Everything in your fleet policy needs to reflect in other areas of your fleet, otherwise your policy will simply be a file sitting in your documents folder that nobody ever looks at. Logbooks, especially, have to reflect your company policy to ensure you’re capturing the information required according to your policy.
It’s an easy mistake to make, you draw up the world’s best company fleet policy, but then everyone forgets about it as soon as it’s been filed! The reason is often because all related documents or processes don’t align with your overall policy, so people forget to add certain details or do specific checks simply because there is no place to tick that box on the form. It really is that simple.
Logbooks are often the biggest nightmare. Your fleet policy might require certain information or checks, but your logbook format might not remind employees.
Customise your logbooks according to information needed
Whether you’re using manual logbooks, or an automated GPS version, you need to ensure it is ‘fit for purpose’ and reflects your company fleet policy. For example, if your drivers do a number of short delivery trips in a day, you may require them to log the details of each trip - not just sign the vehicle out for the day. If that’s the case, your automated logbook needs to be set to log each journey and manual logbooks need to specify - and provide sections for - the details of each trip.
No matter how much training you do on your vehicle policy, it’s still up to the fleet manager to ensure staff are given the right tools or forms that enable them to easily stick to the rules detailed in the policy. This may sound like extra work, but it really just makes it easier for staff to follow your procedures more efficiently, leaving less room for error.
Customise your logbooks according to staff requirements
A key point to remember when setting up your company fleet policy, and any supporting features such as logbooks, is that policy guidelines should vary for certain job descriptions. You may have some staff who need to make daily use of company cars and others who need ad-hoc access to the fleet.
All depending on your fleet policy, you may want to assign monthly ‘mileage allowances’ to staff based on how often they need to use fleet vehicles. In this case you need to ensure there is a simple way for staff to track their mileage. Confusion over how and when to log mileage can lead to some nasty surprises and quickly result in a drop in fleet efficiency. If your fleet supports a variety of job descriptions, it’s advisable to tailor logbooks for different departments or staff – it’s the only way you can ensure you’re capturing all the necessary information.
In order to ensure your fleet is fully optimised, the best advice is to get some expert help. A good fleet management company will help you with everything from setting up your fleet policy to tailoring all supporting features such as logbooks. This will make sure your fleet keeps running as smoothly as possible.
Make sure you have the right tools to optimise your fleet management. Download our Fleet Logbook to use for managing your fleet today.
