4 Ways to Get Your Employees to Take Better Care of Rental Trucks

There are many reasons that you need your employees to take care of company rental trucks. It saves you money when returning the vehicles and your company is better represented by a truck that is well maintained and taken care of, among other reasons.

A good-looking truck operated by a safe driver is an advertisement for your company. Interior cleanliness of rental vehicles is a big problem for a lot of companies. Dirty windows, garbage on the floor, neglected upkeep and cigarette ashtrays are some issues.
Not only are these things harmful to your companies reputation, it could possibly increase the amount you pay upon return of the vehicle.

Here are a few ideas to get your employees’ on board to keep your rental fleet clean.

• Assign each employee their own vehicle
  Assigning each employee their own vehicle makes a tremendous difference. Sharing vehicles can cause stress and tension, leading to lack of cleanliness because people do things and like things certain ways. Employees are more likely to take pride upkeeping the truck if they know they do not have to share it.
  
• Safety manual
  A clearly stated manual citing policies and procedures of operation should be assigned to each driver. The manual should include driver responsibility and acknowledgement of maintenance expectations. You might even consider having the driver personally and financially responsible if damages were to occur. If that is the case, make sure to have a signed copy of this agreement in the employees’ file for reference. Below is a list of items you may want to include in your manual:
  • How to report an accident and necessary information.
  • What to do if the vehicle is stolen.
  • Companies views on smoking in the vehicle.
  • How to properly store equipment and tools.
  • Companies views on the use of any other person besides the assigned driver using the vehicle.
  • Companies views on the transport of other individuals such as family or friends; and the transportation of materials not belonging to the company.
  • A mandatory maintenance schedule that includes a list of items to be checked off.
  • An acknowledgement form stating that drivers are responsible for their own traffic citations.

• Set up a maintenance schedule
  Fleet managers can set up a maintenance schedule. It could be once a day or once a week, whatever works best. Some of the items to be checked off could include the following:
  • Washing interior and exterior windows
  • Sweeping/vacuuming
  • Checking for tool placement and that all equipment needed is ready and accounted for.
  • Ensuring that work papers are properly organized if they are needed in the vehicle.
• Incentives
  Consider a fun incentive to increase vehicle cleanliness, like random checks that provide a surprise treat, gift certificate or even a cash prize. The most important aspect of this would be consistency. If employees know you won’t do the inspections routinely, there will be no boost to motivation.

This is just a small list of things you could do to encourage employees to keep a clean, nice looking truck for your company. The advantage of renting with Barco, is that all of your trucks are brand new at the time of rental, and we trade out trucks 16-18 months old. You will always have a nice clean truck on the road advertising your business. Contact us today for a quote!