How Key Oil Cultivates Engaged Drivers While Making Safety a Top Priority Part 2

In this episode, Lindsey talks with David Murphy and Dylan West from Key Oil, alongside Brent Lauber from the Kelly Anderson Group.

They discuss their diverse backgrounds and the impactful safety transformation at Key Oil since 2013. They highlighted the company’s commitment to hiring the best candidates and enhancing driver training, which includes a partnership with a local community college and the innovative use of Lytx cameras for data analysis and improvement strategies. The conversation also covered the services offered by Kelly Anderson Group in recruiting and training drivers, alongside the use of a learning management system to enhance retention rates. Additionally, they shared insights into the development of a custom driver simulator and the inclusion of the Smith System training to promote safe driving practices. The meeting concluded with actionable items which included re-certifying Smith System training and ongoing improvements to driver training programs, along with plans for safety meetings that recognize and reward top-performing drivers.

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Transcript

So how have you all built the relationships and seen transformations in your operations and dispatch and drivers? How do you develop those relationships and make sure that they're cohesive? 

That is, that's the next step in the bigger challenge, because you want the drivers to know that their supervisor comes from operations and dispatch and that the information that's safety sensitive is as much an operations concern as it is a safety concern. That's a work in progress. 

Yeah, I think it probably always is. Right. Building that safety culture and then building up the communication culture of all the groups that are there to do what you all do. 

In the most successful organization in my past, whether you were a sales rep or a truck washer, you went through the initial same training as a driver. And because, I mean, we just had this example just before we turned the cameras on, a supervisor was asking, what do we do when a driver can't get into a location because of. Because of environmental features or landscaping or low overheads? And does safety make that call? Does operations make that call? It's all about the supervision. Having as big a hold of the safety culture as the safety department. 

Yeah, I mean, I think that's. That is such a great thing. I mean, making sure that the vision is shared throughout the company. And you all are a family owned company, right? Yes, family owned. You've been around for a long time. You've got generations that are in the organization. And so it is. 

Yes. We had. We had the youngest generation interning with us. 

Oh, so how was the internship? I want to hear. 

So he actually celebrated his 21st birthday with us. So that was kind of fun. Honestly, it went great. It was the owner's youngest son. He spent the summer kind of hanging out with me, learning what we do as a safety department and just kind of observing it and trying to get an idea. And right before he left to go back to college for his senior year, he'll be back to go full time with us next summer. I was asking him, like, so what do you think? And he goes, there's a lot more to this than I ever would have imagined, but he definitely learned a lot. And I'm actually looking forward to coming back from college and seeing what he can do when he comes back. It's. It's actually kind of exciting to me now. 

Yeah. Because he probably thought, oh, it's safety. You just tell him to be safe, and that's it. Right. Not knowing there's so much to it. 

Right. And that's. That's the thing, is he realized that you know, it's not as easy as just say, yep, don't wreck the trucks. It's, you actually have to be a bit more proactive than that. And identifying issues before they become issues as best you can and trying to keep everybody on their toes for a while. Actually, we stopped doing it shortly after I took this position, but we had a motto in our safety department, which was point of aim is point of impact, which goes back to a shooting reference of what you aim at is what you're going to hit target wise. Well, it's always a moving target. You know, if you focus one thing, you're going to get better. That one thing, but the last thing you focused on is going to fall down a little bit. 

So you got to keep moving that around and continue to put it in front of drivers to keep them reminded of all these different things. 

And that's where Kelly Anderson's learning management system comes in. Because if you don't keep rotating stuff, and not to be too repetitive, but if you don't keep reimagining how you're going to present it and use it in a timely fashion so that it impacts the most employees every time that you do it. Even though every employee gets a Smith system in orientation. We hadn't done a presentation and using examples of the keys, actually, since before the pandemic, but this is what we're doing now is using the lytics, the good to bad lytics videos that we have, and using them as the examples of what the five keys should look like or what, or an example of what. What's wrong with this? 

In, in reference to a key in itself, whether it's following distance or keep your eyes moving or leave yourself and out, anything like that. So it's a constant because I've seen over time that you have to keep up with, you know, not just, hey, here's a new dot regulation or revision. You got to keep up with the fundamentals that you teach them in orientation. Because if it's not kept in front that it's important to you, their expectation is, it's not important anymore. 

Wow. So it's constantly that moving target. I love that. Just constantly going for that. And I have to say, when I started in trucking, I knew nothing about it, but I went through the vertical alliance LMS system of what the drivers learned. And so I was a salesperson, and it was so invaluable to me to be able to learn all of these things that a driver learns and what it's all about. And I highly recommend any new hire going through this system, these videos, as a part of their orientation process, just like the drivers would. I think it's. It's invaluable, really. 

I totally agree with that, Lindsey. And just to say David's point, I mentioned I worked for TMZ, TMC, years ago, flatbed company. And when I was hired on, all the new employees, no matter what game I was selling freight, keep that in mind. But we had to go out and we didn't actually let us get on the truck to tarponous, but we got to, we had us pick up the tarps to see how heavy they are. And we had, they kind of had an imaginary load. We're not imaginary, but a fake load we did on the ground. I'm telling you, it opened my eyes thinking about these guys and gals doing this when the snow is going on and the ice and all this stuff. And it gave me a whole new understanding of what they do and a whole new appreciation. 

And also, when I speak real quickly, we keep talking about safety culture, you know, again, I keep. David and Dylan did such a great job with that, but it has to come from the top. It really does. If it didn't come from the top, it won't be successful. But there's just so many advantages that David and Dylan can speak on, too, about having a good safety culture. And you know what the results of that can be. They're always going to outweigh the negatives no matter what. I mean, you're going to CSA score lower CSA scores, you're going to be able to track better drivers, you're going to be able to retain drivers. He's going to help you with your insurance costs. I mean, there's just, it's endless. The things that can happen with having a good safety record and not having one. 

And David, you guys can surely speak on that for sure. 

You know, you were saying what you had to do at TMC. It's kind of funny. I think it was last week, actually. Rit guy was like, you know, I don't know what these drivers go through. I don't know what they're having to do. And he asked me if it'd be a good idea for him to go ride on the driver. And I'm like, here's a hard hat, a pair of safety glasses, dispatch and go do it. I'm like, the only way you can truly appreciate what they're doing on a day to day basis is just to go with them and see it because it's a lot more than what you might imagine. 

Yeah. The role of a driver. I mean, e logs, bill of ladings, load development, equipment securement. So load planning, I mean, all that stuff has to be done on every load, ten to twelve, sometimes 14 hours a day, five days a week. In our case, an option for a six day. That is a hard job. 

Absolutely. And customer service. 

Customer service, I mean, and literally their bonus program is everything safety related and everything performance related to include customer service. Now, Lindsey, here's a question for you. In the jet, in Gen Z, in their learning, what's the best way? Because we always don't see it and we've been, except it's been exceptional. We've been exceptionally lucky for those, the youngest people we have hired. How do you define an I? How do you, as far as the description of and for their understanding of work? 

That is a great question and probably something I should do a little bit more research on. But I would say that Gen Z, they want to be in mentoring relationships where they can see what that looks like. And I think so having your older drivers who have that great work ethic, really modeling it in maybe even a formal fashion of, you know, riding along together and really seeing it and building that relationship. So it is more of a mentoring relationship. I also see there is a value in starting people in the learning process younger where they don't have a chance to form bad habits. They get right into working and working hard and reaping the benefits of that, which is feeling good about what they do every day because they're working hard and they're doing something that's tangible for the entire state. Right. 

Thank you for what you do because you deliver my fuel that I get every day and that they, you know, they can see it in their paycheck as well. And so I feel like the younger that we can get them and get them on the right pathway to hard work, which we all do. Right. We're all hard workers and we want to have other people see that being a hard worker is going to really improve your life, your self esteem, your self worth. And it's a great question, though, and something that I need to look into more. 

You know what's funny? Back when I was working and managing the tow company, my continuous motto to my owner of the company was, I'm not hiring some guy who has experience hauling this stuff. I'd rather go hire somebody who's never seen a tow truck a day in their life because of the bad habits. I can teach them the way I want them to do it. They don't know anything different. 

Right. 

And then they can be successful because of that. So I tend to, you know, we have a couple dispatchers here who say the first question that we hire somebody is whether they have fuel experience. No, no, we're not. We're going to teach them fuel experience. 

Yeah, I mean, I think that's great. So where do you all see the future for key oil and your workforce? As you build up an even safer workforce and you're building up that younger generation, I mean, where do you see the future for your company? 

Well, hopefully I see the number one son and the second son intern taking their Gen Z experience and education and applying to what they may have experienced with us, as well as I hope that with our continued success, the growth of the company can be helped by the marketing tool of being the safest fleet. And we continue to grow. We have 100% manpower count at all ten locations. We are not hiring right now. We just had an over the road driver who was part of a class at Sky CTC over two years ago and has decided she was wanted to look for something else. And she remembered our presentation. 

Wow. 

How many tracking companies can say they're not hiring it now? 

Yeah, she came in and sat down and talked with us and I told her, put an application and I said, if something comes open, we'll call her. But I don't have anything open. All of our trucks are full right now, which is. It is crazy to think. I mean, I've got friends in this industry and they're quite jealous of that fact, to be honest. 

Yeah, but that's a great point. That's one thing, too, that I. We highly recommend is really going into education and maybe you have to have two years experience or, you know, maybe you're not hiring at this moment, but building relationships with people and having those people remember who you are so that when they are ready to come work for you, that they come in and say, hey, I remember you all, and I'd like to consider working for you. So that's a great marketing recruiting tool that you can do. And it's fun, isn't it? 

Oh, yeah. You know, it's funny when we go to the school and stand in front of the class, I think part of why we stand out, and it happens more often than you think, where somebody comes back six months, a year, two years later and says, hey, I remember you guys came and talked to us because we don't go in there as recruiters. We're not going in there with a sales pitch. We're going in there saying, hey, here's some tips about this industry. Here's what you're getting yourself into. Here's who we are and what we do. Hey, by the way, if you have any questions, here's our phone number. Call us. 

I mean, there's so many jobs in trucking that it's great to have options and good companies that they can come and work for. And I think that's great that you all have partnered with your local community college and you do your own training. It's having options. 

Yeah, yeah, it's great. I love, you know, the guy who runs the school down there. His name is Morris. He's. He's a really cool guy. He'll call me occasionally because he's not quite clear on some regulatory thing, or I've called him a couple times while setting up our ELDT program, going, hey, I'm not quite sure how to do this. And he'll give me that knowledge and how they do it at the school. It's just so. It's a great partnership to have. 

Awesome. Well, I am so thankful that you came on the show today. I am really thankful that I've gotten to know you all and that you all have a vision and a desire, really, to make the job at key oil for your drivers better, make their lives better, and really create that culture of, you know, it's an environment where you all respect each other, you care about each other, and you have an open door policy. And I think that if we had more companies do that, then we would continue to be able to attract more young people into the industry because they would come to work every day loving what they do and knowing that they're going to come home safe and that they're on a mission to do whatever that company does, whatever they haul. Because we need fuel. Right. 

We want to go to school and on vacation, and so it's important to do what you do. 

Absolutely. 

And is there anything else that you would want to share about where you see the future going or what you have done and built aerosol? 

No. I mean, the only thing is that I could. That I would recommend is always be looking for the next best thing. For example, we've been talking, I mentioned to you the other day, a guy named Zachary from a company called Light Ship Neuroscience, and they're piloting this whole new program to help identify drivers kind of gaps in what they're doing. And we actually just started kind of messing around with their program, putting a couple drivers through their demo. And I just got an email from today talking about how we're going to move forward and try and use that, because, again, in my opinion, more information is more better. You know, as long as you're using it. If you don't use it, you might as well just close your eyes and hope for the best. 

But, you know, always be looking for the next best way to get that information and try to use it as proactively as you can to get out in front of any kind of issues or potential problems that you might have arise. And also, then it becomes more engaging for the drivers, and then you get to know your guys better. I mean, we got a great group of guys who have a ton of personality. You know, I enjoy every day when they come in and just chat with us. 

Absolutely. And I love that. 

The interesting thing about Zachary and the program he's developing, I didn't realize this, but he started the light ship after working with this type of program with professional baseball scouts. And they used it in the. In the advanced high school athlete, in the college athlete, and it was about recognition, eye movement, and reflexes. And it's. It's part of what moneyball was about, if you know the movie. 

Yeah, yeah. 

Okay. And so what they were looking for were the same things. You need to be an attentive driver. And that's how. That's how the bridge came into what he's doing now. 

That is fascinating. 

He was working with professional agents and scouts to say, hey, you got. You got a first round draft pick here. Or to say, now. Now they're using it. And we can say to the driver in a competitive manner, you know, you scored the highest in record in risk recognition mission amongst your peers. And we also know who needs more work. 

Wow. That's amazing. I am so excited about. I feel like that is kind of a new concept for us, and I can't wait for that company to grow and for them to really make a difference. 

And that knowledge will tie into what we need to be doing with the simulator. 

Yes, exactly. 

And then what videos we need to see from Kelly Anderson. 

That's right. It's all full circle. Right? So. Well, it's been a pleasure getting to know you all, and I appreciate what you all do with Kentucky Trucking association. And, Brent, all your work with the Kelly Anderson group. Thank you for what you're doing to make driving better and make our roads safer, and we're just glad that you guys could be on the show and share what you all are doing in that safety space. So we appreciate you being on and looking forward to what you guys continue to do and what you see as the next best thing. 

Thank you. 

Thank you. 

Great being part of this group. 

Yes. Thanks, Lindsey, for putting this together. And David, Dylan, thanks for. Thanks for everything you do for being the epitome of safety. Like I say, I wish I had thousands of customers like yourself, but just one last thing I just want to say again, you know, I say the epitome of safety, you look back at that if you could. I don't have it up in front of me right now, but the statistics that they have been able to improve from CSA scores, the crash score, and it's just amazing, especially being a fuel company hauling hazardous material. But if you have a crash in one of those trucks, it's not like a little pickup real quick, you know, it's major. 

We don't want to talk about that because that might. That might restart the clock on our records so far, year to date. 

Okay, scratch that. Scratch that. Seriously, you guys do a great job and I'm so proud of you guys. And congratulations again on your awards at the KTA this year. 

Awesome. Well, thank you all. Have a great rest of your day. 

Okay, thank you. 

Thanks.