Home time is now the number one reason truck drivers look for a new job. In the Spring 2026 Truck Driver Survey from Conversion Interactive Agency and People. Data. Analytics, 63.7% of drivers searching for work named improved home time as a reason. That put it ahead of predictable or higher pay at 61.6%. The same survey found 58.1% of drivers actively looking for a new driving job, up from 46.8% a year earlier. That is the highest level the two firms have recorded in more than five years of tracking. For a fleet owner the lesson is direct. You probably cannot outbid a mega carrier on pay. You can beat one on schedule, but only if the schedule you promise is the schedule the driver gets. Home time loses drivers when it moves after they sign, not when it is short.

Every fleet owner has heard a driver quit over home time and assumed the answer is more of it. Sometimes it is. More often the driver did not want a different schedule. They wanted the one your recruiter described, and dispatch quietly stopped delivering it in week three.

What the 2026 numbers say

The Spring 2026 survey is worth reading closely, because the ranking moved.

Reason drivers give for searching	Share of job seeking drivers
Improved home time	63.7%
Predictable or higher pay	61.6%
Consistent miles	Nearly 40%
Feeling disrespected	28%

Two more findings matter for how you plan. Pay inconsistency ranked as the top short term turnover risk at 27.1%, with lack of respect or appreciation second at 20.7%. And over half of everyone surveyed was 46 or older. An older workforce is a workforce with grandchildren, aging parents, and a spouse who has already waited out a decade of missed weekends.

Set that against the American Trucking Associations figure of roughly 90% annual turnover at large truckload carriers. The big fleets run a revolving door partly because they run schedules that keep drivers out. That is your opening.

What home time means by schedule

Drivers do not hear the phrase "good home time" the way recruiters say it. They hear it as a specific number of nights in their own bed. Here is what the common schedules usually mean in practice.

Schedule	Typical home time	What the driver trades
Over the road	Out two to four weeks, then two to four days home	Most miles and often the highest gross pay, least time at home
Regional	Home most weekends, sometimes a night or two midweek	Fewer miles than over the road, a predictable weekend
Dedicated	Varies by account, often weekly or better	Repetition and a fixed customer, in exchange for a known schedule
Local	Home nightly	Lower gross pay and more physical work, every night at home

A driver choosing between your fleet and another is not comparing philosophies. They are comparing nights. So say the number out loud, and say it the way the driver counts it.

Why the home time promise breaks

Most fleets do not lie about home time. They describe the good version and let dispatch deal with the rest.

The break looks the same almost everywhere. Recruiting sells home every other weekend. The lanes that pay best run 11 days out. Dispatch has a load that has to move Friday, so the driver stays out one more weekend, and nobody calls to explain. By the third time it happens, the driver has stopped believing the number and started answering other recruiters.

What costs you the driver is not the missed weekend. It is finding out on Friday. Drivers plan their lives around your number, and a number that moves without warning tells them every other promise you made is also a maybe.

How to set a home time policy you can keep

1. Measure what you deliver today. Pull the last 90 days and count actual nights at home per driver, not the policy. Most fleet owners find a gap between the number recruiting quotes and the number the dispatch board produces. You cannot promise honestly until you know which one is real.
2. Quote the number you hit most weeks, not your best week. If you get drivers home every other weekend eight times out of ten, say that, including the two. A driver who hears the honest version and takes the job stays. A driver who hears the best case feels cheated by week three.
3. Write it down and give the driver a copy. Put the home time commitment in the offer next to the pay. It costs nothing. It forces recruiting and dispatch to agree on one number before the driver arrives. And it stops the slow rewrite that happens when only one side remembers.
4. Make dispatch own the same number. A home time policy recruiting owns alone is marketing. Give dispatch visibility into each driver's home date and make a missed one an exception somebody has to approve, not a routine outcome of load planning.
5. Call before the schedule slips, never after. When a load threatens a home date, somebody phones the driver first, explains it, and offers a trade. Drivers forgive the occasional missed weekend when you tell them in advance. They do not forgive the silence.
6. Protect home time for the first 90 days. New drivers judge your fleet on whether month one matched the pitch. Give them the schedule you sold them while they are still deciding whether the move was a mistake.
7. Ask about home time at every check in. At 30, 60, and 90 days, ask one plain question. Are you getting home on the schedule we quoted? The answer arrives long before the resignation does, and it is the cheapest information you can collect.

Why a better promise does not fix this

Here is the trap. A fleet owner reads that home time ranks first and goes out promising more of it, on lanes that cannot produce it. That makes the problem worse, because now you have added a promise you break to a schedule the driver already disliked.

Your lanes are your lanes. Your customers set the appointment times. You can tighten planning and you can communicate better, and both help, but you cannot turn an 11 day run into home nightly by wanting to.

Which points at the real lever. Instead of reshaping your operation around whoever answered the ad, put drivers in the seat whose home already sits where your freight runs. A driver who lives on your lane and wants the schedule you already operate needs no promise bent to fit them. The match does the work that the promise was covering for.

How GTD matches drivers to the schedule you run

GTD does not send you drivers who sit between seats and out of options. Roughly 92% of qualified drivers are not sitting on job boards, because they are already working. GTD identifies those drivers and matches them against your lanes, your real weekly pay, your home time, and your equipment before anyone reaches out. Home time is part of the match, not a line in an ad. So the driver who takes your call already knows the schedule and already wants it. In one month long search GTD identified 7,473 qualified drivers against a single fleet's criteria. First qualified interviews typically land in 7 to 10 days, and seats fill in 30 to 90 days. GTD works for free until your fleet fills its seats. Because the driver moved toward a schedule that fits their life rather than away from a bad one, far less goes wrong later. That shows up as 86% for drivers seated this way against 67% through traditional channels. An empty truck costs a small fleet roughly $3,000 to $5,000 a week. The seat that never reopens is worth more than the one you fill twice.

Frequently asked questions

How much home time do truck drivers want?

Most drivers want a schedule they can plan around more than they want a specific number. That said, the direction is clear. In the Spring 2026 Truck Driver Survey from Conversion Interactive and People. Data. Analytics, 63.7% of job seeking drivers named improved home time as a reason for searching, ahead of pay at 61.6%. Regional and dedicated work that gets a driver home weekly or on weekends now competes hard against over the road pay.

Is home time more important than pay to truck drivers?

In the Spring 2026 survey it edged pay out among drivers looking for work, at 63.7% against 61.6%. Treat them as close rather than ranked, and note what sits underneath. Pay inconsistency was the top short term turnover risk at 27.1%. Drivers are asking for predictability in both. A steady schedule and a steady settlement beat a bigger number that moves around.

What is a typical home time policy for truck drivers?

Over the road drivers are usually out two to four weeks and then home two to four days. Regional drivers are typically home most weekends. Dedicated accounts vary but often get a driver home weekly or better. Local drivers are home nightly and usually trade gross pay for it. Whatever you run, quote the number you hit in a normal week instead of your best one.

How do you keep a home time promise when freight does not cooperate?

Give dispatch the same home date recruiting quoted, and make a miss an exception somebody approves rather than a routine planning outcome. When a load threatens a home date, call the driver before it slips and offer a trade. Drivers accept an occasional missed weekend they hear about in advance. They leave over the ones they find out about on Friday.

Why do truck drivers quit over home time?

Usually not because the schedule was hard. Because it changed. A driver takes a job on a stated number, plans a life around it, then watches it quietly stretch while nobody explains why. The schedule was survivable. The broken promise was not, and it makes every other commitment you made look negotiable.

Can better home time reduce driver turnover?

Home time you deliver removes one of the most common reasons drivers leave, so fewer of them go. Home time you promise and miss does the opposite, and does it faster. The gain comes from the gap between what you say and what the driver gets, not from the size of the number. Close that gap first, then decide whether the schedule itself needs to change.

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