As a fleet manager, managing the drivers and staff members can already be a huge challenge in and of itself. Unfortunately, the added responsibilities of day-to-day tasks make managing the fleet even more demanding, and this can lead to a significant drop in work quality and performance. This complexity also leads to more mistakes being committed, making the situation more stressful and costing the company money and time.
That being said, to prevent mistakes on your end of fleet management, we want to share with you common fleet management errors and what you can do to ensure they do not happen:
Error 1. Lack of Training
Assuming that your team knows a lot is a costly mistake. Sure, some may be reasonably well versed in their job, but not everyone will be. This can lead to you creating false expectations out of your team that falls significantly short of the actual results you get. For that reason, you must give your team plenty of training programs, along with educational material, so that they can keep up with new technology and techniques. Also, ensure that they have their licenses and certificates updated often and do refreshers if necessary.
Error 2. Hiring Wrong Talents
Not only must you get the training aspect for your staff right, but you also must hire the correct individuals in the first place. Many costly issues when dealing with fleet stems from the fact that the wrong talents are hired for the job. Not only will they not be as productive as those that are well-versed, but it can also negatively affect the entire team’s morale. As such, it is better that you take a little longer hiring the right individuals. In the long run, this will help to maintain and even boost productivity and keep your employees happy.
Error 3. Inefficient Route Planning
The only thing that inefficient routes are good for is to burn money and time away. This is nothing you would ever want to deal with when managing your fleet, but if you aren’t using telematics to create proper routes, it might just be the mistake you’re making. Because of this, a good solution is, as we already mentioned, is to use telematics. With it, you can plan new routes, modify routes, and even track routes, all to make the route your drivers take much more time and fuel-efficient. As a bonus, efficient routes are generally the faster routes as well, meaning that your customers will be much happier with the speedier and safer service!
Conclusion
There are many other mistakes that fleet management tends to make in their day-to-day efforts, such as miscommunicating needs, making too many exceptions, and forgetting all about preventative maintenance. That said, if you are committing any of the mistakes we’ve mentioned so far, put in the effort to fix them. It may take some time for you to change how you do things, but once you do, you’ll find that these changes are for the better! They will all help you not only manage your fleet much more easily but do so to save plenty of time and money for your company.
Manage Vehicle offers fleet management software and compliance systems to help fleet managers stay on top of their small or large fleets. If you are looking for fleet management solutions in Australia, get your quotes from us today!
