A fleet manager is responsible for the fleet car management, organisation and operation of an organisation’s fleet (a unit of vehicles). The tasks are carried out either as a dedicated ‘fleet manager’ or, more commonly, as an adjunct to another role within the company.
In general, all tasks undertaken by fleet managers are to help their fleet save money and run efficiently. This is true throughout the whole of a fleet’s lifecycle: from purchasing/leasing to running a fleet and dealing with vehicles’ removal from the fleet.
The general trend towards a digitalised fleet has given a new purpose to this role. Fleet managers’ tasks are becoming more digitised as a result, with robust training and certification being essential.
→ Find out which tasks vehicle fleet managers do here.
Required Skills Of A Vehicle Fleet Manager
1. Business
A fleet manager must be able to assess which vehicles are economically viable in the long term, keeping in mind the optimum service life and performance of the vehicles. Looking at the different forms of financing a fleet is also important. Purchasing, leasing and loan-based financing are all possible options.
Because each variant has a different impact on the company’s balance sheet, basic commercial knowledge is a must, in order to set up and maintain a fleet that is cost-efficient and process-oriented.
2. Tax and legal
Lack of proper tax and legal knowledge can hurt the prosperity of an organization. The fleet manager should be fully aware of the legal responsibilities such as ownership liability, vehicle insurance, and proper tax regulations. Additionally, if a company maintains vehicles in another country, it is important to be aware of the different laws and guidelines in that country.
3. Technical
In principle, the fleet manager must also possess technical skills and have an overview of the automobile sector. This will help them to decide which vehicles and models are the most efficient for the vehicle fleet. It is also useful for tracking vehicle repairs and related invoices.
4. Managerial
It should not be forgotten that the fleet manager must have a high level of social and managerial skills. Not only do they manage the company’s vehicles but also its drivers. This involves a lot of tasks from drivers licence checks, assigning safety and training courses, and monitoring driving behaviour.
The fleet manager must be comfortable interacting with drivers in a multitude of situations, from explaining new regulations to reprimanding poor behaviour.
Vehicle Fleet Manager Tasks
The spectrum of tasks carried out by a fleet manager is vast, and along with their daily tasks they will need to regularly coordinate with other departments and agencies. That said, the tasks that the fleet manager has to carry out depend on the company and the size of the fleet.
It is often underestimated how time-sensitive the management and planning of a fleet of vehicles can be. Here is a glimpse of the tasks carried out by a fleet manager:
- Fleet analysis, reporting and optimisation
- Owner liability and traffic safety
- Driver’s licence check
- Vehicle maintenance and services
- Maintenance of vehicles and driver files
- Vehicle purchase, leasing and selling
- Fuel card checks
- Fuel consumption
- Cost controls
- Mileage supervision
- Claims processing
- Contract management and insurance
- Pool vehicle management
- Communication with drivers
- Repair processing
- Tyre management (summer/winter)
Jump to: A Fleet Manager’s Salary in the UK
5 Tips For More Effective Fleet Car Management
Good fleet management is essential in any business. It requires professionalism, hard work, and preparedness. As a car fleet manager, you can implement some useful tips to make your work effective and easier. Additionally, these tips will make the work simple and benefit you with tons of advantages, including fewer repairs, lower risks, insurance coverage, and security.
1. Ability to multi-task
As a car fleet manager, you must be able to deal with several tasks daily. You must ensure driver availability, maintain low costs, and handle unscheduled vehicle downtime, among other things. A fleet manager is a fast-paced role, and most times, you have to be assertive.
2. Know your costs
A high number of businesses are operating under tight budgets. This means the fleet department is no exception. While the fleet management costs continue to spiral, the funds get minimised. As the fleet manager, you always need to balance providing top-rate services at minimum cost.
To do this, it is vital to know your costs. Both the direct and indirect costs incurred by a fleet must be determined so you can carefully and correctly plan how to lower them. Some indirect costs consist of customer satisfaction, driver downtime, and marketing value.
3. Choose the right vehicles
Choosing the right kind of vehicle for your fleet is important for preventing future maintenance problems. In addition, choose cars with modern-day features to slow the depreciation process. Utilising the company provided vehicles instead of having employees use their own cars and reimbursing them afterwards is one of the best tips that can make your fleet management easier. There are several advantages to this, including having a uniform image, reduced liability issues, and making sure the right type of vehicle is used for the job.
4. Inspire and lead the team
The team will often look up to you for guidance; therefore, it’s crucial to be a good team leader and inspire confidence as well as trust at all times. As a good car fleet manager, you should quickly analyze information, solve problems, and decide the correct course of action.
5. Excellent communication skills
Any internal or external communication that affects the business needs to be communicated to the fleet. As a car fleet manager, you require excellent communication skills to choose the most appropriate communication channels and ensure that accurate information is conveyed to your team. The proper communication channels will enable the smooth operation of the fleet.
A Fleet Manager’s Salary in the UK
The average salary of a fleet manager in the UK is £42,440 yearly or £21.76 per hour.
Entry-level positions have an average fleet manager’s salary of £28,000 per year, whereas workers in the most experienced positions make up to £60,000 per year.
Remember that all UK fleet manager salaries are subject to taxes. For other employees working with fleet management, their salaries range differently depending on the agreement with the fleet manager.
How to increase salary as a fleet manager
British fleet managers can:
- Maintain good work ethics
- Work hard to meet the corporate goals
- Bring changes that will improve the overall fleet appearance.
- Know what you are worth and propose if you feel underpaid.
Read more: What Is A Fleet Administrator?
What Is A Car Fleet Manager Software?
It is important to note that the tasks and requirements of a fleet manager are constantly changing. At the same time, digital forms for managing the vehicle fleet are also emerging. This makes it possible to simplify routine activities with tools and thus automate processes such as vehicle configuration or electronic driver’s license checks.
Fleet car manager software offers functions such as vehicle live tracking, digital mileage trackers and timesheets, organised parking and theft protection.
Thus, replacing manual activities with speedy, digital processes. Fleet software’s features also ensure that a fleet can run to its full potential, with regards to their optimisation and efficiency – and therefore have far-reaching benefits on business.
To find out more about fleet management, please visit our Fleet Management Hub
How Can Fleet Managers Improve Fleet Operations?
A fleet management tracking system manages fleet assets and information from the time a company installs the tracker. The asset information allows the company to cut expenses, increase productivity, and assure compliance throughout.
Fleet managers realise the benefits of a fleet manager tracking system as the need for real-time communication grows across industries. One of the best ways to improve your fleet management system effectiveness is to use a mobile solution to track vehicle maintenance and cost. Here are some advantages of the fleet manager tracking system.
Read More: What Is Tracking Software?
1. Effectiveness and efficiency
As a fleet officer, you have to be deliberate with time because asset uptime is critical to the success of your fleet. To maintain fleet efficiency, managers use fleet manager software to enhance real-time communication and eliminate time-consuming data entry and automating procedures.
2. Enables good communication
Fleet manager van tracking systems enhance communication between managers and their team in the field intelligently. Instead of calling and texting, the program functions as a central hub for communication, bridging the gap between office employees and field officers. For example, managers can comment on the vehicle section or work orders to inform the respective officer.
3. Improve maintenance services
Another fundamental reason to have a fleet manager tracking system is to help maintain a healthy maintenance schedule.
Through a fleet manager tracking system, you can track the productivity of your mechanics, the condition of your fleet, and maintenance expenses. Managers can save time by assigning mobile work orders and avoid downtime. Fleet software will help managers to set reminders to ensure the fleet has been serviced in time.
Read More: How Can You Further Maintain Your Fleet?
4. Digital fleet inspection
Conventional ways of fleet record keeping, like paper inspection, have been the usual way of assessment. Unfortunately, this type of inspection can not be relied upon because of its drawbacks.
For example, paper inspection forms get torn and destroyed quickly. They also take time to trace and deliver information when needed and get misplaced easily. These glitches can cripple the efficiency and effectiveness of your system.
Electronic fleet inspection is among the benefits of having a fleet manager tracking system. Technicians may inspect vehicles and update information in the system to be accessible quickly and easily from anywhere.
Read more: What is a GPS tracking system?
5. Analysing fleet metrics
With old systems, updating and evaluating data might be complex. Searching through spreadsheets and crunching numbers on a calculator takes a lot of mental energy and rarely yields valuable results.
Rather than wasting time entering data, fleet manager software gathers fleet information like repair schedules and cost information in real-time. The fleet manager tracking system will also generate automatic reports on your fleet metric and indicate progress.
6. Help to integrate company systems
A fleet manager tracking system helps incorporate other company’s resources that might be useful on their own to leverage more productivity. The fleet manager tracking system will use resources such as fuel cards and telematics data in combination to detect and respond before significant issues arise.
When more technologies integrate, the fleet manager tracking system will complete the fleet picture of productivity and generate a maintenance report.
Read More: What Are Fuel Cards?
7. Cost control
Cost accounting is problematic to fleet managers who use manual record-keeping. It is even worse and nearly impossible to reconcile receipts with bank accounts.
The fleet manager tracking system erases these hiccups by providing a digital view of data. This digital display format makes it easier for managers to prepare budgets and track expenses in real-time.
In conclusion, a good fleet manager tracking system will provide the location and condition of vehicles to help maintain schedules of fuel consumption, which will aid in cost management and extend the equipment’s life.
You may also like these other glossary terms: Fleet Manager, Corporate Car Sharing, Vehicle Tracking Prices and Telematics