Disgruntled Rideshare Drivers: An Open Letter to the Rideshare Industry
Disgruntled rideshare drivers are cancerous to the rideshare community. A smart and prudent industry would do whatever it takes to overcome the cancer.
Let me begin this post by acknowledging that the source of this post is based on my feelings. Statistics, data, and rock solid evidence won’t find a foothold here.
However, I do know people. I know that managing people effectively will ensure the growth and prosperity of a business, whatever that business is.
Dear Mr and Mrs Lyft/Uber,
I find it somewhat disheartening that you don’t seem to understand that you have disgruntled rideshare drivers within your organization. Yes, rideshare drivers have bright, shiny, attractive apps for our phones. We see the polished TV commercials touting the companies we represent and we applaud your effort to present an amazing product to the consumer. However on the inside…at the ground level, your drivers are revolting.
Affective Management is About How You Make Us Feel
Managing a progressive company is not about pulling in tons of revenue. Managing a great company is not about presenting the most polished image. Running a good company is not about developing partnerships with other entities.
Operating a landmark company is about effectively managing those on the bottom rung of your organization. In this case, it’s us….the drivers. If the people on the bottom rung of your organization are happy, you will pull in tons of revenue. If the people on the bottom rung of your organization are happy, you will present a polished image. When the people on the bottom rung of your organization are happy, other entities will want to develop partnerships with you.
There’s an old adage which goes “It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it”. This adage is spot on when it comes to the messages that you send to us.
Your industry isn’t in decline. It’s growing. But yet wages seem to be decreasing. You are prospering, yet the expenses that we are incurring to help your companies prosper are increasing. How can you not know and understand that this issue might cause some of us to become disgruntled? And more importantly, how can you not see and understand that the more disenfranchised we become, the more cancerous your service and or product becomes to the consumer.
Disgruntled Rideshare Drivers Have Feelings Too
I’ve driven for Lyft for years. One of the perks Lyft offers is a free soda at 7/11 (once per day) and the use of their restrooms. I don’t want to diminish this offering. We as drivers are appreciative of any freebie we can get.
But on the other hand, suppose for one moment that you issued a statement which read something like “We know and understand that the cost of fuel is a major concern for our drivers. Therefore, we have decided to attach our wage scale to the daily median price of fuel. As fuel costs increase, our wages will increase accordingly. As fuel prices decrease, likewise we will adjust our wages accordingly“.
Now place yourself in our shoes and tell me which of these “perks” would make you feel cared for as a driver the most? Which would give the average driver the incentive to hit the streets and produce even more revenue for you? Higher wages as compensation when fuel prices are at an all-time high, or a free soda from 7/11?
Maybe I’m missing something here. I’m not a business major. And I don’t want to insult your intelligence, but some issues don’t seem to require a college degree to be solved. Make your people feel cared for, and they will produce a ton of revenue for you.
When I first began driving for Lyft, you guys offered a driving bonus to incentivize drivers to spend more time behind the wheel. I’m more of a family man, so these bonuses never appealed to me. However, my wife and I set some financial goals for our family and we saw where these bonuses might come in handy for some projects we’d like to do around the house.
So having the option to go after these bonuses, I decided to start working to earn them each week. The bonus requirements were as follows: 120 rides to earn a $97.00 bonus. Then on top of that if I provide an additional 10 rides, I would earn an additional $30.00 for a total of $127.00 in bonuses in exchange for 130 rides per week.
I met the minimum bonus requirement 3 weeks in a row and had worked out a method of achieving my weekly goal on an ongoing basis. But then, you increased the bonus requirement on me. You increased the minimum bonus requirement to 140 rides to receive a bonus of $125.00. Then on top of that if I provided an additional 25 rides, I would receive an additional $57.00 for a total of $182.00 in bonuses in exchange for 165 rides per week.
Once again, 3 weeks in a row I fulfilled the minimum bonus requirement. On the following Monday morning, I checked my app and the option to achieve the driving bonus was removed from my app. During the previous six weeks I had driven for Lyft more than I had in the previous 2 years. I had transported more passengers and I enjoyed driving for Lyft more than I had ever before. But I was shut down (at least that’s the way I was made to feel), because I worked out a way to attain goals that were never meant to be attained. They were window dressing and not bonuses offered in sincerity.
Creating Disgruntled Rideshare Drivers
I spoke to the Lyft support staff about having my driving challenge removed. They told me that the driver challenges were offered randomly and that they are never guaranteed. It’s somehow hard for me to believe that a bonus option that was available to me for over 2 years while I wasn’t interested in achieving it, was somehow taken away from me once I started achieving it.
But let’s give the benefit of the doubt here. Suppose you were absolutely transparent and truthful with me about the driver bonus. I’d like to ask you how your actions could be percieved by me, the hard-working rideshare driver? Would it boost moral or would it be considered just another method of creating disgruntled rideshare drivers?
The vast majority of us drive for you because WE WANT TO drive for you, not because we have to drive for you. We enjoy driving, we enjoy being our own bosses and we enjoy meeting people.
Now get this…WE WANT TO DO WHAT YOU NEED US TO DO.
And taking this fact a step further, not only do we want to do what you need us to do, we’re willing to use our own equipment at our own expense to do what you need us to do. Most large companies would kill to have a workforce who wanted to do a job so badly that they were willing to use their own vehicles to get the job done. Why on earth would you take such a segment of the workforce and make things difficult for us financially or otherwise?
So once again we circle back to the proper (or improper) management of people. Manage the people on the lowest rung of your company correctly, and your company will become a Fortune 500 company. Manage your workforce incorrectly, and the future of your company will face contention, turmoil and an extremely high turn over rate. Which is where we find ourselves today.
That’s just one rideshare drivers’ opinion….
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