To continually strive for the safest and most effective operation of a company or organisation’s fleet, assessing one’s performance is a resolute method for fault-finding, developing alternative strategies and mitigating risk as outlined in Chain of Responsibility. The Self-Assessment Tool (SAT) is designed for exactly that.
In the fracas of daily fleet management, it can become overwhelming to keep a handle on the overall performance and status of the fleet itself. With the fatal occupational injury statistics linked to the work-based vehicle fleet, it’s the responsibility of the fleet manager to identify and fix any holes in the organisation’s fleet operation.
Benchmarking the organisation against itself is a low-key but highly informative method for preventing calamity. Not only can the SAT cover the company as a whole entity, but it can be tailored to apply strictly to a certain segment, or specifically to the fleet itself. Making this investment actively demonstrates best practice and averts workplace risks.
Areas the SAT covers include the monitoring and investigation of at-fault crashes to put in place strategies to prevent similar circumstances in future. Having a system in place to select and recruit safe drivers, conduct vehicle and employee safety programs, plus identifying and conducting evaluations of programs, vehicles and employees/drivers again demonstrates a proactive safety culture and the ability to apply best practice.
Having vehicle selection and procurement guidelines and conducting consistent fleet maintenance, recognising the risk-avoiding benefits of journey planning and safe routing for staff, and providing your organisation with informative reports and feedback on the fleet’s performance has inherent positive cultural safety benefits for the whole organisation. Knowing thyself is a powerful tool.
Take a step in the right direction by visiting the AFMA website‘s Fleet Management Guide, scroll down to the section you need.
