‘Total’ Team Effort

Mississippi Carrier Total Transportation Taking Orientation To Drivers
 
By Al Muskewitz
 
In an effort to help ease some of the pressure on getting drivers to orientation and getting them into the workforce faster, one Mississippi carrier is taking that element of the hiring process to its new drivers.

As long as there’s an appropriate number of drivers in a particular market Total Transportation will send a team to a nearby location and conduct a condensed orientation for those drivers there. The initial thought is it will require at least five drivers in a particular area to be feasible.
 
The plan came out of what Total director of recruiting Kevin Gaughf called “a great collective brainstorming effort.”
 
“We tossed different things around and that’s one thing that kind of stood out, so we’re going to go with it,” Gaughf said. “We’re just starting to get the word out about this and as soon as it happens we’re going off site and doing what we can to get drivers in the door.”
 
The approach is not just a response to nation’s response to the worldwide coronavirus emergency. Total has conducted off-site orientation in the past, but this is a more prolonged approach.
 
“I just think it’s more of a convenience thing for those out there who are not wanting to travel,” Gaughf said. “I would have done this two years ago; if the need came where we had that many wanting to come in from a certain area I’d have gone ahead and done it then. 
 
“It’s not really just because of coronavirus; it’s a need being more flexible. We’re an open-door policy company so we want to treat our employees like they’re a person not a truck number.”

The campaign already has created some positive response. In the first 36 hours of the campaign’s launch late last week, Wright Media’s national driver recruiting platform HireMaster generated nearly 500 inquiries on Total’s behalf.
 
Total is one of the nation’s top mid-sized fleets with nearly 900 trucks and more than 1,200 employees carrying essential freight for customers that have come to rely on its on-time service. The carrier runs solos east of Dallas and teams out west. Gaughf said it has been “busier than ever” even during this time of national emergency.
 
Unlike the mega-carriers that would conduct orientation in multiple areas, Total conducts its orientation in Jackson, Miss., but it serves customers throughout the country and during this emergency. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to hold off-site orientation sessions in, say, Memphis, Atlanta, Dallas, California or Pennsylvania if the driver demand warrants.
 
For areas that don’t meet the off-site threshold, orientation is still being conducted at the Mississippi headquarters.
 
“We’ll go where we can get enough confirmed,” Gaughf said. “I’d say my minimal amount would be five. I do need teams in California, I need them all over, so if I can get enough traction we’ll definitely go out there and do what we can to get them through orientation without having to travel to our orientation in Mississippi.”
 
Al Muskewitz is Editor of Wright Media. He can be reached at musky@wrightmediacorp.com