In a market where talent is in high demand, professional truck drivers have pretty high job satisfaction, but it isn’t driven by pay according to a first-of-its-kind industry study from TruckersReport.com, an industry news and professional network for truck drivers, which used OdinText, an advanced machine learning and text analytics software platform to analyze the results.
The study leveraged the data mining software to analyze comments posted to TruckersReport.com discussion boards as well as both structured and unstructured data from member surveys.
The analysis found that more than half of trucking professionals (50.4%) are satisfied with their jobs compared to one-third (29.5%) of truckers who expressed dissatisfaction.
More importantly, the OdinText analysis uncovered the key factors impacting satisfaction or dissatisfaction with an employer with some surprising results. For example, while veteran drivers and those earning higher wages were generally more satisfied, money was not the best predictor of satisfaction – pay grade came in fifth. Across both new and veteran drivers the leading factor behind job satisfaction was the extent to which their employer’s company culture was “family-oriented,” followed by being allotted sufficient time at home.
Conversely, the strongest negative predictor of satisfaction was also not low pay, but carelessness, closely followed by untrustworthiness. These two topics were related and dealt with issues of forced illegal activity (driving more than allowed number of hours), lack of respect, lack of care for drivers’ work conditions or personal lives, and instances of breach of contract and lies.
“This study represents an industry first. Thousands of drivers use our forum to post comments, share information and engage in honest, open discussions. Thanks to OdinText, we are now able to turn all of this incredibly valuable feedback into meaningful data that trucking companies can use to directly improve the satisfaction of their drivers, thereby increasing their ability to attract and retain talent in a market where talent is in high demand,” said TruckersReport.com Publisher & President Samuel Elitzer.
“Employees do not generally respond honestly to internal HR surveys because they don’t trust that their confidentiality will be protected,” said Tom H. C. Anderson, Founder & Managing Partner of OdinText.
“The benefit of analyzing comments from an independent third-party forum like TruckersReport.com – which happens to be the largest and most engaged community in this industry – is that you not only get a complete picture of the industry with all players represented, but you also get honest feedback,” Anderson added.
