Once upon a time a fleet never knew why its claims
record was poor. Indeed, some fleets
just put it down to bad luck or simply the inevitable downside to being a
successful company.
Then, one day, somebody in HR said, ‘shouldn’t we look
a bit closer at why these accidents occur and shouldn’t we check out how legal
and competent our drivers actually are?’
Somebody else in Health and Safety then went on to
say, ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could monitor more closely what these drivers
are really doing out there on the road?
Then we might be able to help them to avoid putting themselves at risk’.
The fleet manager then said, ‘so who exactly is going
to analyse all the information we’re about to gather on all these things and
then decide what to do about it?’
‘Well’, said the guys from HR and Health and Safety,
‘You are’.
This analogy is
not far from the truth and of course, the entry point to any fleet is still via
the fleet manager role even though HR and Health and Safety departments have an
input.
If we skip forward in time to the current day,
the fleet manager is confronted by accident data from one supplier, licence
check data from another, telematics data from another and a whole myriad of
internal influences on how his fleet should be run.
Risk data
arrives in different formats, at different times from different sources, which
means the first job of consolidating it represents an ongoing technological
challenge. The second job of analysing what the data tells the fleet represents
a further time-consuming job for the fleet manager.
The third task
of deciding what to do with the data requires judgement about the severity of
the non-compliant data. It also requires
the setting of thresholds of acceptable risk and the knowledge of the available
tools to remedy the risks that have exceeded those thresholds.
The fourth task
is to put the remedies in place, which may need authority to invest from the
Board. It also needs somebody to co-ordinate
the delivery of the remedy with the driver.
The fifth task
is to measure the effectiveness of the chosen remedies to see whether the
overall risk profile of the fleet has been improved. This is not just a case of looking at the
claims experience. It requires work with drivers to assess whether driving
safety culture has changed within the fleet.
At the end of
the day, with all the other responsibilities being carried by the fleet
manager, it’s a fair bet to say these five tasks will, at best, be sporadic,
which means something will be missed and that something may represent a major
influencer of overall risk. So, for this
reason, fleets usually need external help from a risk management provider who
specialises in consolidation and analysis of data.
RVM assists
in this space and can be contacted on the number below if you’d like details of
how we help our clients with these five risk-based tasks.
0113 224 8800
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