For information regarding the Truck Driver Virtual Training, call Kim Sytsma-Hill, 1 800 771 8171 x 205
Sud Malhotra: sud.malhotra@powerbev.com
Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
Attention, Ontario Trucking Companies. If you are relying on facility insurance, you could be overpaying. Reduce your insurance cost by 10, 000 or more per truck. And good news, we accept drivers with only 1 year of experience. To learn more, just send us text by typing insurance to 365 364 0714.
For information regarding the Truck Driver Virtual Training, call Kim Sytsma-Hill, 1 800 771 8171 x 205
Sud Malhotra: sud.malhotra@powerbev.com
Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!
Attention, Ontario Trucking Companies. If you are relying on facility insurance, you could be overpaying. Reduce your insurance cost by 10, 000 or more per truck. And good news, we accept drivers with only 1 year of experience. To learn more, just send us text by typing insurance to 365 364 0714.
And welcome to another episode of the Dawg On It Trucking Pawedcast wear this week. My guest is mr. SUD Malhotra and he is a Young Trucking Professional in the logistics and the transportation industry specializing in Safety. He is my guest this week. First, before we get to that, let me apologize for being late this week, just being a crazy week, the first time I'd been late uploading and episode. So I do apologize for that. Now, a word from our sponsor. I am so privileged to be partnered with KRTS Yes Safety Dawg and KRTS as PO have partnered to bring you a virtual truck driver training meeting on the American Thanksgiving long weekend. For details, click on the link below and give Kim Sytsma-Hill a call at KRTS. The phone number is Uhh right there. 1 800 771 8171 x205. Give Kim a call, get all the details and Now on with the show. Welcome to another episode of the dog on a Trucking podcast. My guest this week is mr. SUD Mo. Awesome. I'd see, I went in, Ms messed up your name. Let's bring cite in here and he can give me heck and tell me exactly how to say his last name. SUD Welcome So SUD Malhotra that whole tribe? Yeah. Mr. SUD Malhotra is my guest this week. SUD Welcome I. Thank you. Thank you. Chris for having me on the show. It's great to be here. Hey, it's my absolute pleasure to have you on you are one of the, up-and-coming a professional's in the industry and I've got some questions for you, you know, revolving around. What for instance, why did you choose Trucking and, and how has your career been going so far? And I know you do a lot with a lot of different things, so we're going to get right into it. So introduce yourself to our viewers and our listeners, and give us a little background about you, just, you know, So I can, I can start off my eyes, started my career with the GE capital in 2010. When I was back in India, I did work with them with, I would say four and a half to five years. And then Uhh, I, I came to Canada as an international student on may of 2014. And I did my post-graduate diploma in business management and finance and banking. There was a, there was no hope, no process that I have set up that I will go into the Trucking, but it was kind of a time thing. So I, I started to see Trucking in, in Canada was like really big. And I thought, and I, and I heard people saying like, everybody wanted to go into the truck and transportation business. As and my only question to those people that why exactly the similar question that you asked me, I used to ask them as well. Like, why did you do that for a year? What they see in the people used to tell me about one thing is the money factor. Now I. I did have my career with the Capitol. I did learn a lot of the things from there as well, but just for the money factor, I would not choose any career. Yes, it is good too, have a good money, but also money, money, and also only satisfy your first client for the long term. So that was my initial thought of, and, and, and somehow I got Uhh I needed a co-op job at the once. My graduation was almost done and I, and I started with the fucking consultant company where I helping smaller, like a 20 to 20 to 40 trucks. We are helping them with their compliance, their logs auditing. And, and from there, I think at the start we started to come, but I was actually really hungry for knowledge. And then I started with the actual base company. Where, where do you actually see being the real real Truck the drivers? Who do you interact with them? And my, my, I would say the people in the industry has actually pushed to me in terms of learning more and more. That actually took me to the longer side and, and feed this one as my longterm career that I can continue to do for the rest of my life. And I, and then where I can, I'm a member from the time in 2013 when I met Charley, that that was the first time I think I, I saw you as well as the first time in Milton when there was a seminar and they organize every year ISP, me and I used to think, you guys are on social media, on LinkedIn doing all of those things at the time. And, and from there, I was learning many thing that I have approached you are there other industry people as well in order to get some more knowledge, like how I can pursue my career, what direction I should be going. So that was the first time I started to go out in the, in the event like that. And I, and, and, and that thing actually pushed me to, to do more, to try to get more from the industry, what they have for me to learn more and more in order to keep growing. And I think that, that it is still On. Well, I know, and I know you're an active, sorry, switch back to a, hit the button there. I know you're active in a lot of things such as PMTC the young leaders group and we'll, and I'll ask you about that in a minute. How do you see your career going? What is it that you're doing now? What role, because you S you said you started off as far as working for a safety consultant, doing safety and compliance type regulations. And in doing that with a smaller company, as you are now working with the larger company, what your role there. So currently I am with the power of Bev, there would be the red bull exclusive distributor in Ontario, and also they have a different, a company under the same umbrella. Uhh doing the same distributors channel and BC. And then there are some other group of company that, that I support as a fleet manager role. And I support almost about a 200 assets. And then about the other side of Driver capacity in the company where I am doing with the trainings, compliance to all of those other regulations at that. And then also with the later to the vehicle, a sourcing, acquisition's a sales and all of that. So if it's a big, a role, but also have a huge or a different team members at the same department as well, to me, we do have a fleet tool as well. That supports me from the top and also the, the executive vice president on our operations for lastly, there's me a lot of feedback continuously to what I'm doing and how we should be doing it in the fleet. So I didn't know that you're still in, or you're still responsible for safety and compliance, but a lot more, you said, acquisition of equipment. And did you not? Yeah, that's a big roll. How many people are in the department? And so we are now, I would say three people directly involved in this one. And I, and I can tell the number who are indirectly, because everybody is actually a contributing to that one simple task goal, which is like the, we all have to bring something on the table in order to like, get to that one, one, one main goal, but you have to have a state lead on it. Right. So you mentioned safe, you're working for a company. They've got a, it's a large fleet right across Canada. It's sounds like How, what are you doing in the room to get your drivers? I don't want to say to behave, that's the wrong word, but certainly to drive in a safe and safe and efficient manner, or are there certain things that you're pushing ahead on? So that one thing I, I would say from the very beginning that I started in I'm, I'm, I'm with this company for 2019 and like that I, I have joined them in the beginning of the year. And the one thing I have been I'm trying to like do in this company and as a cultural team. And the best thing about this company is that there are very buying and two to all of those culture so that they can actually be able to drive those from the top to the last bottom, which is like the actual driver who is taking our vehicle, taking our brand on. And also because our drivers are not on the drivers, but also they are the, the salespeople. Do they have merchandise? The they, they do the sales, but there are a major part of the job has also has a, have a safe driving on the roadmap because we have a big, big Brown on the trucks then. So we, we as a fleet and we have to protect that brand. And also our drivers, A big part of it is protecting your drivers, protecting your brand, protecting your reputation in regard, we're taping this in the us. And I don't want to say we're in the middle of COVID I hope God, I pray that we are nearing the end of the silliness, not silliness, but the end of this pandemic, Uhh, we're taping this in the middle of October. So just to put it in context, when the, sometime down the road there, somebody watching this in the middle of October, we are still in COVID. Have you implemented anything special to help your drivers, your operators be protected from COVID? Yeah. There were actually challenges that at the very beginning, when this hit in the month of March, when this was actually declared on March 11th, that is a global pandemic and a company started to take those things as a very serious 'cause. Our drivers actually meet in a number of people, drivers doing about 20 calls a day a week. So he would be with it in 20 stores were hundreds of people that actually was at that store. So we didn't have a lot of exposure on a, on a regular basis. So in order to protect our employees, we have to take a hard measure. Uhh the salespeople had a bit of a very important job, two merchandise, a product of the stores. So we, we have to stop that at the beginning that we started to lead the product outside the explainer, our customers, that this is a situation we both have to be protecting our people, their employees, our employees. And that is the, what is the best way to, to, to mitigate the exposure of the core work with our employees. So I our employees who are actually dropping the products and not merchandising in ongoing, inside the store, and then going into the another call and another one. And that's gotta be tough because now they're, you said that there are, there are drivers that delivery people, but there are also salespeople and now they are not having that person to person contact that they're used to. And of course, a lot of sales is, you know, I buy from people that I like, and if I'm not forming relationships, my sales may go down and I don't know, but I imagine these drivers there are, are they even called drivers? Yeah. The company employees. Oh yeah. They're there they're job is to drive in the company vehicles. So I would say, I would say a partially, but they, they have a responsibility to drive, so they are turning that driver's as well. Yes. So we don't have any employees. I was just wondering, because some of the company's employees like this Are have different job titles, they may be marketers or merchandise managers. Yes. They drive a company vehicle, but their job is so much more me. All of them, we call them sales representatives. Yeah. And so they're out there and now the way they sell is totally upside down. Yes. I just, and I won't ask you about how has it affected, ah, the company, none of our business, but I'm more interested in your role and how did you learn the stuff that you're doing before you got to your employer? So I would say a lot of the things that I have learned is, is from the people in the industry, they are already there. They are spent a number of years. I can say, I can take an example as you, you spend a bit almost like plus 30 years' in the industry. I'm all right. So those are the people who have, who are always there to help me. And I have probably call you as well as many times that many other people who has never hesitated to help me that that's one thing that I've learned is when you need some help, I always ask your mentors and the industry who are, you actually feel that they, they can guide you. They can actually give you the truth, the feedback that you need in order to be better at your work. And that's, that's how it has been continuously is going on with that. I had, I, I was sharing with mentors and they were kind of a very generous to me the feedback at that time and at the, not the same time, but at least the next day, they will have a follow up call with me. That's, that's, that's, that's a really important for me as a learner or the new person in the industry, then Uhh keep engaged and in engaging would be the best mentors too. Continue to learning a more and more. And how So your you've just said that you're kind of a new in the industry. You are not new anymore. 'cause you worked for a safety consultant. You've been with your current employer for almost two years, because here we are in October, you said you started in 20, 19 and January. So it's almost two years your coming up too. So you are no, you can't use that excuse new anymore. However you are Young. And I know you're part of the young leaders group at a private motor of Truck council. All right. What are you picking up in that group by being associated there? To be honest, like my, my start with the PMTC would be, and in 2016, where it started as a young leader of the group, only where I stayed as a, a member only, which was the w, which was like not expensive membership, but to start off with it was a good, good channel to go into the PMTC. And then all those information tools and the, the people I was meeting, it was great. And I, then I recommended that same group on the associates side. I told my company that if we can actually be a member of that company, a member of the organization, sorry, that that would be very helpful for us because it PMTC regularly update us with any changes, many regulations. And then this is cool by the time I can, I can talk every single day, all those emails we're coming from a PMTC Mike million. We are very helpful for us. Like, I can give you an example of a recent email. I've got four a day that employees now have to get their temperature check and the survey's done it before they enter their work facility. So that was something that, that, that I forwarded it to my company and HR and they, they kind, we are preparing it, but that actually give them a little more information that they needed in order to be start doing that. But I think the following Monday, our company actually started doing it and we are following it every day now. And, and I, I work here and my girlfriend, she owns the dental hygiene business. So ever since she reopened after a COVID, when she was allowed to reopen her protocol and me being in the building, I have to follow her protocol. I take my temperature twice a day and have to record it. And there is a questionnaire that he has to be completed. The whole routine. Yeah. This COVID stuff I don't know about you, but I'm getting tired of it. Yeah. Its kind of, everybody is tired of this one, but the way this is going, Uhh nobody wanted to leave their guard up. So it's good that all the measures are in place and we are actually following it the max week. That's the best, that's the best thing we can do for the, for the community and for us in our family. Yeah, Absolutely. When I say I am getting tired of it, I am still sticking to the protocols strictly because I look at my brother who lives in Florida. And when I compare the infection rate in Florida percentage wise, because there are only about three, believe it or not, a Florida is about three or 4 million more people than on the Ontario. Is that right? No, sorry. Florida is a few million, more people than Canada. And so when I go back and forth and compare the infection rates were doing really well, not as well as some countries in the world, but compared to our nearest neighbor, we are doing very well. So I'm not dropping my guard down cause I don't, I'm 65 years old. I sure as heck don't want this disease or this disease pandemic, whatever you call a flu. Like, because that could, I mean at the beginning, but I'm in that range group that our most effective negatively you are still in the range of group of, And it just started to come out on our side to, it's not that we don't see the numbers like it's under 40 now. Well, you're getting it more. But the people who are dying are in my age group. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's not even going back to the PMTC and the young leaders group, what is the young leaders group all about? Right. So the young leaders are actually a support. Those people were wanting to be in the trucking industry need and, and have a hunger to actually learn about it. We are there to support them and give them all the resources they need. So we, we, we continue to come to meet on a, on a quarterly basis to see what would those things we can present that to our members. And we do have a webinar. And the last time we did the <inaudible> for the same, a agenda about COVID asking you about different companies like How they are doing and what measures they're implementing and how they are actually came far in order to how to mitigate it, go the culture from beginning to the point now. So what was kind of a bit of an honor's in the liver to the Trucking and that in different, we, we, we support those individual who are new and actually one or two B to B in the transportation and logistics business. Right. Awesome. And what would you say if somebody was graduating from a high school or college or university and they were looking at perhaps making a choice as to where their career should take them, what would you say to encourage them? If you would encourage them? I guess that's the first question. Would you even encourage them to get into transportation? Yeah, for sure. There's, there's no doubt in that. I would not encourage them because this, this industry has given me a lot, a, a big platform, big learning, the culture, I'm still learning and it would be it it's not stopping. It's a continuous, thank you for me. And then the, these associations and the, the, the industry, people are always, always there to help me and guide me like what the new center are coming and what I can improve with a So recently I've enrolled myself to upgrade my knowledge under a certified risk management, prominent for the university of Colorado. So for the new individual, Hey they can start with anything in terms of logistics, but I just, again, in a straighter and As as a safety and the theatre or something like that as a, as a start up and then continue to look for new knowledge and new programs that they can to upscale them. And, and yes, I have been myself growing into it and then I'm still learning it, it, so it, it's not going away anyway. Well said, I think you have a hunger to learn. And I hope that never goes away. We need more people like yourself who really want to be here for one, you chose it. And then now not only have you chosen it, but you've chosen to become very good at it. And I, for one, I appreciate that because you put a lot of effort into it. So thank you from a guy who is getting very close to retirement, to somebody who is coming in to replace. I mean, we need replacements. A us old guys are getting the heck out of here and you youngins, we need more people like you, you are setting a great example of the S as to how to get in the business, because I first met you, as you said a few years ago, but you were participating in industry events. Yeah. You were getting out there and you were meeting some of the leaders of the industry at that time by getting to these events. And that's one of the things I wish more people would do is get out of their offices, come meet some of us, not us. I'm in that you got to get out and you got to, you got to meet your individuals. You've got to make your connections. Yeah. And then a big part of my learning, what I do now, and I have been doing in the past as well with the other company, does it come from different people in the industry? Like I can take an example from a different company who w who might not be at the safety manager, if I have a challenge and I, and I can share that challenge with them. Maybe they have a, they already have a treatment for that. So it would be while discussing those in the event, it opening up a lot of a good communication and learning there. That's, that's how I would have been taking all those learnings and be able to apply those into the role I am in. Yeah. So it's wonderful. You're a great example. For as an example of what we need in the trucking industry. And I thank you for coming on the show, last word. Is there something that you would like to say to a, a, a listener or viewer as to why they should get into transportation? Yeah. One thing I would say is it's, it's a huge career opportunity. Not just driving, driving is a big part because they are the essential worker for you. But no, but if the other people are in the office at the end, many tasks, people Uhh accounting and everybody, and the transportation, they are the ones who are actually supporting those drivers. They're not only those drivers are, are actually on a road. So the play an important role too. But every job in transportation is huge. And And pays you a lot, not just the money, but also a big career. So I would highly recommend everybody is if the H starting to actually get into the, choose their careers. I would say transportation. I'm a district is really good. Thanks, mr. SUD Malhotra most of the whole Truck I'll get it. <inaudible> Very good. Well, that's not very good, but Hey, thanks so much for coming on the show. I appreciate your time, and I appreciate you more than coming on the show. I really do appreciate you. And all the effort you put in a, your continuing education activities, such as your CRM, how far along are you on that? I am on my second semester. No, it's not an easy course is not an easy one. I have my CRM and I was told recently that it has gotten tougher. I'm not easier to get so congrats for that. I'm glad I'm done with it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for All the best. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Great take care. Bye. I hope you loved the show as much as I did. Please leave us a, like a thumbs up a review, a comment or a rating. Thank you so much. And I do really appreciate you all the time and join us again next week for another exciting, interesting.