How Boost Team Morale with an Incentive Program for Drivers

How Route Optimization Software Can Help Boost Driver Morale
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High team morale equates to safety and productivity. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, engaged drivers get into 48% fewer collisions than the average driver.

Collisions, of course, are bad for business. They risk the safety of the people who work for you, and they can cost you a fortune in repair bills and legal fees.

So, what can you do to engage your field employees and keep them focused on the road?

An incentive program will help. Here’s how you can design an incentive program that effectively encourages your field employees to stay positive, drive safe, and be productive:

Ask For Their Input

Sure, you’re the boss. You have the power to make all the decisions that affect your business.

But that doesn’t mean you should just bark orders at your employees and treat them like your subordinates. Treat them like equals. Regularly ask them if they have any ideas about how your business could be improved.

Even if you don’t implement any of their ideas, asking for their input will make them feel respected and boost team morale. A happy team wants to work harder for you.

And if you do implement an employee’s idea, you can give them a reward, like a cash bonus.

the word bonus is written on the white card. Card on the background of 100 dollar bills and a calculator
Image credit: Credit:Maks_Lab/iStockphoto.com

That will convince them to spend more of their mental energy thinking about how to make your business better. They might even come up with ideas that you can use for your incentive program.

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Be Fair

Your employees will only be motivated by an incentive program if the rewards are based on an accurate assessment of employee performance.

Best worker employee winner with trophy cup inside award ribbon and floral wreath flat style design vector illustration. Employee of the month, talent award, best worker competition prize.
Image credit: Mironov Konstantin/iStockphoto.com

If rewards are given to those who don’t deserve them, employees will have no reason to pursue them.

That’s why you need route optimization software with a GPS tracking feature. Such a tool allows you to collect detailed data on field employee performance.

Your field employees’ mobile phones can act as GPS trackers to show you exactly what they did when they were on the clock. You’ll be able to see if an employee is good about sticking to their route and staying on schedule… or, alternatively, if they have a habit of slacking off and wasting time. You’ll know who deserves rewards and who doesn’t. That’s the magic of route optimization software.

After you collect tracking data, make sure to share it with your field employees. That way, they will know you were being completely objective when you decided who would get bonuses, promotions, and other rewards.

Tell your field employees what benchmarks they need to hit to qualify for rewards. Then, they can use route optimization software to keep track of their progress. You can give different permissions to different users, which means you can set it up so that field employees can only view their own tracking data while you can view everyone’s tracking data.

What has been your approach to boosting driver morale? Do you have any questions about this article? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.

Finally, answering the following three questions correctly will confirm that you understand how you can use incentives to increase team morale:

  1. Why should you ask for your employees’ input?
  2. How can you use route optimization software to show that you are fair and objective?
  3. How can drivers track their progress in an incentive program?
Route4Me

Want To See For Yourself How Route4Me Can Boost Your Profits?

Whether you want to slash the time it takes you to plan routes for your drivers, increase the number of stops they can make, or keep your customers satisfied knowing that your drivers show up on time… Route4Me helps you achieve that!

Start Free 14 Day Trial

About author: Rahul Dasgupta

Rahul Dasgupta is a content writer with over 20 years of work experience. He holds a master’s degree in computer science and has written thousands of blog posts on route planning and scheduling, making it easy for readers to learn about these complex topics. Rahul enjoys playing tennis in his spare time and loves cuddling with his pet labrador Shinu. Rahul is a big fan of Roger Federer, Messi, and Bill Gates - he admires their drive to be the best at what they do and their philanthropic efforts.

Route4Me

About Route4Me

Route4Me has over 40,000 customers globally. Route4Me's Android and iPhone mobile apps have been downloaded over 2 million times since 2009. Extremely easy-to-use, Route4Me's apps create optimized routes, synchronize routes to mobile devices, enable communication with drivers and customers, offer turn-by-turn directions, delivery confirmation, and more. Behind the scenes, Route4Me's operational optimization platform combines high-performance algorithms with data science, machine learning, and big data to plan, optimize, and analyze routes of almost any size in real-time.