Angela Splinter, President and CEO, Trucking HR Canada
What does it take to build a workplace where people want to stay and grow?
The answer is not one program, policy, or leadership initiative. It is everything that comes together to create a consistent employee experience.
The 2026 Top Fleet Employer program brings together leading employers and tens of thousands of employees from across Canada’s trucking and logistics sector. Through the employee surveys that form part of the TFE evaluation, we heard the same positive messages: employees at Top Fleet Employers are proud of where they work, they understand what is expected of them, and believe they have the tools and training they need to succeed.
But most importantly, they see a future with their employer.
Alongside these strengths, employees also identified opportunities to strengthen their experience at work. They are asking for better communication, more recognition, greater leadership visibility, career growth, and more consistency.
Taken together, the findings point to three things that matter every day: consistency, connection, and culture.
Consistency
Consistency is not always visible from the outside, but employees notice when it is missing.
They want regular communication, not updates only when there is a problem. They want clear expectations, regular feedback, dependable onboarding, and recognition that is timely and genuine.
Our recent conversations with Top Fleet Employers reinforced this. Employers are finding that financial incentives like hiring bonuses alone do not create lasting commitment. Drivers and other employees are paying close attention to what happens after they join: how they are welcomed, how they are supported, and whether leaders follow through on commitments.
For drivers and others who may spend much of their time away from a central workplace, consistency is especially important. Regular check-ins, clear updates, and genuine feedback opportunities can make the difference between feeling included and feeling disconnected.
Connection
Connection goes beyond communication. It is about helping employees feel seen, heard, included, and part of something larger than their individual role.
Employees want to understand what is happening in their organization, why decisions are being made, and how their work contributes to the bigger picture. They want leaders who are visible and accessible, not just a name in corporate announcements.
Connection also means creating opportunities for everyone to contribute. Town halls, roundtables, mentoring, recognition programs, and regular conversations with supervisors all help people feel that their perspective matters.
At THRC’s Calgary Workforce Bootcamp last spring, our TFE panel highlighted one key point: retention is increasingly about human-to-human connection. Employees — particularly younger workers — want belonging and purpose in their work lives. They want to work for organizations that see them as people.
This is particularly important in a sector as diverse and geographically dispersed as trucking and logistics. The employee experience may need to be adapted to reach people who do not work in the same location or on the same schedule.
Culture
A values statement printed on a wall is not a definition of company culture. Culture is defined by how those values show up in daily work.
Across Top Fleet Employers, employees consistently identify safety, teamwork, support, respect, and training as strengths in their workplaces — and the building blocks of a healthy workplace culture.
Culture is also reflected in how employers respond when things are difficult. Do leaders communicate openly? Do they recognize contributions? Do they support employees through change? Do they create opportunities for people to learn and grow?
The best employers make culture practical. They embed it in onboarding, leadership development, safety practices, career pathways, and the way people interact.
Onboarding is a good example. Leading fleets look beyond the first day or first week. They create structured experiences that help new employees understand the work, build relationships, and succeed over the longer term. The goal is not simply to fill a position — it is to help someone feel like they are part of the organization.
Leadership makes the difference
Consistency, connection, and culture do not happen on their own. They depend on leadership.
That is why employers are investing more in leadership development and coaching. And the most effective programs focus on emotional intelligence, trust-building, communication, and the ability to lead through change, along with operational skills.
The employee experience is shaped by relationships with supervisors, dispatchers, managers, and team leaders — the people who turn corporate values into daily reality.
Turning feedback into action
An employee survey is valuable because it provides a baseline measurement of the employee experience. But its real value comes from what employers can learn and what they do next:
- When employees ask for better communication, it can be useful to consider how information flows to frontline teams and drivers
- When employees ask for recognition, there may be opportunities to make appreciation specific, personal, and consistent
- When employees ask about career growth, organizations can help clarify what development can look like and create opportunities to build new skills
- And when employees ask for greater leadership visibility, leaders can look for ways to be where the work happens
The organizations leading the way are not necessarily doing one extraordinary thing. They are doing the important things — communicating clearly, building connection, and investing in culture — deliberately and every day.
That is what turns a workplace into a place people want to stay.
Is your business leading the way? The 2027 Top Fleet Employers program is now accepting applications. Learn more at truckinghr.com/TFE
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