To Keep Drivers From Leaving, Uber Tries To Treat Them Better 
 
 Enlarge this image toggle caption Liam James Doyle/NPR Liam James Doyle/NPR 
 
 Updated at 3:26 p.m. ET 
 
 Uber's leadership already has a lot on its plate, starting with finding a new CEO after former chief Travis Kalanick resigned abruptly last month. But that's not all the tech giant has to do. For the business to survive, Uber also has to repair its relationship with drivers, which leaders at the company say is "broken." 
 
 On Tuesday, in an ongoing effort dubbed the "180 Days of Change," the company is announcing reforms to its harsh termination policies and launching a hotline so that drivers in distress can reach a person at corporate headquarters. 
 
 Janelle Sallenave is in charge of improving the way Uber responds to drivers' and riders' needs, disputes and accidents. It's clear to her that drivers, the lifeblood of the transportation platform, are choosing to leave because of poor treatment. This is an existential threat to the business, valued at $70 billion, and it needs to be tackled, she says. 
 
 Sallenave persuaded the executive leadership team, which is steering the ship while the Uber Board looks for a new CEO, to approve the creation of a hotline. Until now, Uber has not had a phone number for drivers to call, even in emergencies — such as an accident on the road or a violent passenger. 
 
 In June, NPR reported on the difficulties this omission has created for drivers, in a series called "The Faceless Boss." Sallenave agrees with the characterization. "As we've grown into a global, scalable company," she says, "we need to move away from the facelessness of what the company has inadvertently become." 
 
 In earlier days, Sallenave says, each city had a local team to oversee Uber operations and drivers might have the cell number of the general manager. But once Uber centralized its system, in an effort to aggressively scale up, "we were so focused on the rocket ship of growth" that corporate leaders let communication systems fall apart. 
 
 "It evolved in a very organic way unfortunately to something that almost feels like a chatbot," she says. That is not a compliment. Drivers were forced to communicate with Uber via text messaging — six exchanges on average. Now, under the new system, they would be able to make one phone call instead. 
 
 Uber is also reforming its three-strikes law. Previously, a driver with three complaints would be terminated from the platform. It would not matter whether the driver had completed 10 rides or 10,000. The policy was adversarial, and assumed drivers did not have positive intent. 
 
 Now the company will consider a number of factors: how long a person has been driving, overall ratings, who are the people filing complaints. The decision to terminate, or in Uber lingo "deactivate," a driver will still be made by software, but using a far more complex formula that Sallenave hopes is "holistic." 
 
 Uber is also working to replicate an appeals panel that the company piloted in Seattle, for drivers who believe they've been unfairly terminated. 
 
 More than half a million people a month in the U.S. drive for Uber. The company has not disclosed how many choose to leave the platform. But as Sallenave acknowledges, in the gig economy it's easy to leave one job for another, to switch from Uber to competitor Lyft or a food delivery service. 
 
 Drivers have welcomed Uber's recent overtures — such as the move to allow in-app tipping — but it's not yet clear whether this effort will inspire loyalty, or if other changes by Uber will undermine these efforts. 
 
 Dawn Gearhart, policy coordinator with the Teamsters Local 117 in Seattle, says Uber is feeling pressure on every front — not just from competitors, but also from efforts to organize drivers into labor unions such as hers. 
 
 When a company feels threatened by organizing, she says, it's "standard practice" to dole out small wins to workers, such as vacation or a slight raise. 
 
 "These things are not happening because somebody at the company woke up and they decided they were feeling better about the workers," Gearhart says. "They just want to make sure that they maintain the balance of power." 
 
 She also points out that in recent weeks, many Uber drivers are earning less per ride because the company changed its fare structure. 
 
 A study commissioned by Uber indicates that even when fares go down, drivers' earnings remain stable because demand for rides is up. ||||| It’s a common occurrence: you’re a little buzzed from happy hour, so you call an Uber home. And just as the driver pulls away after dropping you off, you realize you left your phone inside the car. Previously, all you had to do was log on to your Uber account from a friend’s phone or a web browser, contact the driver, and according to Uber, coordinate a “mutually convenient time and place to meet” to get your phone back. 
 
 Part of Uber’s “180 days of change” apology tour 
 
 But for drivers, returning lost items was rarely ever convenient. Many would complain about the difficulty of tracking down passengers to return lost phones and keys. Uber, which is in the midst of a “180 days of change” apology tour aimed at improving relations with its drivers, says it has finally heard those complaints and is doing something about it. Starting today, passengers will have pay their drivers a flat fee of $15 for returning forgotten items. Uber’s calling the new charge “a delivery fee,” estimating that drivers return an average of 11 lost items a year. (According to online driver forum UberPeople.net, Uber may have been piloting the delivery fee in Los Angeles before rolling it out nationwide today.) 
 
 This was just one of several new perks outlined by Uber in an email to its hundreds of thousands of US drivers today. Other benefits include the promise of 24/7 phone support, quick fare fixes in the app, protections for driver ratings, faster document review, and the option to schedule in-person support meetings. These new features come a few weeks after Uber, in a major shift, added a tipping option to its app in over 100 US cities. 
 
 Uber will be hiring more call center employees in order to meet the demand it’s creating through the addition of 24/7 phone support for drivers, a spokesperson said. Uber outsources some of its US customer support to overseas call centers, in addition to using some US-based services. The spokesperson wouldn’t specify which Uber call centers would see more staffing. 
 
 A bid to shore up driver retention in the wake of a series of major scandals 
 
 The addition of tipping, as well as today’s list of driver-friendly features, is intended shore up driver retention the wake of a series of major scandals, including revelations about pervasive sexual harassment and a toxic work environment. In the past few months, a critical mass of top executives, including founder and CEO Travis Kalanick, have resigned or been fired. And while the search is under way for a new CEO, Uber is doing what it can to keep the drivers it still has — and keep them happy. 
 
 “From a quick phone call to speedier paperwork to in-person visits — our goal is to be there for drivers, whenever and wherever they need us,” Rachel Holt, regional general manager for the US and Canada, and Aaron Schildkrout, head of product for drivers, wrote in a blog post today. 
 
 These features may go a long way toward appeasing some drivers, but others won’t be satisfied until they are reclassified as employees of Uber. The company currently classifies its drivers as independent contractors, arguing they are in business for themselves and thus ineligible for traditional benefits like overtime and health insurance. It also has strongly pushed back against attempts to allow drivers to unionize, even injecting anti-union messaging in the podcasts it produces for drivers. 
 
 Some drivers will be appeased, but others won’t until they’re reclassified 
 
 Multiple lawsuits by drivers have been brought against Uber challenging their classification. Last year, Uber agreed to settle a class action lawsuit with drivers for $100 million, but that was later rejected by a judge as an insufficient amount. Earlier this year, Uber was fined $20 million by the Federal Trade Commission for misleading drivers about earnings. 
 
 A coalition of labor groups and stakeholders recently put forward a series of recommendations to make Uber a more ethical company, such as paying drivers a living wage and making payroll tax contributions to workers compensation, social security, and unemployment insurance. 
 
 This isn’t the first time Uber has made a series of major tweaks in the hopes of assuaging relations with its drivers. Last year, the company rolled out a bunch of new driver-friendly features, including more control over their ride requests, fines for riders who make drivers wait too long, and even discounts on Uber rides. The company has also rebuilt the navigation system that’s built into the driver app. Also, earlier this year, Uber made some big changes to the way it handles complaints against drivers to take into account a driver’s history as well. 
 
 As Uber continues to pursue its dream of a completely driverless future, it’s not difficult to imagine the mindset within the company that radical changes are tolerable, as long as they’re only temporary. ||||| Uber wants to be nicer to its drivers. 
 
 The ride-hail service announced new policies Tuesday that, the company hopes, will quiet some dissent within its driver ranks and make itself a more attractive employer. Drivers will no longer be punished for things beyond their control, and they'll be rewarded for going above and beyond the call of duty. 
 
 The new rules are a part of Uber's ongoing "180 Days of Change" initiative, a corporate cleanup effort borne out of the recent series of controversies and crises that led to cofounder Travis Kalanick stepping down from his role as CEO. 
 
 One of the key changes for Uber drivers is a new policy called "ratings protection." Drivers will no longer get docked by a passenger's low rating on account of things that are outside of their control, like pricing issues or app glitches. Drivers will also have the ability to adjust fares on their end, without having to contact Uber. 
 
 Related: Uber will adjust salaries to ensure gender and racial equity 
 
 Uber will also start compensating drivers who return lost items to passengers. It will pay them $15 a pop. Drivers return an average of 11 items every year which is time spent on the road without earning money, Uber said in a post on Tuesday. 
 
 The initiative has largely focused on turning a corner with drivers, the backbone of the $68 billion startup. Uber drivers have notoriously complained about the company's payment practices. It wasn't until January that Uber agreed to pay out $20 million to drivers across the country to settle a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit. FTC alleged Uber made false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about driver earnings and its vehicle financing program. Uber didn't admit or deny questionable practices -- but if Uber drivers remain unhappy, that can only cripple its business and help its competitors. According to research from The RideShare Guy, Lyft drivers make more money and are more satisfied than Uber drivers. 
 
 Uber is releasing monthly updates as part of its "Change" initiative. Other new driver-support features announced this month include a 24/7 support line for drivers available through its app, as well as the ability to pre-schedule in-person meetings for help with things like payment discrepancies, accident paperwork, or app issues. Uber has also promising to speed up document reviews, like registrations and drivers licenses. 
 
 Last month, the company announced it will introduce tipping for drivers, something the company has strongly objected to in the past. Tipping first rolled out in Seattle, Minneapolis and Houston and is expected to expand to all U.S. cities by the end of this month. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.
– Hoping to erase all memory of its recent troubles, Uber has unveiled a host of new policies aimed at better treatment of its drivers—though forgetful riders might not be so thrilled. Among the recent policy changes making headlines is a new rule requiring riders to pay $15 to have an Uber driver return an item accidentally left behind, reports the Verge. The delivery was previously free to the ire of drivers, who will now enjoy other perks. US drivers, for example, are eligible to receive tips, begin getting paid after two minutes of waiting for a rider, and will have bad ratings as a result of unavoidable issues like app glitches erased. Drivers can adjust fares without Uber's say-so, too, reports CNN. A driver will also no longer be automatically deactivated after three complaints. Instead, a complex formula will take into account ratings, driving history, and other factors, reports NPR. But one of the biggest changes is the creation of a 24/7 support line for drivers, who previously communicated with Uber via text message. "We need to move away from the facelessness of what the company has inadvertently become," a company rep explains. That and other changes as part of Uber's "180 Days of Change" answer many drivers' concerns. Some drivers, however, were hoping they'd also see a change in title from independent contractors to Uber employees, which would give them access to benefits like overtime and health insurance.