Driver Profitability report

[Theichii]

today i got pulled in the office to look at a report. My center manager sat me down and showed me a report with some numbers they pulled from the sky and put down on a piece of paper describing what i did and how much it cost the company that it should not have cost the company. It looked something like this:

Action Average-2010 1 day cost 6 month cost yearly cost
overallowed .73 $25.45 something something
send agains 2 $4 something something
misdeliveries 0 0 0 0
DAOD 0 0 0 0


uniform guidelines
appearance good
uniform good
safety good


sales leads
1


managers' comments
blah, blah, blah



They did this for every driver in our building, any idea of what this could be used for/if it is used for anything?

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Your center team is tasked to run their operations as if it were their own business. Businesses exist to turn a profit. Your center manager was showing you your impact on his bottom line. There are costs that we can and cannot control. For example, you had 2 send agains. You did not specify if they were paid or COD. If they were paid, you did not specify if they were 03 or 42/A8. His point in showing you the impact your send agains was in the hope that you would work to reduce or eliminate send agains when possible. Your biggest cost to him was your .73 overallowed, which cost him $25.45 for the day. If that is your average performance and you work 200 days you cost him roughly $5K for the year.

What does this mean to you? That is up to you to decide but to me it would indicate a need to kick it up a notch and to reduce my send agains.

 

[705red]

Your center team is tasked to run their operations as if it were their own business. Businesses exist to turn a profit. Your center manager was showing you your impact on his bottom line. There are costs that we can and cannot control. For example, you had 2 send agains. You did not specify if they were paid or COD. If they were paid, you did not specify if they were 03 or 42/A8. His point in showing you the impact your send agains was in the hope that you would work to reduce or eliminate send agains when possible. Your biggest cost to him was your .73 overallowed, which cost him $25.45 for the day. If that is your average performance and you work 200 days you cost him roughly $5K for the year.

What does this mean to you? That is up to you to decide but to me it would indicate a need to kick it up a notch and to reduce my send agains.

You really cannot be serious? Upstate have you been drinking? Us drivers do not control the time studies, so if the driver EARNS an extra $5k a year because of a bad time study, whoese fault is that really?

Send agains are send agains, Im willing to bet my house that this driver is not the only one that has them. Now if UPS does not want us to have send agains anymore, they should change their policy and allow us to DR them anywhere and then live with the results of probably more claims.

Kick it up a notch??????? I take it you are assuming this driver is screwing off and its his fault? The problem with many of these bad time studies is drivers like yourself will kill yourself to look good on paper no matter what it takes, this way your management team cannot correct your time study or fix a problem.

This is probably some of your worst advice yet. IMO

 

[raceanoncr]

Uh, how much did THIS cost to do for every driver?

 

[tieguy]

You really cannot be serious? Upstate have you been drinking? Us drivers do not control the time studies, so if the driver EARNS an extra $5k a year because of a bad time study, whoese fault is that really?

Send agains are send agains, Im willing to bet my house that this driver is not the only one that has them. Now if UPS does not want us to have send agains anymore, they should change their policy and allow us to DR them anywhere and then live with the results of probably more claims.

Kick it up a notch??????? I take it you are assuming this driver is screwing off and its his fault? The problem with many of these bad time studies is drivers like yourself will kill yourself to look good on paper no matter what it takes, this way your management team cannot correct your time study or fix a problem.

This is probably some of your worst advice yet. IMO

I didn't really see where he gave advice as much as he explained the thought process behind the driver interviews. I don't think he created the concept simply explained it. Thats a problem here that happens constantly.

someone posts on something they don't understand. someone else takes a stab at explaining it. a third poster in this case you jump on him for trying to explain it as if he created the concept.

 

[hypocrisy]

My response would depend on the working relationship I had with the center manager and the tone of the meeting. Obviously this is part of the "Strategy and Measurement" tactic to "train our people to operate with a profit-and-loss mindset", and not something the center manager came up with on his/her own.

Since everyone was having this enlightening meeting, I would try to not feel singled-out. If it was coming from someone I had a good relationship with I would probably take the time to address some of the areas where his Center team had directed me to do things that inflated his costs or delays such as preload not being wrapped, other drivers not performing proper pre-trips on the car I was driving causing me to have a shop call, poor load quality, misloads I was directed to deliver that were 9 miles off my route etc.

I would also reassure him that I would do everything possible on my end to improve while perfoming all of my requirements especially DOT pretrips/postrips etc. I would try to keep the tone of the meeting as pleasant as possible without kowtowing.

If it was someone I had a poor working relationship with I would just laugh and say I'm glad I don't own any UPS stock and watch him steam.

This reminds me of how I once had an on-road say to me after we were done delivering 150 stops and started pickups that "Now's the only time you're making money for UPS!!". It's sad that Management can be so blind as to see the delivery part of our business as only a costly nuisance. I understand constructive dissastisfaction and the drive to reduce costs, but I believe our costs are reduced enough and it's time to put Service back into United Parcel Service. Service is having a relationship with your customer, not just performing the required task and moving on asap.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Red, I stand by my original post. I was simply trying to offer my explanation of the process to the OP. Reducing send agains and overallowed are the flavors of the month in my center so perhaps that is why I focused on them.

 

[stevetheupsguy]

You really cannot be serious? Upstate have you been drinking? Us drivers do not control the time studies, so if the driver EARNS an extra $5k a year because of a bad time study, whoese fault is that really?

Send agains are send agains, Im willing to bet my house that this driver is not the only one that has them. Now if UPS does not want us to have send agains anymore, they should change their policy and allow us to DR them anywhere and then live with the results of probably more claims.

Kick it up a notch??????? I take it you are assuming this driver is screwing off and its his fault? The problem with many of these bad time studies is drivers like yourself will kill yourself to look good on paper no matter what it takes, this way your management team cannot correct your time study or fix a problem.

+1, yes I deleted the last part because I think your own post was enough of a slam.

Uh, how much did THIS cost to do for every driver?

+1

My response would depend on the working relationship I had with the center manager and the tone of the meeting. Obviously this is part of the "Strategy and Measurement" tactic to "train our people to operate with a profit-and-loss mindset", and not something the center manager came up with on his/her own.

Since everyone was having this enlightening meeting, I would try to not feel singled-out. If it was coming from someone I had a good relationship with I would probably take the time to address some of the areas where his Center team had directed me to do things that inflated his costs or delays such as preload not being wrapped, other drivers not performing proper pre-trips on the car I was driving causing me to have a shop call, poor load quality, misloads I was directed to deliver that were 9 miles off my route etc.

I would also reassure him that I would do everything possible on my end to improve while perfoming all of my requirements especially DOT pretrips/postrips etc. I would try to keep the tone of the meeting as pleasant as possible without kowtowing.

If it was someone I had a poor working relationship with I would just laugh and say I'm glad I don't own any UPS stock and watch him steam.

This reminds me of how I once had an on-road say to me after we were done delivering 150 stops and started pickups that "Now's the only time you're making money for UPS!!". It's sad that Management can be so blind as to see the delivery part of our business as only a costly nuisance. I understand constructive dissastisfaction and the drive to reduce costs, but I believe our costs are reduced enough and it's time to put Service back into United Parcel Service. Service is having a relationship with your customer, not just performing the required task and moving on asap.

+1

Red, I stand by my original post. I was simply trying to offer my explanation of the process to the OP. Reducing send agains and overallowed are the flavors of the month in my center so perhaps that is why I focused on them.

Overallowed=Working as directed.

 

[UpstateNYUPSer(Ret)]

Overallowed=Working as directed.

Care to elaborate?

 

[stevetheupsguy]

Care to elaborate?

Normally, working as directed will put you over, as far as their imaginary numbers are concerned. Most time studies seem to be way off, against the driver. Some are pretty decent. Would you say the numbers they give for your route are in the right ballpark? My route is way off, but only became so in this past year. I used to run scratch to .50 under and now I can't come close to scratch unless I run and gun. I think they did my virtual time study when one of the young guns was behind the wheel, otherwise there's no explanation for what happened to the numbers on my route.

 

[Coldworld]

Normally, working as directed will put you over, as far as their imaginary numbers are concerned. Most time studies seem to be way off, against the driver. Some are pretty decent. Would you say the numbers they give for your route are in the right ballpark? My route is way off, but only became so in this past year. I used to run scratch to .50 under and now I can't come close to scratch unless I run and gun. I think they did my virtual time study when one of the young guns was behind the wheel, otherwise there's no explanation for what happened to the numbers on my route.

Its pretty simple...they had to start cutting routes so they changed the allowance to reflect this. This did two things, 1st was to cut the bonus that some of the drivers were getting(you know, the folks who seem to be getting an hour plus daily)..the second thing changing the allowance did was counteract the 9.5 language since its hard for the company to react when your giving a driver a 11 hour PLANNED day and they file a 9.5 so lets cut the allowance so a REAL 11 hour day is now 9.42...IMO as a whole the driver group is about tapped out when it comes to being efficient we're at the wall. I feel that there could be a huge improvement in the preload but that seems to not be a priority...ever.Once again lets not fix the real problems.... inflated numbers and preload...too much bulk, sloppy load..PISS POOR CUT/ADD and not enough routes being run.

 

[Coldworld]

Normally, working as directed will put you over, as far as their imaginary numbers are concerned. Most time studies seem to be way off, against the driver. Some are pretty decent. Would you say the numbers they give for your route are in the right ballpark? My route is way off, but only became so in this past year. I used to run scratch to .50 under and now I can't come close to scratch unless I run and gun. I think they did my virtual time study when one of the young guns was behind the wheel, otherwise there's no explanation for what happened to the numbers on my route.

It would be one thing if a few disgruntled employees were complaining about how their allowance was not fair...but this is a nationwide thing..the damn allowances are too thin and dont reflect todays ups. Come on poeple, this isnt your grandfathers small package delivery company...we're moving pallet type freight in these package cars and not getting the proper allowances for this type of stuff in todays world. How many drivers were running scratch or better who are now over by an hour or two...the time just vanished for no good reason, and dont blame the "well, with edd you dont have to sort out the car anymore crap!"...I NEVER sorted out my car and still lost an hour...its just absolutely bogus

 

[tourists24]

It would be one thing if a few disgruntled employees were complaining about how their allowance was not fair...but this is a nationwide thing..the damn allowances are too thin and dont reflect todays ups. Come on poeple, this isnt your grandfathers small package delivery company...we're moving pallet type freight in these package cars and not getting the proper allowances for this type of stuff in todays world. How many drivers were running scratch or better who are now over by an hour or two...the time just vanished for no good reason, and dont blame the "well, with edd you dont have to sort out the car anymore crap!"...I NEVER sorted out my car and still lost an hour...its just absolutely bogus

sorting out your car is not a method.... hence partly why Steve brought up Overallowed= working as directed

 

[browned out]

Normally, working as directed will put you over, as far as their imaginary numbers are concerned. Most time studies seem to be way off, against the driver. Some are pretty decent. Would you say the numbers they give for your route are in the right ballpark? My route is way off, but only became so in this past year. I used to run scratch to .50 under and now I can't come close to scratch unless I run and gun. I think they did my virtual time study when one of the young guns was behind the wheel, otherwise there's no explanation for what happened to the numbers on my route.

These imaginary numbers are gonna get someone killed. The regular driver runs an hour over. Swing driver runs an hour over on the same rte. What's going on out there; you can't be an hour over too? Swing driver feels pressure and runs and guns with shortcuts on safety.

We have guys running 2 hours under and experienced scratch or bonus drivers have done those rtes and came in an hour over and said that it is not possible to run those numbers without massive shortcuts and safety issues.

UPS runs a myriad of reports. They have the info at their fingertips to point to these drivers that most likely will be involved in a serious accident and choose to ignore them if the numbers look good. It is not possible to do 20 pick ups in 10 minutes or to drive 60 miles in 40 minutes with out jeopardizing safety.

 

[browned out]

Right on. I used to do 140 stops in a ten cube and now I do 170's in a 7 cube. You think it might take a little longer in the back of the truck to dig out these stops? The computer doesn't.

Allowances are screwed now to take advantage of seasonals and swing drivers to encourage them to skip breaks and lunch and take shortcuts. bottom line

 

[Theichii]

it's hard to kick it up a notch sometimes when they play eenie meenie miney mo with 18 routes and send me on the one they pick. Then i have to think about how the route goes again (we don't have pas). Sometimes i luck out and get a route with good standards, most times i don't.

 

[Coldworld]

These imaginary numbers are gonna get someone killed. The regular driver runs an hour over. Swing driver runs an hour over on the same rte. What's going on out there; you can't be an hour over too? Swing driver feels pressure and runs and guns with shortcuts on safety.

We have guys running 2 hours under and experienced scratch or bonus drivers have done those rtes and came in an hour over and said that it is not possible to run those numbers without massive shortcuts and safety issues.

UPS runs a myriad of reports. They have the info at their fingertips to point to these drivers that most likely will be involved in a serious accident and choose to ignore them if the numbers look good. It is not possible to do 20 pick ups in 10 minutes or to drive 60 miles in 40 minutes with out jeopardizing safety.

I would love to see a telematics report on someone who is doing a route and getting 2 hours bonus on it. I would first check their drive speed against the posted speed limit and then look if they worked through their lunch and breaks..if they did then they are recording an error and falsifying electronic records and lp should look into it...period. Just like p-man said, the allowances are not built to be making huge amounts of bonus and when someone is getting this much they arent doing it by just not ringing a doorbell or jumping out of the truck without grabbing the handrail...other things are happening.

 

[DS]

I think its a bad move to haul every driver in and try to bang the "we are trying to run a business" crap on them.
A lot of great posts in here.Every day is a new challenge.A fight to keep customers and management happy.
In our center,they took away our allowance for international pickups with waybills since (everyone ships online now)
I ran about .50 over for almost 20 years,now its 150 ,I do the job more efficiently than any swing driver could ever do,
leave me alone

 

[Coldworld]

it's hard to kick it up a notch sometimes when they play eenie meenie miney mo with 18 routes and send me on the one they pick. Then i have to think about how the route goes again (we don't have pas). Sometimes i luck out and get a route with good standards, most times i don't.

Just work as safe and as efficiently as the weather/load/surroundings permit. you shouldnt have to kill yourself to run a route scratch....there are so many things to worry about like the child who runs in front of the package car...this is the stuff that REALLY matters.

 

[Coldworld]

Like p-man says, most of the time overallowed is because of other issues, like load, route setup etc, but you would NEVER hear a sup in todays ups agree to that, at least in the open. These numbers are based off absolute best senerios, not what happens in the real world. just last week I waited at a business during pickups 10 extra minutes because they were trying to get out 3 nda plus packages for a customer who had to have them...it was my last pickup so I just sucked it up and waited...they were appreciative. Mgt might have a different understanding of this but when fedex comes knocking at their door(like they have been doing in my area the last year) one of the things this company will remember is me taking the extra time to BE PATIENT AND WAIT. Now we will have leverage with this customer against a fedex attack. Ups wants to sell the relationship between us and the businesses we serve but will be the first ones to fly off the handle when we try to take care of them for more than the 2.2345 minutes that we are assigned for daily visits.