TCI: Safety Interview – February 22
@15:00 – Danica Fairfax
So let me tell you a little bit about my TCI journey and story so far. I can honestly tell you in my 20 years of experience being a safety professional, starting in transportation safety as a temp, going and moving into the admin role, being able to move into the leadership role.
It is challenging trying to find that company that meets your morals, your integrity, your thoughts and how you see safety.
TCI, they’re getting it right and it’s rare that you find that. One of the most interesting things is when I met with the president of the company, which you hardly ever meet, especially not in an interview process.
He took the time to actually tell me, you know, the way we see it is, if it can’t be done safely, we don’t want to do it at all.
Which elevates the whole overall thought process of when you think about a company. and it’s safety culture and what it means and what it looks like.
They’re getting it right because they’ve taken it from just having a safety culture to having a safety mindset. And it starts up front.
It’s not something that they hide. It’s something that they’re actually saying not only is this the right thing to do, but we want to make sure we’re doing it.
And then if we’re not getting it right, we’re okay with taking the step back to figure out how do we get there.
Innovation is huge here. They’re not scared to pilot a new program. They’re not scared or afraid of the unknowns.
They’re not afraid of taking on a challenge that they know from an industry perspective. It’s been either hard to grasp or hard to do and taking it and saying, let’s try it and let’s just see what happens.
So when others were still trying to figure out things such as the ELD mandate and as the regulations were changing, they were already using cameras and building.
putting it into their culture, into the structure, and educating drivers on, why is it important, or why do we even need cameras in the truck?
It wasn’t just because we said so, but these are the ways that we could use these resources to help protect you, the driver, as well as us, the company.
And it’s never been about just protecting TCI, based upon what I’ve seen. It’s been about people, protecting drivers, helping drivers understand the why, helping them understand that, how they influence and impact the business the way we see it today.
And it doesn’t stop there. Not only is it about the drivers, but the driver managers, the regional managers, our recruiting team, our HR team, everyone is coming to the table.
for the first time in my career, we’ve all been at the table and we’re talking. And it’s almost like we’re in unison and harmony.
And when we know we have an issue, everybody wants to jump in, everybody wants to play a role. in, how do we figure this out?
How do we make sure this doesn’t happen again? For the first time I’ve been involved in recruiting calls, just to say, hey, we know we may have lost these drivers, but let’s talk about why.
Let’s take the deep dive in. Let’s figure out what do we need to think through today, ensure we’re making good decisions for tomorrow, making sure we have all the resources available.
The same thing with our HR team. It’s nothing to call and say, hey, this is what I’m thinking. Let’s talk about it.
Let’s talk about how we need to approach it, the best way to do it, and the impacts that it could have or implications it could have on other teams or departments.
We want to make sure that the decisions that we’re making, it’s a sound decision and ensuring that we have the right people at the table and the right people getting involved.
So when they won the 2023 award, I wasn’t shocked because I see it. And the drivers are amazing. We have some really good drivers, very tenured drivers, like they come in every day because they understand this is how they provide for their families.
So I can honestly say we have some really great highway heroes. That’s what I call our drivers, highway heroes.
They’re going out there every day, they’re risking it, they’re bringing the information back to their driver managers to say, hey, this doesn’t feel right, this doesn’t feel comfortable, I need help.
These are the issues that I’m having. And then we’re all working together to figure out how can our drivers, how can we help them to make things more safe.
What do we need to go out and do? What customers should we be talking to? It’s the same with the customers, working with the customers in unison, to making sure the work environment that we’re providing to the drivers, it’s the best one.
There’s a lot of talking and communication and working together in unison. It’s not one-sided. And as a safety professional, it’s rare that you get that opportunity to work with all these people.
And we all have that safety mindset to do it.
@20:12 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So when you guys are sitting around the table, so to speak, and you have all the voice at the table, how do the decisions get made?
got a lot of voices, you got a lot of input, a lot of ideas and thoughts. So what’s the process?
How do you guys get from, hey, we have an issue or hey, we have an idea too. This is now implemented and it’s in the books.
@20:36 – Danica Fairfax
First, we work to understand the problem. And we try to wonder, is it isolated event? Is it one off?
Is it something that organizationally we might need to take a stand on and communicate that out? First, we truly work to understand what the problem is.
Step two is what are our requirements? Are we meeting our own requirements? Could this run a risk or are exposed as to
a future risk that either we can mitigate it now, or maybe we just don’t want to take that risk at all.
And the interesting part about it, even from an operational perspective, there’s the balance. It’s not so much that safety priority, it’s first, right?
Safety is a priority, but we look at the business in the priority. And we bring it all together and make sure we keep that balance of understanding what’s going to be the safest choice and decision to make.
The one that’s going to make sure that we’re mitigating risk and mitigating the risk of having that exposure that we really don’t need to have.
How could we offset it potentially? What could we do about it? And then ultimately, we’ve done a great job of just coming to the right decision together, something that every department can support, something that’s very sound, and something that together we can all agree upon that it’s the right thing to do for the company.
@22:00 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So, so do you have any examples of like those moments where you guys were doing this and you just went, this is what it’s all about, what we just did here, this is what I’m talking about.
@22:13 – Danica Fairfax
I would say I see it a lot of times in our project management piece of startups. I think startups are always fun because our dedicated clients, it’s always a different piece of business.
It’s not just one specific type of commodity, and so sometimes you have to get creative. And it’s also looking at the fact of I really like that, like our recruiting and HR team.
If we’ve had jobs, let’s say that have ended, right, the work is no longer there. They’re really good about bringing forth talented drivers where they know they’ve been able to do the jobs in the past.
So they look at things such as, all right, if we have a livestock account coming up, who’s going to be the best for that?
Is it someone where we need to to go out and source this type of talent.
@23:02 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
And if so, they’re asking safety, what type of talent should we be looking for?
@23:06 – Danica Fairfax
And if we have existing talent that we’ve used in the past and let’s say a job is ended, they’re really good about bringing them back and saying, hey, we have someone, we feel like they would be a good fit here, the reasons why.
And we work together to look at the bigger picture, total picture, good safety history, no violations, DQ file and TAC, they did great with our last customer.
Customer service is a part of that. How well were they able to execute on their previous responsibilities? And then making sure we’re matching the best fit for these different roles and jobs.
So that’s been fun and interesting. Also understanding and doing the work side inspections for the startups and those exposures where it’s like, we didn’t know that was gonna be there, but working together to figure out what is gonna be the best alternative and our regional safety managers have done.
great job of just going and helping out with that and making sure we have the right PPE for the job, making sure if there’s any additional training that we need for the drivers.
Even if we don’t offer it today, it doesn’t mean that we can’t offer it. We’re going to source the right resources to get it done to make sure that our drivers are ready and prepared for any potential exposures they can face.
@24:23 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Got it. So you talked earlier about innovation technology. are you guys doing when it comes to that? How do you stay on top of it and are the specific things that TCI is, quote unquote, innovating with?
@24:41 – Danica Fairfax
Oh yes. So we explore sustainability with our electric vehicles, for example, always understanding kind of what does the future hold?
What are the potential obstacles and what are the things we need to prepare for for our customer demands and to help meet our customer needs?
So we’re always researching. searching, what’s that next piece of innovation or that next tool or resource that could potentially help us meet some of those needs, even though it might not be something up today.
So, for example, our captive program with attic and our insurance companies, we meet with them monthly. we have our consultants that we meet with, and they keep us the rest of what are the industry standards, what’s changing, what regulatory opportunities are coming up, that we need to start exploring, even if we’re not working in that piece of our book of business today.
We participate in different conferences. We do focus groups and also look to pilot different tools and resources out there.
So with some Sarah and the cameras, we’re looking to do a pilot in the upcoming weeks just on how we currently utilize our cameras and making sure from a coaching efficiency and effectiveness standpoint, we’re utilizing all the capabilities and features of the system.
We also understand it, and we can also train our managers. on how to better use it. So whether it’s exploring a different piece of technology, whether it’s a different app or resource that maybe it wasn’t available to us 10 years ago, but now it is, we’re interested in it.
We want to know. And even if it’s something we’re not totally using our best in today, we’re always looking at that next opportunity of how could we potentially use it in the future.
So it’s that forward thinking mindset of innovation that I love about this company. They’re not scared to implement technology.
They’re not scared to change a process. If it’s been manual and we know there’s an opportunity to streamline it, we’re working together to figure out how can we do that?
@26:42 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Where does ideas come from? Like, is that from the team? that from you? Are you guys pounding the pavement, keeping your hands to the grindstone?
What’s going on out there? Is that where the conferences come in and such? That’s just kind of staying in touch with what’s coming down the road?
@26:58 – Danica Fairfax
Yes, that is. And we use a really cool tool, our EOS system. So every week, all of our different teams, they have these Elton meetings.
And in this meeting, the meetings, we establish our rocks and our milestones. With that, we also have scorecards. So even for example, my team is a safety and claims team.
But if the operations team wants to know, what are the projects we’re working on? What are our milestones? And potentially, what are opportunities to collaborate?
They can actually see that. And so it’s true transparency to the work that’s being done. The EOS system allows us to also create the metrics to say, are we meeting this?
Are we at risk of not hitting our goals? We even have scorecards for our teams and departments that actually showcase our metrics to say, hey, are we doing good?
we have some opportunities? What should we be doing? And I love it because, for example, if there is an issue and they feel like that, it’s safety or claims related?
Whether it’s on the HR side recruiting our operations side, they invite me to their L10 to come speak. They show me their matrix and say, Danica, here’s our opportunity and we brainstorm on how could safety or claims help impact or influence this number so that we’re improving and we work together to do it.
So I enjoy it because it gives an opportunity for others to not only see the work that you’re doing, but also kind of prepare even on their side as they’re seeing it.
Hey, these are some upcoming changes. What could I do to prepare my team so this is successful?
@28:36 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So you talk about training, training programs, how you get people up to speed, new employees, new team members. Is it a, I don’t know, like a TCI 101 training school, like a U of TCI type of a program?
Is it manuals? And then How do you update it and get current team members updated on new processes and new pieces of the puzzle?
Talk about your program in general little bit.
@29:12 – Danica Fairfax
Oh, so we have so many different things that we do. So, for example, onboarding. When a new driver starts the operations team, they work to get them onboarding, pairing them with the lead driver trainer that trains them.
Our safety team, as well as recruiting team, they work together to come in and do the JSA process, making sure that the employee understands job description, making sure that we do a meet safety follow-up to say, okay, we know we’ve brought in all these different policies and procedures.
Do you have any questions? What are your thoughts about it? Do you have any feedback for us? We have our recruiting team that follows up that checks in with them once they’re hired just to say, hey, from a retention standpoint, like, how’s everything going?
Do you have any questions? you need any help? And if there’s any opportunities that come from it, we communicate with one another, and we try to put something in early intervention in early on so we can start having the conversations and making sure that our drivers are getting what they need.
The other things that we do, we do our quarterly safety meetings as well as all of our drivers do online training.
So we have a program that’s put in place for all of our different types of learners. For those that are the auditory hands-on, we have the safety meetings where they can come and talk to each other because one of the things about things about drivers is they’re always so focused on the job they don’t always get to see each other or talk to each other.
So these safety meetings are used as opportunities for drivers to connect, check in with each other, understand industry changes or things that they need to know.
We want to make sure they’re up to date on the latest regulations as much as we are because that’s just our way of communicating and informing them of what’s going on, that true transparency.
We also have our online training because we also understand that we have certain drivers. They’d like to take a little bit more time, process the information.
So we also offer online infinity training that they take every month. It’s not just for our drivers. It’s also for our shop side of the business as well.
Everyone is involved.
@31:14 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Got it. So when it comes to compliance, obviously it can be challenging. Have you guys run into any hurdles, any problems, anything?
I’m sure you have, but anything of note that you felt was particularly challenging.
@31:33 – Danica Fairfax
No, not so much. It’s more so just making sure the drivers understand the latest and greatest. So for we have the drivers that they really don’t have accidents.
They don’t have citation issues. We really don’t see them, right? The only time we really see them when it is when it’s time to update their driver’s license or update their Med card.
So for those, it’s just making sure to continue to check in with them, build those relationships. They have a number that they can call it in a given time and actually it comes to my phone.
So I get driver questions from time to time and me being new. lot of them want to know who are you and what is this about?
So it doesn’t matter who you are, where you are in the organization for us. We’re okay with stopping the world for five minutes to have that value added conversation to make sure if you have any questions or concerns that maybe you didn’t feel like talking about in your meat safety.
Maybe you didn’t feel like telling anyone in recruiting. Maybe you didn’t want to bring it up in the safety meeting.
You still have an outlet.
@32:33 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So things as much as you want them to go perfectly, they’re not going to always go perfectly, right? is there a process like as far as when you do have an incident or things do go wrong?
What do you do to address it and then talk about how moving forward to, you know, whether it’s make sure it doesn’t happen again or do you
put new policies in place. How does incident management work?
@33:05 – Danica Fairfax
I think the main thing with incident management is going into every case, understanding that every case is its own.
None of them are perfect. They don’t all pan out the same. They don’t all happen the same way. So the approach, it just depends on the situation.
I would say the biggest thing the right people involved in the conversation early on before it gets bigger than what it needs to be.
I really enjoy the fact that if a site assessment needs to be done, if there’s a concern, then they tell us and we send one of our regional safety managers out.
I like the fact that our clients are open to just questions we have in working together to make sure that the work environment is right for the job.
When we have changes that may ch- a change at a dedicated location, right, or even at RTCI locations. If there’s a new process that’s introduced or something that’s being put in place, then we have to go and review our current handbooks and policies.
We’re reviewing our current safety handbook today to make sure we have the latest and greatest information out there. And then again, it just goes back to the communication.
Because of the organization, organization being so big, right, it goes across so many states, it’s so important that we’re communicating consistently and the decisions that we’re making are very fair and consistent.
@34:36 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So to your point, how do you do that? Do you do that through email? Do you do that through text or like, what’s the what’s the communication process?
@34:44 – Danica Fairfax
So for our drivers, through Simcera, we’re able to send out text messages to all the drivers that they will receive on their phones.
Even, for example, when you think about bad weather, we send out weather emails to the region, so all the regional managers are aware.
We send out messages just to make sure that the driver see it before they start their day so that they’re prepared and ready for any bad weather, inclement weather that could arise.
That’s just one way that we use kind of our communication system. The other thing is on our L10s, we have a headlines portion to it where anything going on throughout the organization that we need everybody to know, we know we can put it on the headlines because all the managers are going to cover it during their L10s.
And lastly, we have end-of-month calls with all of our operations team and then with our shop teams where we’re going over different significant accidents.
We’re talking through what are the steps to prevent reoccurrence. We also give them the opportunity as managers to tell us what are some of the proactive things you’re doing at your locations to help reduce accidents and injuries.
@35:49 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
I think we can give a break here for a second if you want to jump in.
@36:00 – Jameca Lyttle
It’s been very, very insightful, Danica. We’ve literally covered so many of the topics that we had, but I did want to jump ahead and look ahead a little bit.
So I wanted to just talk a little bit about future goals and initiatives for TCI. We know that you guys are constantly developing.
We’ve talked about what you’ve done in the past and how you’ve been able to get to this place, where we feel really good and you’re award-winning.
But as we’re looking forward to the future, what are some of the new projects or initiatives you’re excited about?
I would love to hear from you, Danica, also Sylvia. I would also like to hear if there’s anything on your side, as far as something that’s exciting that’s coming up on the safety and compliance.
We’d love to hear from both of you guys on that one.
@36:48 – Danica Fairfax
Man, Sylvia, you want to go first? I don’t want to put out our trade secrets.
@36:52 – Jameca Lyttle
Yeah, not the trade secrets. I’m going to give a little sneak peek of something. I’m give a little sneak.
@37:00 – Sylvia
is coming up for safety and compliance.
@37:05 – Jameca Lyttle
Well, I mean, looking to further improve it, you know, like, you guys just want your winning awards, you just took a really top level award, you got the bar is pretty high now.
@37:17 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Oh, there’s no room for cruising along. You’re looking at new things.
@37:23 – Sylvia
Oh, now, if you know the Flynn’s, they raise the bar within seconds of achieving any goal, like literally seconds.
Like, I’m not even joking. And so you know that they’re raising the bar and we do the same. Like, I think having such a challenging, you know, leadership team makes us like want to challenge ourselves and get better.
So for sure, there’s no cruise control here. I don’t think there ever really was. But on a way, like, the Danica’s been
of that since October and she’s implemented so many new things and one of the things she’s done, and this is not for the article, this is just for us, or maybe you want to add it in there, she’s bringing all this experience and collaborative spirit and not to say that that’s not how we were before, but I think making safety this accessible partner rather than like an enforcer has really nice, actually for the recruiting team, like for me to feel like I have a partner that I can talk to and you know let them know like hey I’m having some challenges like can we talk about this and and being really open to stuff like that has been really nice, so I think for us as a company this is like seriously amazing when it comes to safety because we have Denika and she’s going
to basically rebrand our safety team within our organization. we’re going to start participating in these rodeos and really showcasing our drivers and having them recognize them.
This year we’re doing a driver of the year award and really trying to put our drivers first. You know, because they are safety team.
Like our drivers are safety team because they’re the ones who are out there living in. So I don’t know what’s coming up.
I know it’s going to be great. And I know we’re all going to work together to make it great.
But innovation will never stop. You know, we’re always looking for new things to be innovative and, you know, maybe the tracking of
What are we doing? I think we’re working on like a what are we piloting in an aspire?
@40:07 – Danica Fairfax
The cameras, the backup cameras?
@40:09 – Sylvia
The backup cameras?
@40:11 – Danica Fairfax
Yep. So we are piloting those. get those installed next week. So that’s one that’s one of the things we have going for us.
@40:19 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Who’s the current is that? Where is that being piloted?
@40:23 – Sylvia
In Southern California.
@40:24 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So just in general, not for a particular account.
@40:27 – Sylvia
Got it. No, it is one account that we’re using to beta test this new the backup camera. So we’ve been able identify like high risk accounts to the ones that have high risk of like incidents, hitting fixed objects or getting an accident.
Most of those accounts are the ones that are multi-stop accounts and are you know, touch rate or whatever. so we we decide what can help our team.
What are the most common things for incidents that our team is. experiencing and maybe it’s a backup situation, and so that’s what led them to comfortable.
Maybe we can bait a test on one of the highest accounts that have these issues, which is we don’t want to put this in the article, but we delivered all the McDonalds in Southern California, so we’ve delivered their bread.
And so they’re going and imagine like our tracks going into these tight spaces with all these people trying to get their McNuggets and their breakfast.
It’s like, you know, then I’m trying to deliver the bread and say, they may get into like a backing issue, trying to maneuver through these types of spaces.
so our thought is if we put in a backup camera, this could help our team reduce these issues, which in turn will help our team have better driving records and safety records and preventable accidents and obviously reduce costs to the company, but mainly like, you know, everything else too.
So, That’s an example. I don’t know how much of it you want to disclose. So we tell them exactly what we don’t want to disclose, but that we identified an issue and we’re coming up with a problem.
so this could potentially be something big for a lot of those high risk accounts that I’ve identified, but I don’t know.
@42:18 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So how has the reputation of the safety level, skill set, department at TCI, as it has risen over the past few years, almost reaching the peak right now.
Obviously, you can keep going, but it’s reached a very high level. How has that affected, I’ll ask you specifically, your department, right?
Because you’re out there looking for people to fill roles, and now you’ve got this reputation to hang your hat on a little bit.
I’m assuming it’s had a big impact. When you’re interviewing and talking to people, how about that? How does that rank for them?
@43:02 – Sylvia
I think it’s pretty important for our applicants to join a team that is just as safe as they are.
And it’s also helped us really say, well, you know, we’re the safest in this area. And so I want to hire the safe drivers that are going to help us, you know, keep that title.
So I think our team is, our recruiting team is proud of it. And then we do have our choice of the best drivers.
We have lots of people applying. We have a wait list going on. And so the fact that, you know, we can be a little bit more selective because we want people to, you know, live that safety culture that we live here and that are a good fit, not for just the company.
Yeah, as we’ve done in the recruiting, you know, conversations that we hire based on our core values. And even though it’s really not a core value, it’s part of who we are too.
It’s our safety culture. and so that’s a part of it too. It’s like do you are you skilled in the job which includes safety but also are you a good culture fit and so that’s something that my team really works that to try to get like the right person in the right seat and that they’re safe and that they’re going to be beneficial to the company and the customer and the manager and so as a recruiting department it is something that we’re proud of and it’s something we talk about in the um you know I think it’s a lot is to be more selective and I think it also attracts the safe drivers as well.
@44:39 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
I think one thing so we talked a lot about drivers safety drivers obviously as you said they are the safety team but safety is a company wide thing right it’s not just drivers it’s elsewhere other departments as well so can you like talk to us a little bit about some of the other departments some of the things you do
whether it’s an attacks or whether, wherever it is, how safety infiltrates and gets within the culture outside of the drivers.
@45:11 – Danica Fairfax
Sure. So, when you, it’s a very good question, going back to your first one and then we’re going to chime into this one, when you talk about the future and what does it look like for safety.
I think I’m most excited about, I guess, demystifying safety and what we do. Sometimes I feel like it’s almost this enigma where people know safety exists, but truly understanding what we do and how it plays and impacts and interacts throughout the company.
It’s a challenge to see and it’s both for the safety and the claims team side. I’m super excited for the future of TCI and bringing it all together and helping everyone understand that.
It’s not just about safety from that aspect, but also how we play within the world and safety and how we interact and engage within the world and safety and starting to empower the managers and the leaders so that they too are a part of the safety mindset shift.
And that they’re empowered to help drivers as well as the technicians understand their roles and future impacts. So when you talk about the managers and the techs, that’s another piece of it.
We do shop inspections, for example. And the part that I like most about the shop, the inspections are talking to the techs.
So even for example, I went out to commerce last week and just taking the tour around the shop and asking them, you know, tell me your TCI story.
What do you love most about this? not only their story, but what they want to see in the future.
And taking the time to have those thought-provoking conversations of even asking, do you understand how important your role is when it comes to safety?
And watching kind of, well, what is my role when it comes to safety? Hoping others understand how everything that they do every day contribute towards the safety numbers and the lights start clicking.
it’s like, so every time we do an inspection, yeah, every time you do an inspection, you’re contributing towards safety for the company.
Every time you stop and do that double check and make sure that we have all the parts that we need, that all of our trucks are fixed and ready to go and getting out on the roadway.
Every time that you decide, hey, I know I’m a tech, but now I think I want to go into the driving portion of the job and pursue my CDL and knowing that TCI is there to support it, like that’s what it’s all about when it comes to the future.
then the driver managers, our driver managers, safety is a part of their scorecards and a lot A lot of them love to take it to the next level, and a part of that is, are you communicating safety?
How are you doing with compliance? Are you making sure if you have drivers that are on plans? Are you following up and having those coaching value added conversations?
And then for some, they come to safety and they’re like, how do I have this conversation? So then we put on our other hat and we walk managers through how do you have those challenging conversations with a driver?
Even though they may have done something, you gotta have a conversation and then figure out how to build them back up to prepare them to go back out on the roadway.
And then the days when we had those conversations where the drivers were, they hit us, but something terrible may have happened to the other party, or maybe it was the first time the driver had an accident, and being able to have those conversations to say, we’re gonna be there and we’re gonna work through this and we’re here to support you.
So when it comes to the future, Sure. I’m ready to see TCI go to the next level because to Sylvia’s point, they set a pretty high bar.
And you know how when you get on top, you got to stay on top. Now that’s really when a lot of the work starts to kick and it’s like, man, how do we top that driver recognition?
Yeah, we’re going to top that, making sure that we have a program in place for our regional managers and driver managers to get a recognition and an acknowledgement from safety and claims.
I’m excited about that in the future. The way we use technology today and exploring our new opportunities, I’m very excited about that.
Adding standards and structure to a company that has been operating well for over 45 years and thinking through what does that new structure need to look like?
Because as we continue to grow, we understand that things that we did yesterday, that process may not work anymore.
So it’s time to pivot, adjust, be agile, and figure out what do we put out there so that we’re
are operating consistently. I’m excited about that.
@50:07 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
I’m inspired.
@50:08 – Jameca Lyttle
I know.
@50:09 – Danica Fairfax
I want to come to safety.
@50:14 – Jameca Lyttle
I have one more question, just a close thing out for us guys. We’ve talked about the culture, we’ve talked about the tech and innovation, we’ve touched on the training and the employee engagements and compliance and partnerships and collaboration.
It seems like there’s a lot of collaboration, which I feel like you’re very excited about, Seneca, and that makes me excited for you guys as well.
My last note that I have for myself is based on your experience and your success that you’ve had thus far, what advice would you give to other companies looking to enhance their safety and compliance standards in the transportation industry to the realm of where TCI is right now?
@50:56 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
This couldn’t go back to you sitting at a table next to somebody who turns You said, how did you do this?
Yeah. How can I do this? What can I do?
@51:04 – Danica Fairfax
Man. Number one, taking the time to find that company that aligns with your thought process, your mindset, your morals, your beliefs, taking the time to research that company, being able to find that leader when you’re hired on, having that honest conversation.
I had an honest conversation with my boss, and I asked those questions, do you really believe this? He was like, yeah, this is what we do.
Asking the complicated questions of, but if it’s going to impact the business, are you still willing to stop it?
And my boss told me, yes, he was like, that’s how he ended up telling me if we can’t do it safely, we won’t do it at all.
When you get that type of commute commitment from your leadership, yeah sky’s the limit.
@52:04 – Jameca Lyttle
Yeah.
@52:05 – Danica Fairfax
It makes you want to work three times this hard and then getting the commitment from your leader when you actually ask them, do you trust me?
And then they say yes. Everyone doesn’t have it so I know I’m very fortunate and I have had some really bad leaders in the past.
Are you saying that it has to really come from the top, but you don’t think that you could do this without that?
That’s exactly what I’m saying.
@52:37 – Sylvia
I’ve been in new people, yes, and then many people that we interview for certain roles, especially for the safety department, the reason why they’re looking for another job is because the company they’re not wasn’t doing something right and they couldn’t stand for and because the values couldn’t align, if it doesn’t come from the top.
You’re never really truly gonna be able to make a difference like as much as we want to believe when we can we can change the world Yeah, me when there’s an owner who doesn’t Believe in the same things you believe in It’s typically that’s when people realize values are not aligned and it’s time for me to move on And that’s what I’ve noticed in interviewing candidates who are looking for other jobs.
So Ground and and morals and You know she reports to one other brothers. I report to the other and they’re the same They’re like the same when it comes to that.
We always do the right thing Ryan told me early on We always do the right thing even if it’s uncomfortable.
We do the right thing and basically the same thing that Andrew told her recently and so That’s they really just come from the top.
have to find a company his culture and values line up with yours And then you’ll be able to easily make all of these changes.
You’ll easily be able to implement, you know, programs and, you know, have like a playground of safety.
@54:11 – Danica Fairfax
Yes. And that’s what it is. So it’s like an easy professional dream.
@54:16 – Sylvia
really is.
@54:17 – Danica Fairfax
Even to this day, I tell others that are in the same profession as me, you have to be patient, but you got to find, you got to find what’s going to match up in a line.
With who you are as a safety professional. And when you do everything else, it seems easy. You may be going through all kinds of challenges, but it’s okay because it’s easy because you know that they support you.
It’s that support. If you’ve got a good support system, you have a strong leader, you have a leader that’s not scared to have that conversation with you.
They’re not afraid or will shy away from the questions that you have and they’re willing to answer it, and you know at the end of the conversation that
the whole just working relationship and dynamic is going to be even stronger because they have now empowered you. Oh, you talk about excitement.
Watch us work. Watch us work.
@55:13 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Okay, right there. That is awesome.
@55:16 – Jameca Lyttle
Yes, that is awesome. Thank you, ladies. So much, Jim.
@55:26 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
Do you think we got it all? I think we got it all. Unless there’s anything else you didn’t talk about that you want to add in any last thoughts.
@55:33 – Jameca Lyttle
mean, was pretty pretty extensive.
@55:35 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
mean, you talk about lot of stuff, but anything so that you can think of that was missed that you feel would be important.
We can always add it in later too.
@55:43 – Sylvia
But yeah, I think when you asked about like what other departments do in safety, one of the things I tell people is we’re all safety.
We’re creating a safety HR safety or DMS or safety like we’re all safety. We don’t only do our job at our job.
jobs are so intertwined. So we’re all HR, we’re all safety, we’re all recruiting. We’re all you know like it’s it’s really a very focusing and won’t work if one individual or one group of individuals is trying to you know champion something.
It’s it’s and that’s why we hire people who have the same vision and ethics and you know and culture safety culture and who they are because it won’t feel like safety’s struggling to get one person to do something.
We’re all already doing it because it’s something we all believe in.
@56:32 – Jim Olen (Dreamentia)
So that’s the only thing that I would probably add to that section. It’s not just like the tax and stuff too.
@56:38 – Danica Fairfax
And you got to have a strong team. A team is just they’re willing at this point. I’m new. I was nervous you know being a new kid on the block and coming in saying, Hey, I think we can just go and run the world.
And my team is like, where’d she come from?
@56:58 – Sylvia
I’m not sure about that.
@57:00 – Danica Fairfax
This is uncomfortable in working with the team just to say, hey, we’re all about to be very uncomfortable, but I promise you, we’re going to win in the end.
we go ahead and experience this level of discomfort now and figure it out, we’ll be sitting pretty and comfortable in a few more months, don’t you worry about it.
trusting the process, trusting your teams, trusting your peers, trusting your colleagues, finally being in a position to be able to do it, I’m telling you, I think we all like our like, we got to work three times as hard and actually we don’t have to, want to, we want to.
@57:37 – EspinozaD
I did want to just say, you know, give Danica her flowers. She did come in in October and she really came in with boots on the ground and it hasn’t stopped.
I think our biggest opportunity at TCI and it gets, it really tells all time right person right seat and Danica, you really are the right person for this seat.
Um, the fact is, you know, it’s really hard to come into a new company. Um, kind of you know, you’re like, I don’t have friends and plus she’s new to the state.
She moved to California for us. If that doesn’t show loyalty, I don’t know what does, you know, so not only does she make a transition from state here, but then just a new job, a new company and our team really just gravitated to us to change.
And we have some team members that are kind of nervous and Danica has really put that. Everyone else was nervous at first at peace.
Um, so I think really, you know, she fits that TCA culture, even as she comes with so much experience.
And it’s like, you know, we really do believe in the safety culture, including our drivers. Um, we had safety, but not so much the presence of culture that was just out there.
We knew we won these awards, but we weren’t sure how we win it or how. Can I? Am I part of that award, right?
So now we’re actually doing the rodeo, which is something that we’re looking forward to. We’re so excited. It’s our first year attending it.
And Denise really helped us and she she drove this with some of our other, um, what are they, what’s, ops director ops?
Jimmy and Roy?
@59:19 – Danica Fairfax
Jimmy and Roy.
@59:21 – EspinozaD
Yes.
@59:22 – Jameca Lyttle
So, are you guys doing?
@59:23 – Danica Fairfax
What’s rodeo? So we’re doing California, but TCI has always provided equipment for other companies to participate in the rodeo.
So we just got a Distinguished Carry Award in Texas from the San Antonio Safety Council because we’ve always held them as well as the trucking associations.
If you need equipment, we’ll do it. If you need just philanthropy, the community, TCI is there. If they say they need something, TCI is there.
It’s no hesitation. patient. And that’s another part of the company why it aligns.
@1:00:05 – EspinozaD
I love it.
@1:00:06 – Danica Fairfax
So for the first time, we’re participating in the California, um, talking association rodeo in hopes of going to national and it’s not just limited to our tractor trailer drivers.
@1:00:17 – Jameca Lyttle
Also our box truck drivers. Amazing.
@1:00:22 – Sylvia
Where do you sign Northern California and Southern California?
@1:00:25 – EspinozaD
So we’ll be if that below that. Well, we have your men. Track and mentor April six. Um, is is the event and then April 27th is in Southern California.
I believe it’s an arcade California. And then if we we actually, I, I know our team are going to do great and then we’ll go to the finals on Sunday the 28.
@1:00:55 – EspinozaD
Yeah. the team’s so excited. the culture, the safety. It motivates them because we are sending the best of the best and all of our drivers want to show like, I’m safe and I and it’s like, well, we have to look at your scores.
We have to look at your, you know, to date with your training or you have to date with your videos.
So it really does give you an exciting safety culture because it motivates our drivers. Like, I want to be the best of the best because I want to get sent to these events.
And we didn’t have that before, know, and Danica, again, just really thank you because I’m excited. This is our year. I can feel it. And I know we’re going to do great. We can’t. We really couldn’t. We couldn’t have asked for anyone better to join our team.
So thank you, Danica. Thank you.