Using a staffing agency to hire drivers

We've used one and still use a driver from them. Basically we pay them by the hour or by the mile depending on the work involved and they also get stop pay and layover pay. Our costs to them are approximately equivalent to hiring a driver directly. The reason for us to use this company is it's a remote yard for us and doesn't require any travel to meet prospective drivers. Unfortunately some of the candidates haven't turned out as well as we'd hoped. If we decide to hire a driver directly we have to pay them a finder's fee dependent on the length of time we used the driver through the agency first.

 

Let me throw this out here from a little different perspective. Rather than from your point of view, from what I have observed being one of these temp drivers. It was a lot of years ago, so I know some things have changed.

I won't mention the name of the temp outfit that I was with, but I was hired on as a team driver with a small manufacturing outfit to fill a run from Colorado up into the upper mid-west. The regular driver for the company was injured in a motorcycle accident, and they wanted to hold the job for him.

Right now you are probably asking yourself, "wait! I thought you said TEAM driver!" Yep. The reason they wanted to hold the job for him, was because he was running as a team, only by himself. With several sets of logs. They tried to get temp drivers to do it, and nobody was interested.

So anyway, enter Big Don with ABC temporary staffing outfit. They had no idea what they were looking for, nor did the manager of the manufacturing outfit. I had a class A, and the other guy had a class A, (he was actually with a different temp agency, call them CBA temporary staffing outfit.

Anyway, neither temp outfit did any vetting, they just looked at our CDLs and took our word for being able to drive. (I could, he couldn't very well. . .)

Anyway, I found out from him that his experience was CRE, where he had been bounced out of the program after just a few weeks. We were in a small town in Wisconsin and he dropped me off at a diner. He wasn't hungry, I was starving, and we had a quick drop a few blocks away. He picked me up after he made the drop. When I took over driving, I noticed some trailer damage. I asked him about it, and he denied knowledge of any problem.

A few weeks later, the manufacturing company was called by the cops from that town. Seems like this guy had taken out a power pole with the trailer, but had kept on going. It just happened to be witnessed. Cost the manufacturing outfit several thousand dollars to pay back the damage.

Long story for a short point. When you hire someone, do your due diligence to at least try to mitigate the liability for your company. When you depend on a temp agency to do that, you are often depending on folks who are uh "less than motivated" to have your best interest at heart. JMHO

 

A lesson we've learned.