This episode of the “How to Manage” Video Series takes us into the dangerous world of distracted driving. Once again, Stephen Race shares insight into both the dangers of Distractible personality traits in commercial drivers, and ways to coach them into developing safer driving habits. As last week covered the the Safety Quotient (SQ), this week’s topic refers to the Distractible dimension found in the Driver Safety Quotient™ Behavioral Assessment.
Drivers that score “Higher-Risk” on the Distractible dimension tend to find it hard to focus on one task at a time and are easily distracted by external stimulus. While in the office, this may be nothing more than an annoyance, behind the wheel, distractibility has significantly more severe consequences, like crashes resulting in equipment damage, injury, and even death.
In this video, Stephen Race demonstrates how you can manage Distractible drivers to make safer decisions on the road.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPTION BELOW
INTRODUCTION
Stephen Race: “How to Manage “Distractible” Employees”. We’ll cover what distractible means, what that means specifically on the road for professional drivers, how to use the knowledge of this in hiring, and in training and coaching. Distractible is one of the things that we measure in our Safety Quotient™ and Driver Safety Quotient™ assessments. It measures the ability to maintain focus and someone’s need for variety and stimulation. High risk people are people who are highly distractible, seeks stimulation and variety, and are easily distracted. Lower risk individuals are able to stay focused and alert.
“DISTRACTIBLE” ON THE ROAD
On the road, and specifically in professional driving positions, people who are in the higher risk range on Distractible have a hard time doing repetitive work (or long haul driving, for instance) where they might get bored and restless easily. They are more tempted to multitask and do things that might compromise their ability to focus on what’s happening on the road. We recommend that people who are highly distractible are in roles where they more variety and are doing less of the long haul driving where they might get bored and restless more easily.
In research that we’ve done, people who scored in the higher risk range on Distractible had an average accident rate of 139% higher than those who were in the average risk range or lower risk range.
HIRING TIPS
For hiring, we suggest specific interview questions for probing into the Distractible dimension, specifically for driving positions. It would be asking questions about when people have done long haul trips and how they keep themselves focused on the road, how they keep themselves from becoming bored, looking for areas of self-control where people can their impulses to do multiple things at the same time, and how they’ve prevented themselves from getting bored in those types of situations.
TRAINING & COACHING TIPS
For training and coaching, we have specific recommendations for managing that. Keeping an eye on the lengths of trips is one. Giving people feedback whether they can maintain their focus and attention. And for self-coaching, making sure that people have some self-control over their impulses and be able to stay focused when they need to.
To learn more about Distractible and the other things that we measure in the Driver Safety Quotient™, visit www.talentclick.com/dsq.
