In the past year, the number of people seeking jobs from which they can work at home has skyrocketed. Nearly every industry has adopted work-from-home positions in their business to stay afloat during the pandemic. In transportation, dispatching and brokering from home are becoming more popular. Here are a few tips you may find useful if you plan on attempting dispatching from home.
Wake up Early
In the trucking industry, the early bird really does get the worm! The early morning is the peak time for loads being posted on various load boards. These are also usually the higher paying loads, and they get booked QUICKLY! You have to make sure you are up as early as possible in order to procure the best loads for your clients. A dispatcher should be up by at least 7 A.M checking as many load boards as possible and making phone calls to brokers, but the earlier the better!
Self-Manage
This is probably the most important aspect of any work-from-home career. You have to have to ability to manage yourself. What that means is you need to be responsible for getting yourself up on time, looking at load boards, and booking loads. There will be no supervisor looking over your shoulder to ensure you do your work, you will have to do that for yourself.
Stay Motivated
There is no room for burnout as a dispatcher. You will be handling multiple drivers and their demands while trying to book loads with brokers who will be trying to low-ball you on price. While dealing with all these different intricacies you have to stay motivated, especially during times when you are finding it difficult to get a load booked for one of your clients.
Communicate
Even Though you will have set "office hours" for dispatching, it is still very important that you continue to communicate with your clients after hours as well. Communicating with your drivers is the most important part of a dispatchers' job. You are basically your drivers' personal assistant in all matters. That means if they have a breakdown and can't make it to pick up or drop off a load it is then your responsibility to pick up the phone and start making calls to the appropriate parties. Dispatching is a constant game of communicating back and forth between your drivers and brokers.
Take Breaks
Make sure during your office hours you give yourself a break or two. Even if it's just you standing up to stretch or grabbing something to drink. Sitting in front of the computer screen for extended periods of time can strain your eyes and some people even get headaches. Be sure you are taking good care of yourself while you work in order for you to be your most productive.
Get ahead
You don’t want to wait until the day of, to start searching for loads. Ideally, you would work toward planning your drivers' entire week ahead of time. This way you aren't always frantically searching load boards all stressed out about the possibility that you may not be able to book your driver a load today. Get ahead of yourself so your workday can be more leisurely, and less stressful.
Conclusion
Dispatching from home can be a challenging task that requires you to juggle many different tasks all at once. Staying afloat as a dispatcher will require you to wake up earlier, be an excellent self-manager and communicator, and be incredibly organized. If you are great at all those things you will be very successful at dispatching from home. Just like anything else, it takes time and practice.
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