Picture this: you’re driving the company van to your next job on a cold, rainy fall evening, and you’re miserable. Maneuvering the unusually tight streets to get there makes you anxious, picking heavy equipment up from the floor has your bad back flaring, you’ve almost slipped twice entering the van, and the chilly air has invaded your cab to the point where the internal temperature is indiscernible from outside.
It’s safe to say that your current working conditions are not ideal.
These scenarios are common among skilled technicians who only have the bare minimum to work with, and it can impair their effectiveness. Since this will impact your business’ success in the long run, it makes sense to invest in user-centric, comfort-first interior solutions with your workers in mind.
Here’s how driver well-being and efficiency will improve if that investment is made.
EN ROUTE
What the average work van lacks in driver visibility, it makes up for in space. Though that takes care of storage, it doesn’t make your van any less stressful to maneuver in busy, tight streets—and near the end of a long workday, a tired driver may need some assistance.
To do so, many fleets choose to upfit their work vans with 360° camera systems. Not only do these systems offer a bird’s eye view; the newest, most advanced systems come equipped with AI-enabled image recognition technology, recording capability, and sensors that give audible and visual proximity alerts. With a higher level of spatial awareness and around-vehicle vision, these systems add a layer of psychological comfort to a driver’s day and may save your business from a costly lawsuit.
Despite the weather and poor visibility, our driver no longer worries about parking, clearing tight spaces, or back-up incidents—which have led to an average of 263 fatalities and more than 10,000 injuries every year in the U.S. according to the NHTSA, 2024.
However, if our driver did need to suddenly stop, loose materials like extra long pieces of lumber would be concerning, since they potentially become deadly projectiles upon hard braking. Luckily, your businesses invested in composite van partitions to prevent these fatal situations.
Not only will the right partition put our driver’s mind at ease about cargo shifting into the cab area, but it will inhibit noise distractions and allow for better temperature control by sealing off the cab and allowing your AC or heater to run efficiently.
With his mind at ease and his fingers no longer frigid, he is now on his way to the next job site with a slight boost in confidence.
ARRIVAL
Upon arrival at the next job, our driver exits the cab and proceeds to the back of his comfort-focused van to grab his equipment.
Before the upfit, he would have been cautious about his footing while doing so under slippery, wet conditions—but since his van was equipped with a grab handle, he can now comfortably enter without pause. By maintaining three points of safety, it allows access without the worries of slipping.
Entering the cargo area, his feet land on the newly installed flooring. These anti-skid, slip-proof floors reduce falls while providing stable flooring to secure cargo in transit, providing much-needed traction on a wet day like today.
He proceeds to grab the tools and materials he’ll need from the steel van shelving, which make it easy to store and grab heavy materials or tools on demand from an ergonomically adjustable height without straining his back (38.5 percent of workplace musculoskeletal disorders were related to the back, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020). The high-performance shelving solution also ensures a quieter ride and creates an organized space in which he could safely work—benefits that increase the comfort factor.
BILLING
With a stress-free start thanks to a comfort-focused upfit, our worker has all but completed the task at hand, with just one thing left: paperwork.
Usually, he’d have to awkwardly scribble on a soft seat cushion or on an uneven wall. Now that his van has a new cab desk installed, he can sit comfortably right in the driver’s seat to write up and store invoices in a dedicated workspace. Not only will he come across as more professional, but he can quickly produce paperwork for accounting purposes down the line.
THE CASE FOR COMFORT
It’s easy to grasp the importance of driver comfort within the confines of a work van in relation to worker morale, but there’s also a direct correlation between a worker’s well-being and how efficiently they can complete a job. Unless fully autonomous robots are taking over the trades, then the ROI from making your workers feel at ease (and safe) will be quite high and their efficiency can only translate to a better bottom line.
about the author
Kevin Anderson is a marketing communications specialist for Clarience Technologies, where brands like Ranger Design, American Van, and Rear View Safety engineer work van solutions that keep drivers safe, comfortable, and productive.
