The Hidden Power of Labor Productivity in Trucking & CDL Schools

How small improvements in your team’s workflow can double your profit

In every business I’ve built — TruckMaster CDL School, United States Trucks LLC, and A2Z Trucking Solutions — one thing has become very clear: labor productivity decides whether a company grows or struggles.

Most people think productivity means “cutting labor costs.”
But in reality, productivity is about removing bottlenecks, reducing idle time, improving flow, and helping the team work smarter — not harder.

Today, I want to share a simple way to understand labor productivity by using a famous example from operations management and then applying it directly to trucking companies and CDL schools like ours.

What Is Idle Time — And Why Does It Kill Profit?

Imagine you are inside a Subway sandwich shop.
There are 3 workers:

Worker 1: Prepares the bread
Worker 2: Adds the vegetables and meats
Worker 3: Packs and finishes the sandwich

The slowest worker is Worker 2 — the bottleneck.

Because worker 2 is slow:

Worker 1 must wait
Worker 3 must wait
Only worker 2 is always busy

This “waiting time” is called idle time.

Idle time = money burned.

You pay your employees whether they’re working or waiting.
That’s why understanding idle time is so important.

How Idle Time Happens in a Trucking Company

Let’s look at UST:

Example: Driver Onboarding

Safety: 20 minutes
Admin paperwork: 10 minutes
ELD setup: 15 minutes
Orientation video: 40 minutes

If safety takes 20 minutes and admin takes 10 minutes, the admin person will sit idle for 10 minutes every cycle.

Multiply that by 15 drivers per week — and suddenly you lose hours of paid time for no productive output.

How Idle Time Happens in a CDL School

At TruckMaster CDL School:

Reception: 7 minutes
Contract/Enrollment: 20 minutes
Payment/Scheduling: 12 minutes

The bottleneck is 20 minutes (enrollment).

So the other two team members (reception and scheduling) will always have idle time.

Imagine paying staff for 3 hours — but only 2 hours of real work happens.
That is the cost of poor labor productivity.

Labor Content: The Real Amount of Work in One Process

Labor content = the total time required to produce ONE “unit.”

In Subway:
37 + 46 + 37 = 120 seconds per sandwich

In CDL school:
7 + 20 + 12 = 39 minutes per student

This tells you the minimum labor cost per student or per driver — before we lose money from idle time.

Labor Utilization: Are Your Employees Balanced?

Labor utilization measures:

How much of your team’s available time is actually used productively.

High labor utilization = balanced system
Low labor utilization = workers waiting, walking, confused, idle

When labor utilization drops, you lose:

money
speed
output
customer satisfaction
capacity

Direct Labor Cost: How Much Labor Goes Into One Unit?

This is the money you spend on labor per unit (per student, per driver, per load).

Formula:

Total labor cost per hour / output per hour

In trucking:

If dispatchers are paid $20/hour
and they book 4 loads per hour:

Direct labor =
$20 / 4 = $5 labor per load

If onboarding staff costs $25/hour
and they process 2 drivers per hour:

Direct labor =
$25 / 2 = $12.50 labor per driver

This helps you understand exactly where your money goes.

The Most Important Lesson: Improve the Bottleneck = Explode Your Profit

In the Subway example:

Bottleneck time reduced from 46 sec → 43 sec
Profit jumped from $27/hour → $48/hour
Almost doubled profit by improving small steps

This is the KEY lesson for trucking companies.

For UST: Improve the Bottleneck in Safety = More Drivers, More Loads

If Safety takes 20 minutes → bottleneck
If you reduce it to 15 minutes → new flow

Outcome:

More drivers processed daily
Faster onboarding
More trucks moving sooner
More Amazon Relay capacity
More revenue
Lower cost per driver

A 5-minute improvement can generate thousands per week.

For TruckMaster CDL School: Improve Enrollment Flow = More Students Per Day

If enrollment takes 20 minutes per student
→ bottleneck

Reduce it to 15 minutes by:

Pre-filling documents
Online forms
Auto-filled address IDs
SOP videos
Better admin training

Now you can enroll 30% more students per day with the same staff.

This directly increases:

Revenue
Training flow
Test scheduling
Student satisfaction

Why Labor Productivity Matters in Transportation & CDL Training

Here are the two most important reasons:

1️⃣ Labor Costs Are Hidden Everywhere

You don’t just pay your own workers.
You pay for labor inside:

your fuel suppliers
tire shops
brokers
insurance companies
repair shops
part suppliers
DMV fees
trucking vendors

The entire supply chain is built on labor.

If everyone above you raises their labor cost, trucking becomes more expensive.

Bottlenecks Decide Your Revenue

UST can only grow as fast as its bottleneck.

If safety or maintenance or dispatch is slow →
your whole fleet becomes slow.

If enrollment or training or testing is slow →
your whole school becomes slow.

Speed = capacity
Capacity = revenue
Revenue = growth

Final Thoughts: Productivity Is the Real Profit Booster

The lesson is simple:

✔ It’s not about cutting labor

✔ It’s about using labor smarter

✔ Small improvements in the bottleneck can double profit

✔ Idle time should be eliminated

✔ Faster flow = more sales without extra cost

This is how great companies grow —
not by working harder, but by working smarter.

In the coming weeks, I will share real examples from our operations at TruckMaster CDL School, UST, and A2Z Trucking Solutions on how we improve productivity daily.

Stay tuned, and let’s grow together. 🚀