September is here. That means many of you will be busy preparing to celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, set for September 13-19, 2026. The matter of driver appreciation goes far deeper than a single week, a barbecue or a swag bag.
In April, a panel of driver recruiting and retention experts shared their views on the importance of appreciating drivers as people and as skilled workers. The discussion took place during a webinar hosted by the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA). “Modern HR Strategies, Recruitment & Retention” was the first installment in TCA’s 2026 online R&R series.
The panel was moderated by Ginger Craddock, director of client success for Hire Truckers.
“We need more drivers in the right markets, and at the same time, expectations are shifting,” she said. The driver pool is tightening, and the pressure to find and keep great talent — it hasn’t gone away.”
Start Out Right
Rachel Swanson, director of capacity development at Forward Air, believes determining whether a driver is a good fit for the role is the first step in retention.
“When a driver comes in the door, they want to be treated as a driver as well as like a person. It’s their expectation,” she said.
It’s easy for recruiters to become lost in the process of gathering data and checking backgrounds, she noted, adding that those things are important, but determining if the driver is a good fit for the company and the role has an impact on how long they stay.
“In that initial conversation, find out quickly: Is this person actually going to match up with the product that we have, or not? And if they don’t, then move along. Don’t waste that driver’s time,” Swanson said.
Communication Is Key
“One of the problems we see in overall communication is making sure that we connect first and find out what’s important to the driver,” said Brian Helton, marketing and media relations manager at Mercer Transportation Co.
“Everything else in that conversation is secondary,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter how many miles they get a week if their biggest concern is, ‘Can I get home for baseball games on the weekends?’”
An important part of the equation, according to Helton, is to demonstrate genuine care for the driver as a person.
“If you show people that you care, they’ll catch on,” he said. “Making the time to connect is very important, and it’s easy to lose sight of that sometimes.”
Make a Connection
In the fast-paced world of driver recruiting, connecting with potential hires on a personal level isn’t always easy, according to Brad Hackett, director of recruiting and safety at Jet Express.
“It’s really easy, especially when markets are tight, to hit the ‘easy’ button and really go fast,” he said. “You have a driver. They could be a great fit on paper — but they may not be a great fit for (your company). It’s important to find that out.”
How is this achieved?
“Really diligently and tangibly,” Hackett said. “Slow down in your process to build that rapport with the driver, to uncover their true needs and to make sure it is a real proper fit for your organization before rushing through the hiring process.”
Manage Expectations
All of the panelists agreed that determining an applicant’s expectations of the job is a critical element in recruiting the right drivers. To do this, recruiters and company operations must be aligned.
“It’s no good to you if your recruiters and your operations department don’t speak — and I see that a lot in companies,” said Mercer’s Helton.
“The recruiters land the owner-operators, and then it’s like they transition to a completely different company,” he explained. “They’re introduced to a stranger, and now they’re working in this environment that the recruiters don’t really completely understand.”
Jet’s Hackett stresses that the handoff of new drivers to the carrier’s operations team is critical.
“It’s the most important handoff of the entire onboarding process,” he said, adding that following up after orientation is critical to making sure the messaging between departments is consistent.
“That first 90 days (is when) a driver is the most susceptible to leave,” he continued. Often this is because the drivers see a difference in what they’re promised by the recruiter and what’s actually delivered by the operations team.
“If we told the driver they’re going to make this every single week and they’re going to be home this much, how much are we delivering on that?” Hackett said. “One bad week could be trucking. There could be some particular reason for that — but if you have two bad weeks in a row, you’ve got a big red flag.”
Follow the Data
Forward Air’s Swanson points out that many carriers track numbers of leads and phone calls but without tracking what is actually producing drivers that hire on and stay.
Making sure drivers’ expectations are being met after the hire requires data, she says. At Forward Air, it begins with an “expectations” form that drivers complete during orientation.
“We have a retention team; we have a person that actually will call the first week, the second week, every 30, 60, 90 days, and they’re constantly talking to that driver, asking ‘How are you doing?’” she said.
The driver’s experience, gleaned from those conversations, is compared with the expectation sheet so it can be determined if both company and driver are experiencing what they expected
“We have people in class to talk to (newly hired drivers) as well, just to make sure that expectations from the get-go are clear as day,” Swanson said.
Ask for Help
Finally, the panel emphasized the importance of recruiting managers networking with peers at other carriers.
“If you want to see improvements, start by getting out of your silo,” Helton said. “Find people to align with that are good at the things that you’re not, and ask them for help. They will.”
The upshot? Appreciating drivers begins with making sure they fit the organization and that departments are aligned to meet new driver expectations.
This article first appeared in the September/October 2026 print edition of Truckload Authority, the official publication of the Truckload Carriers Association.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
