Managing driving standards     An introduction to managing driving standards

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				Find out what inappropriate driving may be costing your organisation					Resource for this topic
					Barry's car spluttered to a halt. Ordinarily Barry would not get too stressed, but on this occasion the thought of the train destroying the company car caused him some anxiety. He pushed and pushed, unaware of how the six extra slabs of beer in the boot and the vehicle's under inflated tyres were at that moment making life much harder for him. The under-inflated tyres had in fact been draining energy for much longer than he ever realised: an increase in tyre pressure could have saved Barry hundreds of dollars in fuel in the last six months, dramatically increased the life of the tyres, and increased his safety for little or no extra effort. In this regard, organisations are similar to motor vehicles - little things can place a strain on production and reduce safety. And the organisation, due to its mass and power, can be completely oblivious to things making it harder for it to function. Sometimes a major incident may provide a wakeup call, but even then if the right people do not ask the right questions, the underlying problems may remain. Organisations often grossly underestimate the hidden costs of inappropriate driving behaviour.
					How many under-inflated tyres does your organisation have? If you are finding it hard to get managers to change the way they do things, try giving them an accurate account of the costs associated with inappropriate driving behaviour. Direct and indirect costs Costs arise when personnel's driving behaviour makes it harder for the organisation to achieve its mission. This view of costs differs to that of most organisations; mostly they consider cost in terms of the direct cost of crashes. Such a limited view of crashes has two flaws. 1. It is not useful in that it prevents the organisation from making informed budgetary decisions. 2. It is misleading because it confuses symptoms with causes and results in naïve responses. Further, such a view of costs is preoccupied with reducing negatives rather than increasing positives; the assumption being that if personnel stop doing the wrong thing they will somehow know how to do the right thing. While much has been written about the advantages of adopting a positive view to business performance, behaving strategically and being proactive, this is not the real world for most managers: immediate problems and direct costs continue to motivate managers' actions. If you accept this as a given, and you wish to see an improvement in business performance, then you must better measure and understand the costs of inappropriate driving behaviour and consider the best ways to use this information. A starting point is the organisation's mission. Six aspects of driving are critical to achieving an ambulance service's mission; you may know of more. Where personnel do not drive this way they make it harder for the organisation to achieve its mission - they cost the organisation something. The resource Calculating the costs of inappropriate driving behaviour may help you better understand the direct and indirect cost of inappropriate driving behaviour and provide insight into how your organisation may better collect and use data. [Contact us for a resource to make this calculation.] When you use this management resource, you will learn that... The indirect costs of inappropriate driving behaviour are many times greater than personnel in your organisation presently believe they are. Much information about personnel's driving behaviour is hard to get. Having done the exercise of calculating costs, you may be tempted to rush out and modify your data collection systems and try to change personnel's driving. Act thoughtfully. Do not assume that by acting to reduce costs you will improve business performance. Here are some reasons why. The costs associated with changing behaviour or improving systems may not be worth the benefit. Acting without thought may result in your not being able to prove the benefit even if there is a benefit. (Proof or evidence of results can be used to guide and influence business decisions.) Unconsidered solutions may cause personnel to violate the rules in order to do their job - or the solutions may reduce the service they provide customers. To implement business-smart treatments, you must first better understand inappropriate behaviour and be able to describe the problem. Manager's Resource Use numbers to understand inappropriate driving behaviour will help you. [Contact us for this resource.] The beer survived, and Barry revived. But did he learn from the experience?
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