HR for Transportation Companies

HR in the menu keeps everyone who works for you in one place, and their certifications. It's for people with HR access — your Super Admins to start with; give it to other roles under Settings › Roles (it shows pay and personal details, so think about who needs it). It is being switched on company by company.

Ask Ava about HR when you have HR access: How many employees do we have?, Which certifications expire this month?, List the applicants, Applicants from Indeed, Any warnings this year?, Which reviews are due?, Who's leaving?, Staff time off this month — and Who's off today? names aides and office staff off, not only drivers. She never tells anyone's pay.

People

HR opens People: every driver and aide (as they are under Drivers), plus the office staff, mechanics and dispatchers you add here. The columns are Name, Job, Status, Phone, Hire date and Certifications — All current, or how many are expired, missing or expiring. The buttons above the list show Everyone, Needs attention, Drivers, Aides or Office & other staff; the status buttons under them (All, Active, On leave …) narrow it further, and the search box finds a name, job, phone or email.

Add a staff member

1. 1On People, press Manage › Add staff member.
2. 2Enter the First name and Job title (both required — pick a title from the list or type your own), and as much else as you like: Last name, Status, Phone, Email, Street address, City, State, ZIP, Hire date, Pay (per hour, day, week or year), Their FleetCommander sign-in (if they use the app), the emergency contact and Notes. A photo is optional.
3. 3Press Add staff member.

Drivers and aides aren't added here — add them under Drivers and they appear in People straight away. Their page in HR links to their driver or aide page, where their own details are kept.

A person's page

• Their photo, name, job and status; Edit and Archive (Restore once archived) for a staff member, or Open driver page / Open aide page.
• Details — phone, email, hire date, and for a staff member their address, pay, emergency contact and sign-in.
• Certifications — every certification they hold or their job needs: its Status, when it was Issued, when it Runs out, and the Certificate file. Add certification, and on each line Add (missing), Renew (record the new one — the old one is kept under Earlier and other records) or Edit (fix a mistake).

Pay

Pay (under HR in the menu, or the second button at the top of the HR pages) shows what everyone is paid, as it was entered — a driver per hour or per shift (their own rate, or the company's driver rate under Drivers › Attendance), an aide per day, run or hour, a staff member per hour, day, week or year — with a Yearly estimate beside it. At the top: the estimated yearly total, and the total for Drivers, Aides and Office & other staff. It counts the people working now (Active); Include people not working now adds the rest. Click Yearly estimate to put the highest first, and Manage › Export CSV to download the list (for your accountant or payroll service).

The estimate is worked out from a few numbers you set once, under How the yearly estimate is worked out at the bottom of the page: the days a year drivers and aides work (the school year, 180 to start with) and staff work (260), the hours a day for people paid by the hour, the shifts a day for drivers paid by the shift, and the runs a day for aides paid by the run. Change them and press Save. It's an estimate — overtime, unpaid days and raises aren't in it. Someone with no pay entered isn't counted, and the page says how many.

Time off balances

Time off (under HR in the menu) shows what everyone has left this year of each kind of time off that's counted — 6 left of 10, with what carried over from last year and what's been asked for but not decided yet. Someone who has taken more than they have shows in red (2 over). Drivers' time off is theirs, under Drivers › Time off (approved requests count); aides' and staff's is recorded here.

To start counting a kind, give it its days a year under Settings › Company › Time off (Vacation 10, Sick 5…; blank means it isn't counted), and how many unused days carry over into the next year (blank: they're lost). In the same place, choose when the time-off year starts — January 1, another month, or each person's hire date. To give one person more or fewer days, open them in People and change Days a year under Time off on their page, then press Set (blank puts them back on everyone's number).

1. 1To record time off for an aide or a staff member, press Manage › Record time off on the Time off page (or Record time off on their page).
2. 2Choose Who and the Kind, the First day and Last day (blank for one day). Days it counts is worked out — the weekdays between, not bank holidays — or enter it yourself (a half day: 0.5). Add a Note if you like.
3. 3Press Record time off. It's listed under Recorded in HR lately, where it can be removed if it was a mistake.

When a driver asks for more than they have left, the request under Drivers › Time off says so (2 days more than Dana has left of Vacation this year) — it can still be approved. A driver's part-day time off counts by its hours (8 hours = 1 day).

Records: warnings, commendations, reviews

Each person's page has Records — their warnings (verbal, written or final), commendations, reviews and other notes. Only people with HR access see them; the person doesn't. They never expire: they stay until someone removes them.

1. 1On the person's page, press Add warning, Add commendation, Add review or Add note.
2. 2Enter the Date and a short Title, and what happened (What happened, or Comments for a review). A warning also needs its Level.
3. 3For a review, rate each area from 1 to 5 (leave one blank to skip it), write the Goals for next time, and set the Next review date — the people with HR access are reminded before it (Settings › Notification rules › Review due, 14 days to start).
4. 4Attach a File if you like (a signed copy, a letter), and press Add ….

Click a record on the person's page to read it all — the ratings and their average, the goals, who added it, the file — and Edit it (or Remove it, on its edit page). Records (under HR in the menu) lists every record across the company, newest first, with Reviews coming up beside it and Review areas — what a review rates, one per line (Safety, Punctuality, Vehicle care, Communication and Professionalism to start).

Hiring

Hiring (under HR in the menu) is a board of everyone applying to work for you: a column for each stage — Applied, Phone screen, Interview, Road test, Background check, Offer, then Hired and Not hired — and a card for each applicant with the job, when they applied and how many days they've been in the stage. Choose Move to … on a card to move them along.

1. 1Press Manage › Add applicant.
2. 2Enter the First name and choose Applying to be (a driver, an aide, or staff — with the Job title), and as much else as you have: Last name, Phone, Email, Where they heard of you, Applied on (blank for today), and for a driver the CDL class and CDL endorsements.
3. 3Press Add applicant. They start in the first stage.

An applicant's page has their Details, Move to and Edit, Notes — write one with Add note (Called, left a message); every move between stages is written there too, with who and when — and Files, for a resume, a copy of their license or a signed application (Add file). Archive takes them off the board, keeping everything; archived applicants are listed under Stages, where you can open and Restore them.

Once someone is in Hired, their page offers Add as a driver (or an aide, or a staff member — the job they applied for comes first): their name, phone, email and a driver's license details are filled in from what you typed, they're hired today and Active, and they appear in People (and under Drivers for a driver or an aide). Their page then links to the new record. Adding a driver or an aide also needs permission to add drivers.

Stages (above the board) is the board's columns: rename one (Rename), put them in order with the arrows, Add stage for your own (it goes before Hired), or Remove one nobody is in. Hired and Not hired are always the last two — they can be renamed but not removed.

When someone leaves

1. 1Open them in People. Under Leaving at the bottom of their page, enter their Last day, Why they're leaving (Resigned, Let go, Retired, End of season / contract, Other) and Would you hire them again? (Yes, No, or Not decided). Press Start leaving.
2. 2Tick the checklist as you go — keys, fuel card, ID badge, uniform, company phone returned, final paycheck, exit interview (your company's own list). A driver or aide still on routes after their last day is flagged with the routes: open each one and assign another driver or aide.
3. 3Press Finish and choose what their status becomes (Terminated or Inactive). Their FleetCommander sign-in, if they have one, is turned off. Nothing is blocked — you can finish with lines still unticked.

If nobody has pressed Finish by the day after their last day, the people with HR access get a reminder (and once a week after that) — Settings › Notification rules › Leaving not finished. Cancel leaving removes one started by mistake. Leaving (under HR in the menu) lists who is leaving now — with how far along their checklist is — and who left lately, and is where you change the Checklist (one per line). People shows Leaving beside someone whose leaving is in progress. If someone who left applies again, their page on Hiring says when and why they left, and whether you'd hire them again.

Add or renew a certification

1. 1On the person's page press Add certification — or Add / Renew on a line, or on the Certifications list.
2. 2Choose the Certification and enter Issued on. Leave Runs out on blank to have it worked out from the type (e.g. Every 2 years) — the date is shown as you type — or enter the date on the card.
3. 3Add Notes if you like (who gave it, a card number) and attach the Certificate (optional — a scan or photo).
4. 4Press Add certification.

An aide's Background / fingerprint check, Child abuse clearance and CPR / First aid dates and a driver's medical card date, entered on their own pages, count here already (From their aide record) — you don't type them twice. One recorded in HR takes over from them.

The Certifications list

Certifications (under HR in the menu) lists every certification everyone holds or needs, the ones that need you first: Expired, Missing (their job needs it and none is recorded), Expiring soon (within your expiring window, Settings › Compliance), then Current. Filter by certification or job and press Filter. Someone who isn't working now (on leave, inactive …) is never shown as missing one.

Reminders

Before a recorded certification runs out, the people with HR access get a reminder (in the app and by email), on your reminder days — set them for Certification expiring under Settings › Notification rules. Certifications that have run out or soon will also show on Compliance and the Dashboard with your other expiring items. They don't count in the compliance score, and nothing is ever blocked: a driver or aide can still be put on a route.

HR reports

Reports has an HR group for people with HR access: Headcount, Certifications due, Leave balances and Pay summary — on screen, or printed, or as CSV, Excel or PDF, like every report.

Certification types

Certification types (the last button at the top of the HR pages) is what you track. You start with a ready-made list — CPR / First aid, School bus in-service training, Drug test, Physical, Background check, Child abuse clearance and Defensive driving — each with how long it lasts and who must hold it. Rules differ from state to state, so change them to match yours: click a name to edit it (Name, Description, Renew every (months) and Who must hold it — Drivers, Aides, Office & other staff), Manage › Add certification type for your own, and Archive one you no longer track (everyone's records of it are kept; Restore brings it back).