Kalonga Transport: Drivers Leaving and Absence on the Corridor
Kalonga Transport runs 22 trucks on the Blantyre–Lilongwe corridor and employs 42 drivers. In the past year eight drivers resigned, most after 18 to 24 months, and five of them joined a competitor paying a basic wage about 15 per cent higher. Absenteeism averages 9 per cent of scheduled shifts against an industry norm of 4 per cent, and the worst absences fall on Mondays and after public holidays. To cover the gaps the company pays about 14 hours of overtime per driver per month at MK2,500 an hour. Replacing one driver costs roughly MK450,000 in advertising, induction, medical checks and lost productivity while the new driver learns the routes. Management responded by tightening discipline: three drivers were dismissed last year for absence, and a new rule requires supervisors to sign off every trip in a logbook. Drivers say the sign-off feels like being watched, and two supervisors admit they sign without checking.
1. Calculate the annual cost of overtime and of driver turnover. Using all the evidence, judge whether the resignations are best explained by pay or by management practice.
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Costs. Overtime = 42 drivers × 14 hours × MK2,500 = MK1,470,000 a month, or MK17.64 million a year. Turnover = 8 leavers × MK450,000 = MK3.6 million a year. Together roughly MK21.2 million, before counting accident risk from tired drivers and lost customers who deal with unfamiliar staff.
Pay or management? Pay is genuinely part of the picture: five of the eight leavers went to a competitor paying 15 per cent more, and that is a fact rather than a feeling. But the rest of the pattern points firmly at management. Drivers leave at 18 to 24 months, exactly when they have become productive and attractive to rivals - a training and progression failure. Absence clusters on Mondays and after holidays, which typically signals disengagement rather than illness. The company's response to absence was dismissal and a logbook that supervisors sign without checking, so the rule teaches drivers that the system is theatre: it catches nobody but signals distrust of everybody. Being watched without being trusted is itself a reason to leave, and dismissal-first policies discourage drivers from reporting genuine illness early.
Judgement. Pay is the marginal push for a minority, but the larger, cheaper problem is that the company spends MK450,000 training people and gives them no reason to stay past two years, while paying MK17.64 million in overtime created by the same attendance problem. Benchmarking pay should follow a proper diagnosis, not replace it.
2. Recommend a retention and attendance plan. Identify one existing control you would remove and explain what you would put in its place.
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Diagnose first. Hold exit interviews with the five drivers who joined the competitor, and analyse one month of absence records by driver, route and day of week. If absence clusters on particular routes, the cause may be late returns or poor overnight stops rather than attitude.
Actions.
- Attendance. Replace dismissal-first with a points system: paid sick leave, a return-to-work conversation after any absence over two days, and a modest monthly attendance bonus funded from part of the MK1.47 million overtime bill. Reward presence rather than punish absence, and cost it against the overtime it displaces.
- Supervision. Train supervisors and audit their work. A logbook signed without checking is worse than no logbook because it creates false assurance.
- Pay and progression. Benchmark basic pay against the competitor and create a route allowance plus a promotion path to senior or trainer driver, so that two years' experience is worth something inside Kalonga rather than only outside it.
- Scheduling. Stagger departures so Monday and post-holiday peaks do not depend on overtime.
Control to remove. The supervisor sign-off on every trip. Replace it with a random sample audit - say 10 per cent of trips checked, supported by GPS or a tachograph record - plus driver self-reporting of delays. Random audit gives real assurance at lower cost and treats drivers as responsible adults, which is exactly the retention message the company needs to send.
Measure. Track absence against the 4 per cent norm, overtime hours per driver, and 12-month retention, and review after two quarters.
3. A manager argues that the three dismissals for absence last year prove the disciplinary approach works. Evaluate this claim.
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The claim confuses punishment with control. Three dismissals show that the company can remove people; they do not show that attendance improved, and the figures say it did not: absence is 9 per cent against a 4 per cent norm, more than double. If dismissal worked as a deterrent, the rate would be falling towards the norm.
Dismissal also carries costs the manager has not counted. Each dismissed driver must be replaced at roughly MK450,000, and the company loses the route knowledge it has paid for. Three dismissals may therefore have added around MK1.35 million to turnover cost while leaving the underlying absence untouched. Dismissal also pushes absence underground: drivers who fear punishment come to work unwell, which on a long-haul corridor is a safety and insurance risk, or they call in sick through a colleague rather than honestly.
A fairer test is whether the policy is applied consistently and whether the cause has been investigated. If Monday absences are driven by scheduling that makes weekend rest impossible, punishment treats the symptom. The manager should be asked for evidence that the rate fell after the dismissals; without that evidence, the claim rests on three anecdotes. Disciplinary action remains appropriate for persistent, unexplained absence, but it should be the last step in a system that also offers paid sick leave, clear rules and a reason to turn up.