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ОглавлениеYou can start and run a successful brokerage as a one-person business, but to really grow, you’re eventually going to need employees. If you find the idea of interviewing, hiring, and managing employees somewhat intimidating, you’re not alone—that’s a common feeling among entrepreneurs. But this is very much a people business, and the people you hire will be critical to the success of your company, so it’s in your best interest to do it carefully and wisely.
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The ability to find and hire competent employees is a skill unto itself. Simply getting along with a perspective applicant and liking their personality are important, but you need to be able to evaluate their skill set, experience, reliability, honesty, work ethic, professional reputation, and education, for example, all of which help to determine if someone will be a good fit for your business.
Instead of taking a costly trial-and-error approach, consider working with an employment agency or having someone with extensive human resources or headhunting skills work with you during the hiring process.
The first step is to define the job you plan to offer. Create a detailed job description that outlines what the person’s responsibilities will be, as well as what skills, experience, education, and personality type you want them to have. The more detailed you are when defining and writing out each job description, the easier it will be for you to find a perfect applicant to fill each position.
When Cathy Davis started MCD Transportation in Smyrna, Tennessee, she was her company’s only employee. Today, the business she has passed on to her daughters has five full-time people. When Cherry Hill, New Jersey-based freight broker Bill Tucker bought his late father’s company, it was staffed by a few part-time, retired traffic managers. Today, there are some 30 people on the payroll, plus a few commissioned salespeople who work as independent contractors. “We pride ourselves on realizing that this is a people business,” he said. “It’s incumbent on us to be able to attract and hold the best people we can.”
Ron Williamson started RJW Logistics with him and his wife working part time. Today, he employs nearly 50 people in his Bloomingdale, Illinois office, plus about 150 drivers—mostly owner-operators—for his trucking operations.
This chapter discusses some of the hiring issues that are specific to freight brokerages. For more general information about developing your own skills as a human resources professional, consider reading specialized business books or taking classes on this topic that are designed for small business operators.
Pay scales in the transportation industry are very much affected by geography and market. For example, an experienced dispatcher in Chicago could easily earn double what the same position would pay in Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Do some informal networking in your community to determine what the going pay scales and commission ranges are before deciding how much you’re going to pay. Whatever you decide to offer in the beginning, from the day someone is hired, tell employees what they must do to get a raise without having to ask for it; then follow up by increasing their pay rates when they’ve earned it and have met specific milestones.
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The U.S. Small Business Administration’s website (www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/human-resources) offers a handful of free articles and resources related to managing human resources as a small business operator.
It’s a good idea to hire people before you desperately need them. Waiting until the last minute may drive you to make hiring mistakes, which can cost you dearly, both in terms of cash and customer service.
• Develop a Human Resources Strategy
After you clearly define the job position you’re looking to fill, use the resources at your disposal to find qualified applicants. These resources include referrals, social media (including LinkedIn), career websites, industry associations, and freight brokerage training programs that are looking to place their graduates into jobs. Of course, a traditional “Help Wanted” ad in a major daily newspaper can work too, but these days, career websites offer far more powerful recruiting tools.
Before you set up the first interview with an applicant, lay some groundwork to make the hiring process as smooth as possible. Decide in advance what you need. You know you need help, but exactly what kind of help? Do you need a salesperson or administrative support? Do you need a broker (agent), or someone to handle billing? In the beginning, you’ll be looking for people to do the tasks you can’t or don’t want to do. As you grow, you’ll be looking for people who can help you expand your capabilities.
• Write detailed job descriptions. Take the time to put a list of responsibilities and required skills in writing. This forces you to think through what type of person will best meet your needs. It also helps you reduce the risk of hiring the wrong person and allows you to establish expectations for your new employee(s) right from the start.
• Set basic personnel policies. Don’t think that because you’re a small company you can just deal with personnel issues as they come up. You’ll avoid a lot of problems down the road if you set policies at the outset.
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Some of the more popular online job-related websites where you can post and promote your job openings to seek out qualified candidates include: Indeed (www.indeed.com), Monster (www.monster.com), CareerBuilder (www.careerbuilder.com), ZipRecruiter (www.ziprecruiter.com), and Simply Hired (www.simplyhired.com).
When you first begin hiring people, you may want to consider bringing them on as part-timers until your business grows to the point that full-timers are required. One of the biggest keys to getting and keeping good people is flexibility, and you will find plenty of talented folks who, for whatever reason, don’t want to work full time.
If you can accommodate them, you’ll both benefit. As the workload grows and you need a full-time person doing that particular job, either change the status of your part-timer or, if that won’t work, be creative. Consider hiring a second part-timer, setting up a job-sharing situation, or some other solution that will allow you to retain a valuable person and still get the work done.
Because the service you offer is pretty straightforward, you don’t need a wide range of job titles in your company. Here are the basic positions you’ll need to fill as you grow:
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Salary.com (www.salary.com) is a fee-based online service that helps employers determine salaries for employees based on a wide range of criteria, including geographic location. This can be a valuable tool to help you set salaries and put together overall compensation packages for your employees.
• Broker (agent). A broker does the basic tasks that you do. This person needs to understand all the details involved in arranging a shipment and have good communication skills. A background in trucking is helpful. Unless you have a full-time bookkeeper or accountant, you or your brokers will have to bill shippers and pay carriers. You can either pay brokers a salary or a commission based on their sales.
• Secretary/receptionist. In most freight brokerages, this individual answers the telephone, routes calls, takes messages (during business hours, instead of relying on impersonal voicemail), greets visitors (though they will be infrequent), and handles routine word processing and correspondence.
• Customer service/Account representative. This is an inside person who handles all customer service duties, including quoting rates, taking pickup orders, tracking shipments, assisting customers with claims, and dealing with any service issues that arise.
• Bookkeeper. This individual keeps your financial records and may also handle billing and payables. He or she will also work as a liaison with your accountant.
• Sales representative. A sales rep may work inside on the phone, outside face-to-face, or a combination of both. This person’s job is to identify and secure new business and help maintain existing business.
Keep in mind that as a small business operator, you and your employees will often juggle multiple responsibilities. Another important position within a freight brokerage is the person who manages the company’s website, blog (if applicable), and social media presence.
Picture the ideal candidate in your mind. Is this person unemployed and utilizing various career websites to find a job? It’s possible, but you’ll improve your chances for a successful hire if you are more creative in your search techniques than simply writing a help wanted ad for a newspaper or posting a job opening on one or more career websites.
Put the word out among your professional contacts that you’re looking to hire, and utilize tools offered on professional social networking services like LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). The TIA (www.tianet.org) also offers resources for its members that can help freight brokers find and hire qualified employees. Schools and organizations that offer freight broker training, such as Brooke Transportation Training Solutions (www.brooketraining.com), are always willing to share details about their recent graduates who are looking for employment within the industry.
When you actually begin the hiring process, don’t be surprised if you’re as nervous at the prospect of interviewing potential employees as they are about being interviewed. They may need a job, but for you, the future of your company is at stake.
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Before you hire your first employee, make sure you are prepared. Have all your paperwork ready, know what you need to do in the way of tax reporting, and understand all the liabilities and responsibilities that come with having employees.
It’s a good idea to prepare your interview questions in advance. Develop open-ended questions that encourage the candidate to talk. In addition to knowing what they have done, you want to find out how they did it. Ask each candidate the same set of questions and take notes as they respond, so you can make an accurate assessment and comparison later. If candidates claim to have experience, use industry jargon to see how well they understand it. The freight business has a language of its own that most outsiders won’t be able to speak unless they’ve had proper training and experience in the industry.
When the interview is over, let the candidate know what to expect. Is it going to take you several weeks to interview other candidates, check references, and make a decision? Will you want the top candidates to return for a second interview? Will you call the candidate, or should they call you? This is not only a good business practice; it’s also common courtesy.
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Instead of hiring full-time or part-time employees, you can hire freelancers, develop an internship program, and/or work with independent contractors (agents). Each of these options requires you to adopt a different hiring approach, has different financial ramifications for your business, and allows you to fill different types of positions with qualified candidates. For small, startup businesses, these options often make more financial sense than initially hiring full- or part-time employees.
Always check former employers and personal references. Though many companies are very restrictive as to what information they’ll verify, you may be surprised at what you can find out. At least confirm that the applicant told the truth about dates and positions held. Personal references are likely to give you some additional insight into the general character and personality of the candidate; this helps you decide if they’ll fit into your operation.
Be sure your employees are legal. Under federal law, you must verify the identity and employment eligibility of employees; complete and retain the Employment Eligibility Verification Form (I-9) on file for at least three years, or one year after employment ends, whichever period of time is longer; and do not discriminate on the basis of national origin and citizenship status.
Be sure to document every step of the interview and reference-checking process. Even very small companies are finding themselves targets of employment discrimination suits; good records are your best defense if it happens to you.
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Hire people as soon as you start to feel you need them. You may be able to start by yourself, but to really grow and generate substantial revenue and profits, you’ll need a team.
Many of the employees you want could be working for major freight carriers or large manufacturers and already enjoying “big company” benefits. You can’t afford not to offer a strong benefit package. The brokers we spoke with provide paid vacation and holidays, health and life insurance, retirement plans, bonuses, profit-sharing, and flextime. Any other benefits and perks you offer to employees that make their employment experience more enjoyable or save them money will also be welcome.
As a smaller company, you have a degree of flexibility large companies don’t always have. For many people, especially those with children at home or care for elderly parents, flexible working hours can be a tremendous benefit.
Give your employees subscriptions to industry trade magazines and newsletters, and encourage them to use and share the information they learn from those publications. The cost is nominal, and the result is that you’ll increase their value to the company as well as their sense of self-esteem.
Williamson says that in addition to tangible benefits, you need to create a pleasant working environment. “This is a high-stress business, and we try to make the job fun,” he says.
There is no business where the slogan “people are our most valuable asset” is more true than in transportation, and taking care of your people is certainly important. But it’s also important to keep the relationship of the individual to the company in perspective.
“When you hire people, you can never let them think they are more important than the company,” says Indianapolis-based freight broker Chuck Andrews.
When he started his company, he hired a few people who brought business with them; they had an inflated opinion of their value to the company and used that to attempt to manipulate Andrews. Don’t give in to this brand of professional blackmail. Of course, it’s possible that when you lose certain employees you may also lose some customers—but it’s also possible that you won’t, and it’s highly unlikely that the loss of one person can destroy your business if you’ve built it properly. Andrews stated, “You have to let employees know they’re important to you, but you can’t let them think they have you over the rack and can come and go as they want.”
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Find out what your employees want in the way of benefits and perks before you spend time and money developing a package. Do a brief survey; ask what they think of the ideas you have and ask for their ideas. If they want something you can’t afford to do, don’t reject it immediately; figure out what you can afford, and explain the situation to the employee.
Employee turnover is an important issue in the transportation industry, especially in sales and customer service positions. Remember, this is a relationship business, and when you have employees who have built strong relationships with customers and carriers, you have employees who will be the constant target of recruiting efforts by other companies.
Some of the costs of turnover are fairly easy to calculate; others are essentially priceless. When someone leaves, you have the hard costs of paying overtime to other employees to get that job done until a replacement is found, of recruiting (advertising, screening, interviewing, etc.), and of training. Those numbers are fairly easy to figure. Harder to calculate is the cost in customer relations and goodwill. You may even lose a few customers who opt to follow the departed employee to a different broker or carrier.
Bill Tucker says the key to keeping turnover down is to avoid seeing your relationship as an employer-employee one, but rather as partners. That certainly includes bonuses and profit-sharing programs, but it goes beyond pure financial incentives. Employees need to participate in the decision-making process; they need to be encouraged to contribute ideas and solutions.
People also need to be treated with fairness and compassion. It isn’t realistic to expect people to leave their personal lives at home. When employees need you to be flexible about family issues—whether it’s taking a few hours off to watch a child perform in a play or needing help dealing with an elderly parent requiring full-time nursing care—it’s not only kind but wise for you to provide as much assistance as possible. Along with doing the humane thing, you’ll be building a level of employee loyalty that can’t be bought for any amount of salary.
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Sometimes small companies lose good employees to larger firms that have better career opportunities. They may not be attracted as much by the money and benefits as they are by the room to grow and advance. Do the best you can to offer career growth to your people.
Training is an area of managing people that you can’t escape. Many of your employees come on board with at least a basic knowledge of the work they must do. But even the most experienced need to be trained in your particular operation and procedures.
The transportation industry has an abundance of training opportunities, from formal courses of study at colleges and universities to special conventions and workshops to monthly professional association meetings. It’s a good idea to support a variety of training opportunities. For example, MCD Transportation provides both formal and on-the-job training and maintains a company library with current publications. Employees are encouraged to work on their professional certification, and the company pays for related studies. The company also pays for costs related to membership and participation in professional associations.
Whether done in a formal classroom setting or on the job, effective training begins with a clear goal and a plan for reaching it. Training falls into one of three major categories: orientation, which includes explaining company policies and procedures; job skills, which focuses on how to do specific tasks; and ongoing development, which enhances the basic job skills and grooms employees for future challenges and opportunities. These tips will help you maximize your training efforts:
• Credential Potential
Gain additional respect for yourself, your staff, and your company by encouraging your employees to earn the Certified Transportation Broker (CTB) designation. The CTB credential was developed by the TIA to increase industry professionalism and integrity through a rigorous program of study and examination. Candidates complete a home-study course designed around academic scholarship and practical experience and then sit for a four-hour proctored exam to earn their credentials. For more information on CTB certification, contact the TIA at (703) 299-5700 or www.tianet.org.
• Find out how people learn best. Delivering training is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. People absorb and process information differently, and your training method needs to be compatible with their individual preferences. Some people can read a manual, others prefer a verbal explanation, and still others need to see a demonstration. In a group-training situation, your best strategy is to use a combination of methods; when you’re working one-on-one, tailor your delivery to fit the needs of the person you’re training.
With some employees, figuring out how they learn best is a simple matter of asking them. Others may not be able to tell you because they don’t understand it themselves; in those cases, experiment with various training styles and see what works best for the specific employee.
• Use simulation and role playing to train, practice, and reinforce. One of the most effective training techniques is simulation, which involves showing an employee how to do something and then allowing them to practice the technique in a safe, controlled environment. If the task includes interpersonal skills, let the employee role-play with a co-worker to practice what they should say and do in various situations.
• Be a strong role model. Don’t expect more from your employees than you are willing to do. You’re a good role model when you do things the way they should be done all the time. Don’t take shortcuts you don’t want your employees to take or behave in any way that you don’t want them to behave. On the other hand, don’t assume that simply doing things the right way is enough to teach others how to do things. Role modeling is not a substitute for training. It reinforces training. If you only role model but never train your employees, your employees aren’t likely to get the message.
• Look for training opportunities. Once you get beyond basic orientation and job skills training, you need to constantly be on the lookout for opportunities to enhance the skill and performance levels of your people.
• Make it real. Whenever possible, use real-life situations to train—but avoid letting customers know they’ve become a training experience for employees.
• Anticipate questions. Don’t assume that employees know what to ask. In a new situation, people often don’t understand enough to formulate questions. Anticipate their questions and answer them in advance.
• Ask for feedback. Finally, encourage employees to let you know how you’re doing as a trainer. Just as you evaluate their performance, convince them that it’s OK to tell you the truth, ask them what they thought of the training and your techniques, and use that information to improve your own skills.
To protect yourself from an employee leaving you to start his or her own firm that directly competes with yours, you may want to ask everyone who comes to work for you to sign a noncompete agreement. Noncompete agreements typically consist of time, geography, and industry restrictions, and their enforceability varies by state.
Have the language of your non-compete agreement created by an attorney who is familiar with employment law before you ask anyone to sign it.
Keep in mind that even though your employees sign non-compete agreements, they may choose to violate them. Then you will have to make the decision whether or not to take the issue to court.
Ron Williamson sued one former employee, a salesperson who started his own company. “We won, but we lost,” he says. “It cost me about $32,000, and we settled out of court through arbitration, and recovered about $12,000 of that. I had to go to my customers and ask them to testify against this person. Noncompetes are tough, and they take an incredible amount of time [to enforce].”
That may be, but his willingness to sue helped when another former employee left the company. He started to violate the terms of his agreement but backed off when he realized Williamson would take action.
