For context, I manage the safety side of 80 drivers at my office. The bulk of my work involves training new drivers, but when a current employee displays unsafe driving behaviors or gets in an accident, it's my job to investigate such incidents and determine if a simple coaching, retraining, or sometimes even determine discipline if policies are being outright ignored. I am very proud of my excellent driving staff and often dismiss events outright as they are fantastic at being safe, effective drivers.
However, it seems my bosses at corporate feel otherwise…
They lately have been reversing all my dismisal events, constantly nitpicking small behaviors our drivers are doing, such as “they weren't looking in x mirror enough leading up to the accident” or “their seatbelt is “crimped” and improper, and forcing me to coach drivers on pedantic nonsense.
It's gotten so bad recently, that they have begun to pull video and send me a DAILY list of drivers to coach over minor, stupid issues.
I'm talking coaching “rolling stops”…. because the stop was short it's a “hesitation” and not a stop, despite the intersection being clearly safe. “Cell phone use” when a driver taps their phone while stopped in traffic, and we can clearly see that it's a quick gps adjustment or our electronic logs app that the company REQUIRES us to have in sight at ALL times.
There are other things, such as no seat belts or improper logging issues that while technically is unsafe or against reasonable policy, the methods of them digging these issues up does NOT sit right with me. How the hell do these people have time to go through what must be HOURS of video just to catch little mistakes and errors?
I like to keep shit simple. If a driver is working their ass off and happens to slip up for a moment? I don't stress. A gentle reminder here and there, and I like to save coaching and retraining for when I see habitual mistakes (which keep me busy enough as is) or an accident that could have been avoided with safer behaviors.
Instead, we now have solid, safe, veteran drivers beginning to quit because their folders are being filled with pedantic coaching forms and I kinda have a hard time disagreeing with them.
So, thanks for letting me vent on here. Would love to hear your experiences with micromanaging idiots with too much time on their hands. A big leadership meeting is happening later this week so if someone has a professional way to bring this up I'd love to hear it. Otherwise, thanks for letting me vent.
Tldr; my bosses out of state are going through hours of video to nitpick and making me hand out the discipline and I. Am. Over it.