To be profitable, companies within the transportation industry must run like a well-oiled machine. Unfortunately, the sector is filled with challenges that can wreak havoc on efficiency — rain and snow storms prevent planes from taking off, hazardous road conditions cause unscheduled detours, and workplace distractions can result in reduced productivity, or worse, on-the-job accidents.
Luckily, companies can improve their profit, productivity, and safety through employee engagement. But, before we dive into the solution, let’s take a look at the unique challenges facing the transportation industry.
The Cost of Inefficiency and Distraction in the Transportation Industry
Companies often incur major costs when their employees aren’t engaged, but if this occurs in the transportation industry, it can be staggering. In the trucking sector alone, idling costs more than $14 billion a year. Additionally, 28% of private freight trucks are not carrying any haul as they travel.
The trucking sector of the transportation industry isn’t the only one to incur such large costs due to inefficiency. For airlines, 32.6% of flight delays are due to circumstances within their control. This includes internal problems with the staff, crew, and pilots. How much do these delays cost each year? More than $8 billion to the airline industry, and they also cause the U.S. economy to dip $33 billion.
While inefficiency can cost businesses within the transportation industry billions of dollars each year, workplace distractions can cost the ultimate price — your employees’ lives. Conservative estimates state that 35% of all non-fatal crashes and 10% of fatal crashes are caused by driver distractions. Driver distraction is a major problem for the trucking industry, which saw workplace fatalities increase by 34% from 2009 - 2015.
How Employee Engagement Can Boost Productivity, Profits, and Safety
It’s not all bad news though. When a company invests in a quality employee engagement and recognition strategy, they can significantly reduce waste and inefficiency, while simultaneously boosting productivity, profits, and safety. According to Gallup’s annual State of the American Workplace report, highly engaged employees lead to 17% higher productivity, 40% fewer quality incidents, and 21% higher profitability.
Of course, the best news is employee engagement can significantly decrease driver distraction and improve safety across the board. In fact, the National Health Institute reports that up to 70% of driving distractions can be prevented when a driver is engaged and focused on the task at hand.
The power of employee engagement and recognition doesn’t stop there. When compared to companies with low engagement, similar organizations with high levels of engagement experience:
- 41% lower absenteeism
- 24% lower turnover (high turnover industries)
- 59% lower turnover (low turnover industries)
- 28% less shrinkage
- 70% fewer employee safety incidents
- 20% higher sales
How Do We Create a Culture of Engagement?
Is your organization trying to create a Culture of Engagement? If so, that’s great news! If you’re just starting out, you may want to check out our complimentary checklist, Creating a Total Recognition Program. You can also review our popular whitepaper, Three Ways to Accelerate Employee Engagement.
Ready for a little more information? Then you’re in luck. You can view our complimentary webcast, Safegagement™: Creating a Safe Workplace Through an Engaged Workforce, whenever you like. We hope these tools and resources help empower your company to create a safer, more profitable workplace.
Just keep in mind that, like anything worth doing, it will take a lot of hard work, determination, and time — especially if you are doing it on your own. But the good news is, you don’t have to. C.A. Short Company has been in the employee engagement and recognition industry for over 80 years, and we’d love to show you the difference we can make at your organization.
C.A. Short Company partners with companies to manage, drive and facilitate increased employee engagement to increase financial performance, productivity, quality, and core performance outcomes. Our process and research-based platform enables executives and managers to engage their teams to increase the bottom line, motivate staff, and incentivize positive behavior. To request a complimentary consultation, click here.