a shortage of around 100,000 drivers, a result of workers leaving the industry, Brexit and the pandemic.
Locally there are several initiatives to grow the number of trained drivers within the road freight industry (see The Road to Success), however a determined search for new drivers is not the only solution if your business is challenged to find qualified drivers to complete jobs.
Increased efficiency of your existing drivers
A focus on productivity improvement and increasing the efficiency of your existing drivers are effective ways to combat driver shortages.
vWork is developed with both efficiency and productivity improvement in mind. Not only do our users see improved driver productivity, but they’re also saving money.
We’ve regularly seen our users experience a 20% uplift in efficiency by using route optimization for their transport logistics businesses. Improving efficiency by 20%2 ultimately reduces the requirement for additional drivers for 20% of their fleet.
vWork provides our users with flexibility and transparency and is capable of immediate and effective changes on the go. Our route optimization tools ensure that each vehicle and each movement delivers the maximum financial return.
Time tracking saves time, and money
One of vWork’s key time savers is enabling our customers to move away from manual timesheets and untrackable radio communication methods. Using vWork can help your business:
- Automate workflows to eliminate paperwork
- Ensure accurate record keeping and reporting
- Automatically feed reports with key metrics
- Automate customer updates on driver status
- Improve customer communication to prevent any misunderstandings and/or grievances
- Keep drivers busy and happy.
Havelock North based trucking company Akitio have been using vWork for over four years. Since using vWork they’ve managed to reduce paperwork by 75% and reduce the time spent preparing paperwork for invoicing by 60%.
The time savings enable their drivers to spend more time driving and complete more jobs.
“The more we have automated for the drivers, the better off we are. Letting the drivers focus on what they do well and automating the rest.”
- Trucking industry desperately short of drivers | Newshub
- When using vWork route optimization, drivers typically complete their routes in 20% less time. vWork customer Hummingbird Bakery achieved a 20% uplift in the time taken to make daily deliveries.
