How to Get Fleet Safety Buy-In

Accidents are costing you time, money, and resources. Worse yet, they’re hurting your people. The solution, of course, is to invest in a fleet safety training program. By reducing accidents, you can actually save more money than you invested in the program.

Unfortunately, implementing a new fleet safety program isn’t always easy. If you’re making it yourself, you have the cost and logistics of developing something (and hoping it works). And even if you invest in professional fleet safety training, your employees may not be committed to learning.

With that in mind, we’ll explore how to get your employees to buy into your new safety training program.

What is a Fleet Safety Training Program? Why Is It Important?

The point of a training program is to change your employees’ behavior. Effective training programs do so via a combination of:

• In-person educational workshops
• Online self-directed learning
• Hands-on training
• Exams, tests, activities, and exercises

More specifically, a fleet safety training program’s goal is to reduce unsafe behaviors and prevent accidents. The best fleet safety training programs involve a combination of:

• Safety workshops and meetings
• Online lessons about defensive driving
• Behind the wheel training and evaluations
• Ongoing safety meetings about important topics

So, why is it important to invest in a fleet safety program? As we mentioned above, investing in fleet safety will save you money.

Your drivers face risk when they’re behind the wheel. This risk can lead to accidents if they don’t know how to be safe, defensive drivers. That risk is then passed onto your company. Because of rising insurance costs, lost time, injuries, damage to vehicles, and much more, one accident can cost you $70,000 or more.

If your fleet safety program can prevent even one accident, it’s likely to pay for itself twice over.

Download eBook: 5 Light-Duty Safety Campaigns You Can Use For Your Driver Training Program

Three Steps to Implementing a New Fleet Training Program

As eager as you may be to save money with a new training program, you don’t want to blindside your employees. Change is disruptive. Without putting thought towards a successful launch, any new initiative you implement will flounder and fail.

In order to not waste your resources and guarantee a successful start to a new training program, we recommend you follow these four steps to success:

1. Launch a trial run
2. Communication campaign
3. Track your results

However, before we jump into these four steps, you need to learn about the foundation of getting employee buy-in for any new initiative. That foundation is called WIIFM.

Lesson Number 1: WIIFM

WIIFM is more than a weird acronym. It’s one of the most important principles of change management, adult learning theories, and implementing new programs.

WIIFM (pronounced whiff - ‘em) stands for “what’s in it for me?” Without knowing exactly what they stand to gain, adults will rarely put in effort towards changing. Many of your employees will view a new training program as burdensome, a waste of time or even an insincere attempt to reduce liability.

WIIFM overcomes these doubts, fears, and resistance.

When you focus on explaining how your employees will benefit from the new training program, they are more likely to buy into it. They will exert more energy towards changing their unsafe behaviors, reducing accidents, and making the program a success.

Launch a Trial Run

Before you release your program into the wild - or even being promoting it - you must make sure it works. If the program is difficult to implement or clumsy, you’ll be embarrassed and your employees will lose faith in you.

Select a small group of employees or a specific location of your company. Start small. Explain the program to them, launch it in its entirety, and collect data/their feedback.

Implement changes as needed.

Communication Campaign

Movies build excitement, awareness, and anticipation by releasing trailers. You want to do the same thing with your training program.

This is really where WIIFM comes into effect. When you begin to “advertise” your new training program, lead with how it will help your employees. Don’t talk about the company - talk about the end-user.

To get your employees ready (and excited) for a new fleet safety training program, follow these steps:

• Two months before launch: Send out an email blast that briefly describes the program and highlights the benefits.

• One month before launch: Send out weekly email blasts that describe the program in increasing detail. Again, focus on the benefit.

• Two or Three weeks before launch: In your second or third email blast, show a preview of the training program. If it’s a video-based program, give a very brief trailer. If it’s more hands-on, show a short promo video of someone taking place in it.

• Two weeks before launch: host a kick-off meeting. Ask everyone to hold their questions until the end while you dive into how the program works, why you’re implementing it, and how it will benefit everyone at the company. Take everyone’s questions at the end.
• One week before launch: send an email with all of the final important pieces of information. Offer a way for people to send in their questions and concerns.

Track Your Results

You’re changing something about your company because you want different results. Likely, you want a reduction in accidents. That means you need to know how successful you were.

You need an accurate picture of your accident numbers before you start your program. Then, after it’s been in place for several months, you need to re-evaluate. Have you seen an improvement? Why or why not? Make changes as necessary.

If you have seen an improvement, share these numbers with your company. Let them know the new training program is working, thank them for their hard work, and let them know they should be proud.

Set Yourself Up For Success

Regardless of whether you build it yourself or invest in a professionally-produced program, implementing a new training program takes some effort. You want to ensure your hard work pays off.

By following the steps we laid out in this blog, you can influence your employees to buy into your new program. Your new training program will reduce accidents in no time.