Your drivers are the lifeblood of your company. Not only are they responsible for your vehicle assets, but they also represent your company to every person they deal with. It’s fair to say that keeping your drivers at peak performance is a priority – and how hard could that be?
Unfortunately, like many New Zealanders, some of your drivers may struggle with their mental health every day.
During Mental Health Week in 2020, Teletrac Navman and the NZ Trucking Association partnered together to highlight the state of mental health in New Zealand truckers and drivers.
Unsurprisingly, long hours away from home, shift work, loneliness, isolation, and fatigue were, and still are, significant factors that contribute hugely to a New Zealand driver’s poor mental health.  
The good news is a positive work environment can make the world of difference. The best work environment breeds the best drivers, which means you have the power to help your team maintain a healthy mindset. And every day telematics solutions like driver scorecards can help you achieve and maintain this work environment.

Back-to-school basics
When people are enjoying something, they’ll pay more attention to it, try harder at it, and otherwise perform better, which leads to an overall improvement in their mental state.
Gamification, introduced via driver scorecards within fleet management software, is an easy way to marry fun and work.
With gamification, everyday work processes are made to feel like a game. It has the effect of motivating and engaging your staff, primarily because it leverages people’s natural interest in socialising, competition, and achievement.
In-vehicle telematics collects a wealth of data that is generated into a scorecard for each driver. Everything from a vehicle’s speed or harsh braking through to idle time and over revving is viewable through a customisable dashboard that shows a high-level view of driver performance.
Drivers can view their scores through in-vehicle applications and compare performance with other drivers, increasing their motivation to excel.

Fame and glory
Ranking scores and comparing with colleagues fosters a healthy competition between drivers, with an emphasis on friendly. 
This increased interaction can build teamwork and address the loneliness and isolation of long hours away from home.
Achieving ‘number one’ status among co-workers is bound to give drivers a boost. Add an incentive to the mix, and team morale will likely shoot up even more.
By introducing the promise of achievable rewards, your drivers are incentivised to work hard, remain diligent and drive safely at all times.

Achieve regular success
If you put a timeframe on these ‘competitions’, making sure that drivers are aware of the rules and sharing the drivers’ scores during weekly meetings, you can take these rewards one step further and create monthly KPIs for your entire fleet. Giving drivers tangible and consistent goals to work towards, encourages them to constantly improve driving behaviours, and by extension, their rank.
Achieving these monthly goals, and being rewarded for it, will produce a sense of accomplishment, improving overall mental health and motivating drivers to continue to achieve.

A win-win
While your drivers and their wellbeing are the focus, improving your workplace environment and the mental health of your drivers won’t just help them. It will ultimately help your business.
With insight into your entire fleet’s driving behaviours, you can pinpoint areas where your drivers are struggling, such as overrevving or speeding.
This helps you stay proactive with maintenance and safety – both dollars and potentially lives can be saved through pinpointing problem areas to address issues, thus preventing costly consequences.
You can also use this data to provide personalised training and reminders to help a driver address any problems. This helps them improve their own scorecard rank, achieve their monthly goals, and maintain a healthy and motivated mindset.
A healthy and motivated team of drivers working together to perform their best can only benefit your business. Improved morale, improved retention and reduced costs – what’s not to like?