Kyle Ritchie’s official titles at Home Run Inc. are Director of Recruiting and Human Resources Manager. His actual role, however, is what he describes as “ever-evolving” — he also handles marketing, operations, and advertising. It’s just all in a day’s work at the family-owned and operated fleet that’s nearly 100 years old.
That’s exactly what Kyle likes about it. “I remember sitting around the dinner table as a kid and my parents telling me that when I grew up, I should choose a company I could work for all of my life. Well, Home Run is the kind of place I can grow old in. Being family-owned, this place values the human approach to everything.”
One of the first things Kyle did when he joined the company was to convert all of Home Run’s analog personnel files to digital, a process that he said took “months”. This made him realize the value of a digital, paperless system for recruitment. Without one, the process was very hard, indeed.
Shortly after, Kyle’s role brought him to an industry convention, where he first learned of digital applicant tracking systems like TruckRight. What stood out in a bad way, however, was how he was aggressively approached by a number of sales people there. Kyle prides himself on being good at reading people, and the hard sells he kept receiving were off-putting.
And then I see this big guy walking over to me,” Kyle recalls. “He shook my hand and said ‘hi, I’m Dirk’. It was the most natural thing ever. We talked for over 30 minutes about just about anything. Then, I finally got around to asking him what he did for a living?"
That’s when Kyle learned that Dirk Kupar was the president and co-founder of TruckRight, and that it was a product which just so happened to fit his needs. “It was the human touch from Dirk that stood out to me. He didn’t approach me trying to sell something. He just talked to me like a normal human being. The interpersonal connection made the difference.”
Kyle was pleased to see that same human connection was carried through into the implementation and onboarding phase of Home Run’s TruckRight software. Once the team decided to bring in TruckRight, staff were guided through the software step-by-step. Kyle has high praise for Melanie from the support team in particular. “She is wonderful. She helped us through every step. Whenever we have a question, she gets back to us right away.”
Initially, there was resistance from some of the Home Run team, Kyle admits. “There was a lot of ‘oh, but we’ve always done it this way’. Change is always hard. Now, the director of safety uses it daily.” In fact, Kyle says TruckRight was the “gateway for the entire company to go paperless,” with multiple departments now going digital.
Results:
The impact TruckRight made was immediate. Kyle says the expiry warnings have been “a game changer” for keeping their drivers in compliance. “Before, it was easy to lose track if a driver’s license was up for expiry. Now, the 90, 60 and 30-day warnings have made a huge difference for everyone.” While TruckRight has enabled Home Run to recruit drivers their way, it has also made compliance much easier as well.
Most importantly, TruckRight has enabled Home Run to keep recruiting drivers in the way that has made them thrive for nearly a century: with an honest, human approach. “The best advice I can give to recruiters is to always keep the human connection during the process”, Kyle says.
“And human connection is what TruckRight provides.”