Proactive driver training strategies can result in significant benefits for your company, including lower fleet-related costs, and a good reputation for helping to reduce accidents, injuries and save lives.

Representing your company and acting as the face of customer service, employees are your most important assets. In particular, those who drive – whether company or personal vehicles – as part of their day-to-day role, play a key role in how your Company is perceived by external parties, which can make or break your success.

Step 1: Identify Training Needs

First things first, before you start to build an effective driver safety training program for your fleet, you need to understand the current risks associated with your drivers, vehicles and daily operations …and historical data relating to incidents, telematics systems and collision reports should form the basis of any risk assessment.

Using such fleet analysis tools will allow you to make the best training choices.

Accident statistics are important in this process, but be sure not to overlook other important sources of data – without it you will not be able to paint a complete picture of your Company’s driver training needs.

Step 2: Choose an Effective Training Approach

Now that you have a comprehensive analysis of training needs, you can turn your attention to finding the most effective training methods to help drivers develop the skills and knowledge they need to operate as safely as possible.

At this stage of the process, it’s crucial to take cost into consideration.

There are a variety of training solutions you can employ to achieve the desired results, and each comes with a number of benefits and disadvantages that you should consider:

Step 3: Put your Plan into Motion

Implementing a training program is possibly the most crucial aspect to consider.

A detailed strategy and plan for rolling out training schedules lets everyone involved know what to expect and when it will happen …and a clear set of deadlines, expectations and a system for managing training completion will eliminate many issues and unanswered questions.