Any Suggestions?

[Squandered Halfpints]

A friend of mine runs a courier service that makes quick deliveries of small packages and documents. His well-paid self-contracted delivery people don't seem motivated at all. If they were too pick it up a little, fewer employees would be needed. They work slow and show no initiative. I see the drivers of big companies such as UPS,FedEX,and DHL work, and they seem to have a lot of pep in their step -sorry for the corny expression. Why is this. What are they doing that my friend isn't?

He has been researching possible incentive plans, but its been pretty difficult finding ones that fit his needs. I suggested he pay his employees based on commision. But this could turn out to be costly, and have too much logistics involved.

Can anybody please make some suggestions?
-Possible Incentive plans?
-Motivaters and/or effective threats?
-Or any insight into what in gods name UPS is doing.

The Specifics:
.packages less than 50 pounds
.Co. takes pick-ups, drop-off's, and both
.Employees own their vehicles, and pay for their own ins. and expenses
.They are paid for 8 hours a day
.40 members in pool, who average about 21 pick-ups/deliveries a day
.service is 5 days a week (M-F)
.2/3 of clients orders are received a day or more in advance, the others come in the same day as the requested service.
.average pay for the delivery pool is $18/hour

Any suggestions to what he could do, or where you suggest we can do a better research into finding incentive programs would help tremendously. Thank You.

[ChadFraz]

Bonus based on number of packages delivered per day with a tiered structure. They make their normal hourly (18$/hr avg?) but...

15 del = 20$ Bonus
20 del = 30$ Bonus
25 del = 40$ Bonus

These numbers would need to reviewed based on available expenses, but you get the idea.

[n/a]

well there is one thing that ups and fedex and the big boys have is "Unions" . Thats what keeps them with that pep in there step. They know they have it good and dont want to mess that up.