The Truckload Carriers Assn.'s new Truckload Academy has come out with its first product: "The Daily Dispatch Challenge," offering training for dispatchers.

The Daily Dispatch Challenge is a multimedia, interactive simulation training that recreates a fleet manager's daily job responsibilities. During the training, trainees are prompted to evaluate and make informed decisions as if they were in their own work environment. The program presents multiple job-related issues and scenarios that have to be juggled. It offers industry-specific scenarios, provides guidance and prompting throughout, and focuses on building rapport, counseling, and supporting drivers.
TCA Chairman Bob Hansen talked about the new program and the importance of training dispatchers during an address to the McLeod Users Conference in Birmingham, Ala., yesterday. "Where do we get our dispatchers?" he asked. "We take our best driver and put him in a chair to dispatch. Only suddenly we don't have a good driver any more and we've got a lousy dispatcher. Why? He expects other drivers to be as good as he was. You'll hear him telling drivers, 'I was out there 16 years and never had a late delivery.'"
The Truckload Academy offers "distance-based learning" as a more cost-effective alternative to sending employees to seminars away from the office.
For more information, visit www.truckload.org.