UPS delivery drivers are the modern equivalent of the milkman of previous decades.
Seeing the delivery drivers walk up to the front door with a package was the highlight of many people’s days or weeks during the pandemic.
The last couple of years have shown just how important delivery drivers, are and UPS understands the value of their delivery drivers.
Being a delivery driver for UPS has more benefits than most other jobs on the market.
UPS Driving Record Requirements
In order to meet the skill requirements for the job of a delivery driver, you must have a clean driving record in recent years.
This includes no accidents or moving violations in the past year, fewer than three accidents or moving violations in the past three years, and absolutely no D.U.I. in the last three years.
UPS only hires delivery drivers they believe will be able to keep their trucks and the orders that they’re delivering safely.
If a UPS truck full of deliveries were to get in an accident, UPS would have to reimburse the customers who lost their packages and pay to have the truck repaired or replaced.
The delivery service also understands the importance of the items that UPS could be delivering, such as medical equipment or supplies.
Damaging these types of packages could be putting the customer at risk or prevent a medical need from being met.
All corporate or government delivery jobs are going to have driving record requirements.
When a company’s delivery personnel drive recklessly, they are putting other drivers on the road at risk and putting their company at risk of having to pay out legal fees if anyone is injured.
UPS offers more leniency than most when it comes to potential employees’ driving records.
As long as you’ve had a completely clean record for the past three years, you will be able to work as one of their delivery drivers.
Delivery drivers can make anywhere from $16 to $39 hourly, with the average hourly rate being about $25.
Semi-truck drivers can earn even more than normal delivery drivers, making between $21 and $40 hourly or an average of $28 per hour.
Driver helpers make $10 to $16 per hour, without even needing to drive.
Other Requirements For UPS Delivery Drivers
Those who are looking to work for UPS will need more than a good driving record.
UPS has to follow national driving requirements and ensure that they are hiring people with enough driving experience to maneuver their boxy trucks.
You must be at least 21 years old in order to drive for UPS and have a valid driver’s license.
Employees of UPS who are looking to become delivery drivers will need one year of seniority before they will be considered for the position.
Potential delivery drivers will also need to pass the UPS road test.
For the road test, you will need to know how to drive a stick-shift vehicle and how comfortable you are with the delivery truck, including your steering, braking, turning, and how well you shift gears.
The road test isn’t the only exam you have to pass.
You will also need to pass the Department of Transportation physical exam.
The DOT exam is required by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and decides whether a driver is physically, mentally, and emotionally fit for the job.
By delivering for UPS, you become a commercial driver and are now considered a safety-sensitive employee.
That’s why it’s important for you to have the proper licensing and be medically fit for the job.
Potential delivery drivers will also be asked to complete the package car driver orientation qualifying period and be able to meet UPS’s customers.
Because you’ll be working with the public, you will need to meet UPS’s appearance guidelines.
UPS was once known for having strict appearance guidelines, but the company decided that the rules needed to be modernized in 2020.
Delivery drivers were once forced to hide tattoos and keep their faces clean-shaven, but now delivery drivers are allowed to have braids, piercings, and visible tattoos.
UPS Pays For Employee Tuition
UPS wants to help pay for the education of their employees who want to get their degrees, which is why they started the UPS Tuition Assistance Program.
The company understands the importance of having a skilled workforce and the benefits of promoting from within the company.
Tuition assistance is available to full-time non-union employees, part-time management employees, and part-time union employees.
In 2010 alone, UPS was able to give out $24 million in tuition assistance to about 14,000 different employees.
The UPS Tuition Assistance Program was started in 1999 and has helped about 113,000 students pay for their degrees.
Between 1999 and 2011, the company has given out a total of $187 million in tuition support.
UPS is a member of a special partnership program with Thomas Edison State University, where employees can earn one of 12 different degrees.
There are five Associate’s degrees available and seven Bachelor’s degrees.
The Associate’s degrees that you can get from Thomas Edison State University are Arts, Applied Computer Studies, Computer Science, Computer Science Technology, and General Management.
The Bachelor’s degrees available are Computer Science, English, History, Humanities, Liberal Studies, and Psychology.
Through the partnership program, UPS employees can also apply for some of the Business School Undergraduate Certificate Program.
These programs include Introduction to Business, Operations Management, Management Information Systems, Total Quality Management, Logistics, and Supply Chain Management.
When all of these programs are completed, credits earned can be put towards the university’s Bachelor of Science in Business Administration.
Operations management will simply replace another class that is normally taken for the degree.
Through the partnership program, you could earn multiple degrees that can be expensive to achieve on your own.
UPS gets skilled workers, and the university gets more students, making it a beneficial program for everyone involved.
Health Benefits For UPS Employees
UPS offers some of the best health benefits on the job market.
Its health benefits include medical, dental, vision, and many different types of coverages, insurances, and programs.
The insurances include long-term care insurance, business travel accident insurance, sickness & accident insurance, cancer insurance, and life insurance.
The different types of coverage are prescription drug coverage and long-term disability with inflation coverage.
UPS also offers health programs and accounts such as childcare and eldercare accounts, healthcare spending accounts, supplemental group universal life programs, and work-life balance programs.
The delivery company also covers hearing care and behavioral health benefits.
For part-time employees, not all the benefits listed are available.
The availability of these health benefits vary from each position and location where you work.
If a part-time employee works between 225 hours and 400 hours in three months, their health benefits may include medical care and hospitalization, pharmacy and prescription drugs, dental care, vision, hearing, and the Employee Assistance Program.
Full-time delivery drivers get health benefits, such as medical, dental, vision, and hearing.
They also get life insurance.
As a driver, you will get two weeks’ vacation pay and family leave with additional paid days off.
UPS understands how physically and mentally draining the work that they do can be, so they make sure that their employees are getting the days off that they need in order to recuperate.
Overworking employees can lead to more injuries while on the job, more mistakes being made, and higher employee turnover.
With each year that you work for UPS, your benefits get better and the amount of time you can take off gets longer.
By offering these amazing benefits, UPS is looking to keep employee turnover as low as possible.
The job is extremely demanding, so it deserves to be greatly rewarded.
Retiring With UPS
UPS doesn’t just keep their working employees up and running.
They also look to show their past employees appreciation through excellent retirement plans and benefits.
The 401(k) program that UPS offers is often seen as one of the best in the country.
A 401(k) program is a type of retirement account that employees will contribute a percentage of their paycheck towards and the company who sponsored the retirement plan will match the contributions made by the employee, up to a certain percentage of the employee’s salary.
UPS offers both traditional 401(k) plans and Roth 401(k) programs. A traditional 401(k) is taken out of the worker’s gross income, which is your income before taxes and other deductibles.
This means that your taxable income is lowered by the amount going into your 401(k).
There are no taxes paid on this money until it is pulled out by the employee.
The company also offers Roth 401(k) programs.
The difference between a Roth 401(k) and a traditional 401(k) is when the money is being taxed.
For a Roth 401(k), the taxation happens before the money goes into the account.
This allows the employee to withdraw the money tax-free when they finally decide to start withdrawing the money.
In order to apply for one of the retirement programs, you must be represented by a labor union that is approved by the Trustees of UPS.
The most common labor union is the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Any full-time employee that was hired after April 1st, 2009 will be automatically enrolled for this program after 90 days of employment at a 3% pre-tax deferral rate.
The contributions are based on how close you are to the average retirement age of 60 years old.
Those who choose to actively enroll will be able to choose their own contribution rate and the different investment options.
UPS Employee Stock Purchase Program
UPS believes one of the keys to the future success of UPS as a company is to be owned by the people who work and have worked for the company.
Through its UPS Employee Stock Purchase Program, UPS has managed to help many employees buy stock in the company that they work for.
By giving employees a piece of the company, it helps them feel more responsible for the success or failure of the company and makes the future of the company matter to the employee.
This program is available for nearly every employee, including part-time or full-time employees, non-management or management employees, and union or non-union employees.
Employees who want to buy stock in the company may either buy stock through the Discounted Employee Stock Purchase Program or their 401(k) plans.
The versatility of the stock programs allows more employees to fit stocks into their budgets and invest more heavily in their own futures and the future of the company.
Through the Discounted Employee Stock Program, employees can get a discount on UPS stocks of 5% to 10%, as long as they hold the stock for at least two years.
Some employees don’t believe that the company should be able to determine how long they must hold onto the stock.
Employees who have taken part in UPS’s stock program don’t recommend investing unless you plan to invest a lot of money over a long period of time.
Otherwise, most say that the stock program isn’t worth it for short-term stockholders.
UPS stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange, under the reasonable title of UPS.
Class A and Class B stocks are available through the employee shareowner service, but Class A stocks are not traded publicly.
Of the outstanding stocks, 17% are Class A and 83% are Class B stocks.
What Happens If A UPS Driver Gets a Ticket?
Although UPS offers competitive salaries and incredible benefits, some potential employees are scared off by the potential of getting a ticket and either having to pay for it themselves or losing their job over the ticket.
UPS actually pays for the tickets of their employees, especially if they’re parking tickets or speeding tickets.
Delivery drivers are expected to deliver their packages on time, even when it is nearly impossible to do so.
The delivery drivers are actually encouraged to consider their personal safety and the safety of their packages above parking laws.
This is the reason you’ll often see UPS trucks parked in no-parking zones.
Delivery drivers are not excused from the rules of the road. Instead, UPS just fights as many of the tickets as possible and pays off the rest of them.
The company doesn’t believe that its drivers’ work should be landing them in legal trouble.
Both UPS and FedEx will pay for the tickets of their delivery drivers, as long as they’re related to work and within reason, such as parking tickets and speeding tickets.
The only major delivery company that doesn’t pay for the tickets of their drivers is Amazon.
UPS drivers receive millions of traffic violations each year.
In New York City, UPS was given nearly 349,000 tickets in 2019.
That’s only the tickets from one year, in a single city. UPS serves consumers globally, which means they’re also getting tickets globally.
New York City has the Stipulated Fine Program, which the city offers to companies who receive too many fines for the city’s legal office to handle on its own.
While UPS is able to save on individual tickets, they have to pay the City of New York quarterly.
The costs of these tickets don’t affect the drivers, but rather, the rates that consumers are paying.
UPS Drivers Help Keep The World Going
Anyone who has worked for UPS knows how backbreaking the work can be.
It isn’t hard to apply for the job if you have a clean driving record in the past couple of years, but it can be an extremely stressful job to do.
Expectations are high and the demand for the service is even higher, meaning that delivery drivers must be willing to work harder than they may have ever worked in the past.
Those who can handle the hard work will be rewarded with incredible health benefits, investment programs, tuition assistance, and their choice of retirement programs.
UPS understands the importance of the service that they offer and understand they need to keep their employees in the best shape possible for them to be able to work as effectively and efficiently as they do.
Without service workers such as UPS delivery drivers, consumers would not be able to receive the things they need and the packages that bring them a little joy during dark times.
The greatest benefit of being a UPS driver is the way you help your community just by doing your job.
NEXT: This Content Isn’t Available Right Now On Facebook (Reasons, Fixes)