ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The Truckload Carriers Association has begun accepting nominations for its 2012 Best Fleets to Drive For contest.

Now in its fourth year, the survey is an annual evaluation of the best employers in the trucking industry.

CarriersEdge, a Canadian-based provider of online driver quality improvement solutions, conducts the survey for TCA.

The survey is open to all for-hire trucking companies with 10 or more trucks, regardless of TCA membership status. Participating fleets will be evaluated against a broad range of criteria reflecting current human resources best practices.

For 2012, some new questions have been prepared for participants. For example, in addition to driver retention scores, nominated fleets will be asked what percentage of their drivers have remained with the company for various periods of time (one year, five years, 10 years, etc.). This will shed light on how some companies can demonstrate similar turnover numbers, but in reality have very different retention situations.

Harassment is another new topic. Although most companies have policies in place that cover the office environment, the survey will now ask how companies ensure employees are not subjected to (or become perpetrators of) harassment at customer sites, truck stops, on the CB, etc.

In addition, the survey will ask for the numeric targets that fleets seek for continuous improvement of things like their collision rates and retention scores.

Once a company driver or owner-operator has nominated a fleet and the company has agreed to participate, interviews will be conducted with senior management and a random sampling of the company's drivers.

Top finishers will be identified as Best Fleets to Drive For, and the highest scoring fleets in each of the Company Driver and Owner-Operator categories will be named that category's overall winner.