A person who has the potential to manage his work effectively and use his talent and skill to the fullest can always provide highly effective service in any field. And the same is true for a fleet manager who has to effectively manage the fleet with a huge growing bottom line.
Here are the top 15 habits that makes a manager of a fleet highly effective:
1.Act Ahead Of Problems
Drivers are always in danger of falling to distractions or safety hazards. An experienced manager can see the potential problems well in advance.
Instead of waiting for the accident or mistake to happen, the manager can proactively understand the drivers and take adequate steps. Else, the company, as well as the employees, can end up paying dearly.
2.Adding Safety Measures To Vehicles
Making sure that the drivers and vehicles stay safe while on the road by providing them the much-needed tools like an in-cab camera or hands-free device is always helpful. It cuts down the expenses otherwise caused by the bad behavior of the drivers such as an accident.
3.Creating Actionable Goals
A manager can gain the confidence of both the drivers as well as the company by creating actionable goals. Apart from conducting regular safety checks, the need is to stress on the drivers, the importance of keeping the vehicle in a good condition. Rewarding the best drivers who maintain the expected standard of performance is one way of achieving the desired results.
4.Easy And Accessible Vehicle Maintenance Management
Keeping up with the routine of service and maintenance of the vehicles is the task of both the drivers as well as the managers. But it is the manager who must make inspections and accordingly schedule the servicing for the vehicle.
Instead of using handwritten scribbles and whiteboards or file folders for proper scheduling of fleet, it is advisable to use a proper tracking system with automated features such as mobile accessibility, service reminders and much more.
5.Be Updated About Latest Trends In The Industry
Things keep on changing in all the industries. As an effective fleet manager, you can keep abreast with the latest happenings in the industry by joining a new professional course, adopting new technologies, subscribing to newsletters or even by following the blogs.
So, when there is a crisis, you will be better prepared to tackle the things and will have enough time to discuss with peers and plan & accordingly make adjustments to operations.
6.Recruiting Experienced Drivers
Fleet management vehicles depends a lot on the experience as well as the expertise of drivers. So while selecting drivers make sure that you recruit experienced drivers who have a safe record of driving.
7.Setting Up Guidelines For Purchases And Disposals
In the absence of proper guidelines for purchasing vehicles, personnel from different locations and departments may dispose of or buy vehicles as needed.
To maintain consistency and ensuring that your company can gain the advantage of bulk purchasing or getting proper returns while selling vehicles, you must set up certain guidelines.
8.Optimizing Vehicle Replacement
A manager must take out time to find out the specification of various vehicle options available in the market as well as in his fleet. Depending on the requirement he must make a purchase plan and ensure optimum vehicle replacement.
9.Using Metrics To Measure Performance
Getting numbers from the fleet tracking system and using these metrics to evaluate progress can help a manager to remain on the top of fleet operations.
These measuring practices offering a deep insight into the performance of vehicles and the fleet ensure that you catch up with the loopholes very quickly and recover the lapses immediately.
10.Documenting Digitally
Using file folders is an old technique. The cheap online storage makes it difficult to find out the exact location of the information. Instead digitalizing the regular information such as work orders, photos, invoices, product manuals and more on a cloud-based tracking system ensures quick and easy access.
11.Upgrading To Mobile
It is the responsibility of the drivers to maintain routine vehicle management as well as service in a streamlined way. You can make these operations effortless and organized for them by including all the reports and schedules on the mobile that directly allows access to them.
12.Organizing Training Sessions For Drivers
Just as it is important for the manager of a fleet to be updated about the latest trends in the field, the drivers also must receive the same information.
Organizing such training sessions for the drivers ensures that the overall approach of the drivers towards their work is more responsible and modern and in tune with the new expectations.
13.Keeping Tab On Legalities
Make sure that the paperwork of all the vehicles is up-to-date such as renewal of vehicle insurance, oil-change, and PUC. Similarly, keep a tab on whether the drivers of your vehicles have a current valid license for driving.
14.Maintaining Health Of The Staff
As a rule, a manager is responsible for the health of his staff. Organizing health checkup sessions in the office to ensure that the drivers are in good shape to drive the vehicles can save you from many accidents that are usually caused due to regular health conditions like hypertension and diabetes.
Make sure that the health insurance of all your associates in the company is in place. It gives the staff confidence that the company is very much concerned about their well being.
15.Investigating An Incident
If despite taking all the precautions an accident or incident occurs, as a manager of the fleet, it is your responsibility to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Check out whether the accident was caused due to the erratic behavior of the driver, whether he was drunk or was not well, or whether the vehicle was not in a good condition such as failing brake or clutch and so on.
If there is no mistake of the driver, give full support to him and ensure fair settling up of the incidence.
All these tasks can be made very easy and automated by installing the fleet management software. Since software carries most of the above-mentioned task automatically it leaves the manager with more time at hand which he can invest in making the overall operations more efficient.
