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TALKING TCA
Those Who Deliver
with Nussbaum Transportation
By Dwain Hebda
It’s not a particularly novel thing for a company executive to
say investing in people is their company’s primary strategy
for success — but relatively few back up those platitudes
with real action.
That’s not the case at Illinois-based Nussbaum Transportation.
This company has earned a reputation for putting serving
people at the top of the company’s priorities both internally and
externally.
“I don’t want to sound cliché when I say this, but our focus
is really on people, and it shows,” said Brent Nussbaum, second-generation
CEO. “I think if you focus your attention on your
people, your people take care of your customers — and your
customers recognize that, and they bring you more business.”
Nussbaum, who took over as CEO in 2000, says keeping people
foremost in the running of the business has paid off on several important
metrics, not all of which show up directly on a balance sheet.
The company’s turnover rate is low, and morale is high, in part
due to the lengths management goes to communicate regularly
and effectively with the front lines. That behavior is in turn modeled
by employees to the outside world.
“Constant communication with your customer sounds fairly normal,
but you have to evolve your driver into that role,” Nussbaum
said. “You can’t just say, ‘Our people in operations take care of that.’
“Our drivers need to feel like they’re a part of that process,” he explained.
“One of the ways that we keep our people informed — and
this drives everything else — is presence. Every quarter, we’re sharing
our finances with all of our employees, including our drivers.”
Nussbaum encourages employees at all levels to ask questions
and provide valuable feedback.
“We do what we call ‘Dashboard Radio,’” he said. “Every two
weeks, we’ve got a Dashboard Radio program. It might involve
somebody in operations, somebody in maintenance, somebody
in human resources or safety, somebody in recruiting.”
These programs do more than just provide information.
“Drivers are allowed to call in, if they’re sitting still, and be
a part of the conversation and ask questions,” Nussbaum explained.
“That keeps them informed. I’m convinced that an informed
driver wants to do better for their employer.”
This kind of all-for-one buy-in has helped the 79-year-old company
remain nimble in changing times, one of the most existential
examples of which happened when Nussbaum took the reins.
“We grew up in LTL. Up until 2001, LTL was two-thirds of our
business, and the other third was full truckload,” he said. “We
recognized the market was shifting away from LTL toward full
truckload as big-box stores were coming into play back in the late
’90s. When they ordered, they ordered in truckload quantities.
“The one thing that we were always really good at was servicing
our customers on the LTL side — but we realized we couldn’t
survive long-term as a niche LTL carrier,” he continued. “So, we
exited LTL in 2001, downsized the fleet, started over again with a
small truckload fleet, and grew it. Along the way, instead of just
hauling irregular route loads, we began dedicated operations. Today,
about a third of our business is dedicated and a third of our
business is irregular route.”
During the strategy’s build-back phase, company leadership
spotted opportunities that fell between LTL and truckload categories.
They capitalized on those opportunities using logistical
innovation and creative strategy.
“Our focus is going to be on manufacturers that need dedicated
service between their plants,” Nussbaum said. “Sometimes
we found manufacturers or distributors that don’t have
dedicated operations and combined them into what I would call a
semi-dedicated-type operation, where you’re using two one-way
moves (and combining them) into a dedicated-type operation
from two different customers.”
The carrier also hasn’t shied away from adopting new technologies
to help boost efficiencies and streamline operations.
Nussbaum describes these new advancements as one of the biggest
secret weapons in the company’s toolbox.
“I would say the biggest change in transportation today has
been in the growth in information technology,” he said. “Business
analytics have transformed our business to drive more informed,
quicker decisions, which drives greater productivity and efficiency.
“We’ve got a huge IT department, and we build a lot of our own
solutions. We are constantly using the data to help us to drill down
into our costs and that’s another big piece,” he continued. “The
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