This article was originally published by Truckload Authority, written by Lyndon Finney
The digital magazine and article can be viewed here.
Visit any motor carrier website and it’s likely that the home page will include flashy photos, and a litany of words looking to encourage drivers to apply.
That is not so with the home page of Nussbaum Transportation where two words dominate: Purpose Driven.
Those two words are the guiding lights at Nussbaum Transportation of Hudson, Illinois. which was recently named winner of the large carrier category in the 2020 Best Fleets to Drive For contest at Truckload 2020: Orlando – TCA’s Annual Convention – on March 2.
Then click to the next page and find what could be called the company’s philosophy:
“No matter where we are, on the road or at home, life has its victories and ifs storms. Moments we’ll never forget, and moments we wish to forget. Through if all, we are purpose driven. That means we do more than show up. We put people and family first. We lead with faith and integrity. We own our actions, and we strive to positively impact every person we meet. Because at the end of the day, we recognize that each moment and eve1y encounter is a God-given gift.”
Read on and you’ll find Nussbaum Transportation’s statement of faith: “We believe God owns this business and we are just stewards of it for a season.”
“That statement is everything to us,” shared CEO Brent Nussbaum, who has beaded the company since 2000. “‘Ne believe that God is the reason for our success, and we believe that we’re just stewards of what He owns. He owns the company and He just expects us every day to take care of what He has given to us to take care of. People come up to me all the time and say ‘You know, how do you sleep at night?’ I tell them it’s very easy. I remember that it’s not mine and that it belongs to God. And then all He wants me to do is do my best to take care of it. In the meantime, He provides and has seen us through a lot of challenging times over 75 years.”
Nussbaum promotes the carrier’s mission to represent God to the best of one’s ability to all those the company encounters, whether they be employees, customers, or vendors.
“We do trucking because trucking supports our mission,” he shared.
Nussbaum Transportation was founded by Alden Nussbaum in Fairbury, Illinois, with a single truck and a simple vision: “If you take care of your people, the rest will take care of itself.”
The company has always made its people its first priority rather than its customers, said Nussbaum.
“I’m not afraid to tell a customer that, I’m sorry, you’re not our first priority. Our people are because if don’t have good people then you know I’m out of business,” shared Nusbaum. He singled out professional drivers.
“This industry has not been very kind to drivers and you know, between the way they’re treated and then just tbc amount of time that they spend away from their families to keep goods flowing across the U.S. to keep our economy going, they don’t receive the appreciation they should,” he added.
To further invest in its employees, Nussbaum Transportation became employee-owned in 2018 through a benefit plan called an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) when the Nussbaum family transitioned 35% of the company ownership to employees.
Brent Nussbaum said a few years ago, the Nussbaum siblings (there are seven with six having been iu the trucking business at one time or another; three are still in the business) sat down to discuss the future of the company and decided that at no time in the future did they envision selling the company to another carrier.
“Becoming employee-owned fits the company’s values of taking care of employees, rewarding commitment, and protecting Nussbaum ‘s heritage and culture,” said Nussbaum.
Until 2001, Nussbaum had both a truckload and a less-than-truckload business.
A trend in the late 1990s prompted Nussbaum Transportation to go strictly truckload.
“In the late ’90s, we started seeing all the big box stores come into existence. We were in the LIL business, which meant we hauled a lot of freight back and forth between shippers and mom and pop businesses such as appliance stores and plumbing stores,” shared Nussbaum.
“When the big box stores took over, they were ordering in truckload quantities. We started watching the whole debacle and said if we don’t get out of the LTL business, it’s going to take us out of business. l don’t know what that statistic is today because I would say with Amazon it has come back up, but LTL got down as low as 7% of everything that moved in the U.S. and truckload went the other direction.”
To be considered for the Best Fleets to Drive For award, carriers must be nominated by a company driver or independent contractor working with them. They are then evaluated across a broad range of categories reflecting current best practices in human resources. Nussbaum Transportation has been among the Top 20 for six consecutive years and in 2019 won the small carrier overall category. The overall large catego1y winner contest was sponsored again this year by EpicVue.
Visit bestfleetstodrivefor.com for more information about the contests.
A Look at the Best Fleets To Drive For Contest
CarriersEdge Co-Founder Mark Murrell was surprised to learn that there was no overall best place to work award for trucking companies. He knew, though, that the industry had a long history ot a driver shortage.
“Coming to trucking, everyone was talking about a labor shortage, but no one was going down that road of identifying the best employers,” said Murrell, adding that his background in the tech industry had shown that companies who were awarded as “the best” were able to recruit and retain great talent.
With that in mind, the Best Fleets to Drive For competition was born. Since 2008, CarriersEdge along with the Truckload Carriers Association has been awarding this designation to fleets who complete and excel in a rigorous evaluation process, which is divided into a small fleet category and a large fleet category.
“The objective of the program has always been to recognize the good ideas and to those things with other companies,” said Murrell.
The process begins with a nomination from a driver. The next phase is a “long and miserable” questionnaire for the company’s corporate leadership to complete. Next is an interview, which Murrell feels is an “integral part” of the process.
Murrell noted that oftentimes a company might not realize it is doing something interesting and effective because it has grown accustomed to it. An interview allows information to be shared about programs that might otherwise not be noted.
The final piece of the process is a driver survey, This portion of the process allows for a correlation to develop between drivers and the company regarding their efforts.
“We want to see alignment between the company saying, ‘we are doing these things’ and the drivers saying ‘yes, they do a great job on this,”‘ shared Murrell.
All of this data is then analyzed and aggregated to define a Top 20 in the competition. Murrell noted that winners are not simply “picked.”
“We let the numbers tell us who the winners are,” related Murrell.
The overall process evaluates the company on all aspects ranging from safety to company culture and just about everything in between. Murrell shared that he has seen several fleets grow throughout years of entering the contest.
“We see the growth of fleets every year,” he noted. ”It is almost unheard of now for someone to come into the program and make the Top 20 on their first try.”
It also is not uncommon for a fleet to move from the small fleet category into the large fleet category.
”For instance, Nussbaum was in the small fleet category last year and the large fleet category this year and they won in both,” he said.
For more information about the 2021 contest, visit bestfleetstodrivefor.com. The nomination period begins the Monday after Independence Day in the United States – July 6.
