Fleet management duties and responsibilities

For companies that employ mobile workforces and fleets of vehicles, optimising fleet management is an important and often overlooked business activity that can have a significant impact on the bottom line. This is particularly true for small to mid-sized businesses, where the business owner or general manager often makes the fleet management decisions. But at some point, in a company’s growth, it makes sense to hire a professional fleet manager. If you’re thinking about upgrading your fleet management system or wondering what fleet management duties and responsibilities are, you’ve come to the right place.

Let’s first take a look at what fleet management exactly is, why it’s such a critical part of business, and how it will continue to influence your bottom line.   

What is fleet management?

Fleet management is the practice of managing commercial motor vehicles such as cars, vans and HGVs to ensure optimal utilisation, fuel consumption and maintenance. Fleet management duties and responsibilities may also include helping to coach drivers to improve fleet safety, compliance and liability. In some industries, such as construction and building contracting, fleet management can also include asset tracking and managing equipment from heavy cranes and bulldozers to smaller equipment such as trailers, generators and specialty tools.

Fleet management aims to maximise efficiency, increase productivity and improve safety for an organisation's vehicles and drivers. Often this is achieved using a combination of vehicle tracking, reporting on fuel consumption, monitoring driver behaviour and managing vehicle maintenance.

The importance of fleet management

Behind salaries and benefits, fleet-related costs are generally one of the largest expenses at any company that relies on a fleet of vehicles and drivers to get the job done. It makes sense, then, that fleet manager is one of the most important roles for a business with a mobile workforce. Fleet management duties and responsibilities often ensure that company vehicles are well maintained and ready for use, and that their drivers are driving safely and in compliance with government regulations such as hours of service requirements and the Electronic Logging Device (ELD) mandate. Fleet managers work with critical employees across the business and their duties and titles can differ depending on the industry, vehicle types and company size.

Overview of fleet management duties and responsibilities

According to Business Fleet, “A great fleet professional is able to lead and coach, not only the fleet team, but also drivers and multiple management levels. They’re able to inspire a team towards a common purpose or vision.”

A fleet manager with the following qualities and skills will have a better chance at success:

• Technical knowledge relevant to your industry
• Keeps up with changes and trends
• Familiar with regulations for commercial vehicles and drivers
• Knows the business’ priorities and helps solve problems to drive cost reductions
• Understands vehicle maintenance, repair implications and driver safety best practices
• Manages multitasking and shifting priorities effectively

An effective fleet manager is not only tactical, but also business-minded and tech savvy. As a fleet grows in size, fleet management duties and responsibilities become more challenging and complex, including:

• Coping with information overload
• Integrating fleet data into existing software systems
• Making sure all assets are fully utilised
• Needing quick solutions to problems
• Managing a geographically dispersed team
• Finding specific fleet information quickly
• Software systems that are scalable and able to handle rapid growth
• Controlling unauthorised use of company assets

With their unique insights into fuel efficiency, vehicle maintenance, driver safety, regulations and fleet expenses, a fleet manager is one of the most important drivers of your business.

Collaboration

Though it used to be a job focused solely on managing your fleet’s schedule, fleet management duties and responsibilities today include being able to lead and coach, not only the fleet team but also drivers and multiple management levels. For a small business, a fleet manager might also be the service or office manager, so they have other duties to fulfill in addition to managing the fleet.

A successful fleet manager establishes a cooperative, working relationship with all internal functions within the corporation that are associated with the fleet function:

• Drivers and technicians
• Dispatchers and back office
• Business owners and leaders
• Service managers and mechanics

Sharing knowledge

A good fleet manager requires an aptitude for interpersonal communication in addition to the traditional technical knowledge and organisational skills associated with this role. It takes a lot of people and skill to keep a fleet going so collaborating across these disciplines can mean the difference between being on time and late, and between profit and loss. Fleet managers need to be forceful, yet tactful and be able to encourage people to do tasks they might not want to do.

Working with suppliers and partners

Great fleet professionals work with suppliers and other partners to optimise their performance. Some employ supply-chain management techniques, such as bringing suppliers together as a team to facilitate communication with each other to provide efficient, low-cost services to the fleet. They set the safety and maintenance standards for the fleet as well as handle all the administrative work.

Fleet management software

The impact of data analysis and advanced technology is already being seen across the fleet landscape. Getting up to speed with new innovations, analysis, data, near real-time updates and more, can be daunting, but once a fleet manager understands how to use this technology, it will make their job exponentially easier in the long run.

Fleet management technology can help you:

• Monitor fuel cost and spending with fuel management: Typically, fuel accounts for a 1/3 of your operating costs, so this is not an area to be messed with. Excessive spending by even a small amount on a daily expense can add up quickly, stealing from your bottom line.
• Report on driver safety behaviours with driver management: Fleet tracking systems can help you monitor speeding, harsh braking and rapid acceleration and even idling, all which can cause wear and tear on a vehicle and cost you money in the long run.
• Get alerts for vehicle maintenance: It goes without saying that staying on top of vehicles and caring for them on a regular basis will make them perform better and longer. Using technology to track preventive maintenance like routine oil changes or tyre rotations makes your life easier as you will always be alerted when a vehicle inspection is due.
• Track driver and vehicle locations and routes: The advances in telematics and software as well as GPS mapping and route optimisation software not only simplify the life of a fleet manager, they can also save costs due to drivers getting lost, wasted fuel and lost delivery time.

Fleet management solutions can make the life of a fleet manager easier as well as drive overall cost savings and operational efficiencies for any company. Find out more here.