At Connected2 we have been looking at the roles that each member of the team has within a transport office and how we can help to improve the processes involved. Specifically, around managing the shifts, timesheets, and expenses.
It has long been a difficult balance between drivers and office about shift start times and business requirements in this very fast paced and demanding industry.
We believe that fundamentally underneath all these discussions are a lack of understanding of each person’s role. Some of this can be caused through a very limited time of direct engagement that our industry has with its drivers before they go off for the day or even week. We live in a society that has so many ways to communicate through social media, but do we truly talk to the drivers?
Our focus as business is how can we help businesses digitise some of these their processes, saving time but improving the process and creating the audit trail behind. This will allow businesses to take this time to invest into better engagement and time on other tasks within their day.
We believe that drivers should have more time to know about their shift patterns and when they have time off. How do we ensure that they can have work/life balance that is so much easier to create when you have a 9-5 job at a set location each day? Trying to find ways to communicate the business needs considering seasonal peaks or holiday cover versus driver needs is something that is key and can be improved but, if you only have a short 15-minute brief at the start of the day how do you do this? What else can we do to make this time available?
From a manager’s view point they need to be looking at how they can maximise their resources, but can we do this by digitising the processes? Can we verify data and display the errors in a quicker manner rather than adding multiple spreadsheets?
To do this we must look at digitisation but more importantly into products that will work together to join the data together and get meaningful analysis. Critical in this also is the speed of this. If we can get the data from last week validated on a Monday for example, that leaves the rest of the week to act and make changes. If it takes 4 days to put everything together the data is already out of date to make changes. Using our ConnectedTeam system we are looking to try and break these barriers and look at direct driver engagement, verification of data and critically giving the business more time and visibility of their resources.
We believe this can really help to break down these barriers and make a real difference within the operation whilst keeping the upfront investment low but giving the resources to grow your business.