Issue link: http://psai.uberflip.com/i/932081
W EEKLY EDITION JAN 24, 2018 Quality Control in the Field …continued By Karleen Kos, PSAI Executive Director Getting started. Quality control (QC) ride alongs can be done with a designated QC person, a member of the sales team, or a substitute route driver. No matter who does the QC ride along, it is important to do the checks on both regular route drivers and special events drivers. When you are designing your QC ride along schedule, be sure you are either riding with everyone or you have a system for randomly choosing the drivers for the QC check. It is not a good idea to do the checks in such a way that any driver or group of drivers could p erceive they are being targeted for extra scrutiny. Doing that could be harmful if you are ever accused of discrimination or harassment in an employment law situation. On the other hand, nothing prevents you from riding along with a driver having known p erformance issues, especially if you have received complaints and want to do remedial training. The difference in that case is that you have a documented reason to follow up on a particular individual's performance. A QC program should be more proactive. I t's something you do to prevent bad things from happening, address suboptimal methods, and recognize great performance. QC ride alongs should not be used to punish the driver – they should be done to improve the business. What to do. Your team should be aware of the QC program you are implementing. Make sure you explain how it works and what to expect ahead of time so that your drivers aren't confused or upset the morning your QC rider joins them. Opinions differ on whether you should give your drivers pl enty of advanced notice that a leader will be riding with them or simply let them know the morning it will happen. Either way, be sure your drivers know what to expect and answer their questions before the day of the ride along. It should go without sayin g – but we'll say it anyway just to be safe: Make sure you have properly oriented your drivers and ridden along with them during the training phase. The QC ride along should be a routine follow up process for your whole team, not the first time anyone goes out with a driver. Because the QC checks should apply equally to newer and more seasoned drivers, you may also want to do some refresher training in the weeks before you start your QC checks just to ensure everyone is on the same page about current expect ations. Make sure you have a standardized QC checklist that is used for all QC ride alongs. This ensures you are checking the same things for everyone, makes it less likely you'll miss or forget something important, and creates a record. Your checklist sh ould cover everything you want the driver to do, and might be divided into sections. The sections might include: • Items they should do or attend to on the yard before leaving for the day. • Several identical sections for monitoring what they should do on eac h of several sites. If they get it right on the first site, do they do it the same way every time? You'll want to document this. • Sections covering safety while driving and safety during loading/unloading and/or service. • Items they should do or attend to w hen they return to the yard. • Ideas for spot checks – random things to check in the field that are important areas of quality control but may not apply to every site. • Open comment sections for noting the quality of customer interaction and problem solving. P AGE 4 CONTINUED ON PAGE 5