As a fleet manager, driver behaviour and safety will likely be at the top of your agenda as you manage those who drive for work. But how can you engage your drivers to really focus in on and make positive changes to their driving behaviour?
One area that may be worth considering is that of gamification which health, safety, and risk management specialist Cardinus suggest could be a method used to deliver better driver behaviour.
What is gamification?
Gamification is the process of using game-type mechanics to help engage and motivate people in making small changes to everyday behaviour ultimately driving positive results. Cardinus state that gamification involves ‘identifying and leveraging the mechanics that encourage engagement, motivation and loyalty’.
They cite the fitness industry as demonstrating how gamification can be used to drive changes to behaviour and create positive results. The process of using an app to track, record and compare fitness achievements with others has been shown to help change habits and have a positive impact on health.
How can gamification be applied for drivers and driver behaviour?
Your driver safety programme will ultimately aim to encourage positive driving behaviours and ensure road safety for all users. But it can be difficult to gain engagement from all employees. For example, employees may not feel they have bad driving habits, or may not have such high regard for a vehicle which they do not own.
Some employees may respond to better to rewards than penalties and gamification can offer a way to manage a reward-based programme.
Gamification based solutions are typically delivered via a smartphone-based app. And they will typically allow you to identify driver behaviours that are a focus for improvement in your business. For fleets this may be areas such as:
- Speeding
- Hard braking
- Fast acceleration
- Fast cornering
- Mobile phone use whilst driving
Via your gamification app you can then make these behaviours a focus, giving points for positive behaviours, creating leaderboards and rewarding those drivers who top leaderboards or make significant improvements. It can also act as a tool to stimulate discussion in meetings and at training events allow you to further immerse drivers in your health and safety policies and procedures.
How else to improve driver behaviour and road safety
Ultimately if you do look to gamification as a strategy to improve driver safety this will likely be set within your wider safety culture and driver safety measures.
As an employer you will have a duty of care to provide a safe working environment for people who drive for a living. Key risk areas you will need to consider as a fleet manager include:
- Speeding
- Distracted driving – mobile phone use behind the wheel
- Tiredness and fatigue
- Drink driving
- Drug driving
- Health and medical conditions
- Authority to drive
It will be vital to have strict driver policies and procedures in place relating to all the above which your drivers are fully and regularly trained on. Your driver policies and procedures should be clear, easy to understand and unambiguous. They should set out rules, legislation, penalties, and areas of responsibility in relation to driving for work. They should be used to promote road safety, train your drivers, and help them understand road rules and legislation to minimise behaviours which create road risk.
Gamification can be used as a strategy with which to engage your drivers in your policies and procedures and incentivise desired behaviour. Something which is good for driver safety as well as your overall business performance.
At Anthony Jones we see risk management as a vital part of the service that we provide. We work closely with DAC Beachcroft, our legal partner to provide a legal representation in the event of an incident. And with Cardinus who are a global risk and safety partner for Fleet Risk Management services. For more information on how we can help you and your fleet if you are reviewing your fleet insurance at this time do get in touch with us on 020 8290 9099 or email us at commercial.motor@anthonyjones.com.
