Most Courier businesses these days now use Driver Contractors. There are many reasons why this solution works better than using the standard model of employee drivers.
When any new Driver Contractor signs up, they are asked to review and sign off on a long & heavy worded contract that’s sole purpose is to protect the business of liabilities, detailing what is and isn’t acceptable behavior. This contract is easier to segregate ties with a driver than those of an employee contract which is one of the reasons courier business choose Driver Contractors over an employee model.
Drivers are not like an Electricians, Engineers or Mechanics. Nobody dreams of being a Courier Driver as a child. People usually fall into the career of being a driver like a factory worker. So you end up getting all sorts. And the hard truth is, it’s impossible to tell if a driver is reliable, dedicated and will meet the requirements of the job in a 20 minute interview. The best method to sort out the good, the bad and the ugly, is to simply give them a try.
Now we are in this situation where anyone from any where can come along and start working as a Driver Contractor. The problem is courier companies are not great at managing their Driver Performance. Because by doing so would require an exceptional amount of care, attention and investment in an already competitive market. In a perfect world every courier business would articulate the issues properly by documenting and communicating them back to the driver, followed up by additional training and monitoring. However, In most cases this doesn’t happen and a hell of a lot of stuff goes unsaid.
A strategy to manage poor performing drivers is to push them into work that doesn’t pay all that well and letting them come to the conclusion it’s not worth the trouble so they ultimately drop off on their own. We live in a world of expendable drivers because the market is disloyal and price competitive. When it comes to transport, everyone wants things done cheaper and this creates a revolving door of Driver Contractors because the reduction in costs need to be reduced some where.
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