Temp drivers bumbling fools or trusty allies?
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Some firms swear by them, other firms swear at them. They're not cheap but if they're used properly they can see you through tricky periods. There's a lot to consider, as David Wilcox has been finding out
HE HASN'T turned up. He can't find reverse. He's got lost. He's delivered only half the load. He's torn the wing off a car in the High Street.
All this and far worse has been said about "agency drivers". They are the eternal new boy; the Harry Worth of the driving profession. So who are these bumbling fools that masquerade as lorry drivers and if they are really so bad who would use them?
In fact, the terms "agency driver" and "driving agency" are not usually accurate. The correct way of providing temporary driving staff is for the supplying company to be the legal employer and to pay the driver; this makes it an "employment business," not an employment agency.
In most forms of temporary staffing this distinction is fairly straightforward but where road transport is concerned it needs closer attention. It is the "user" of the vehicle that should hold the necessary Operator's Licence; since the user can be defined as the person or company who pays the driver's wages does this mean that the employment business must hold an 0-Licence?
The answer is no. The employment business is still the legal employer but the driver is said to be working as a temporary servant to the client, working under the client's supervision and control and so is covered by the client's 0-Licence.
The largest hgv driver employment business in this country is Overdrive. It is part of the general employment service company Manpower which in turn is a subsidiary of the Parker Pen Co.
Manpower originated in the USA in 1947 and came to the UK in 1956; it also operates in 31 other countries. The demand for temporary hgv drivers was satisfied from within the Manpower ranks until 1976 when the ever increasing complexity of road transport legislation prompted the creation of Overdrive to specialise in this field.
Overdrive now has 70 offices in the UK, most of which are also Manpower offices. This does mean that some of the locations are not exactly ideal — what is right for the lorry driver may not be right for the secretary — but it does enable office overheads to be shared. In each, there is a separate Overdrive manager; if a client wants temporary drivers and warehousemen the drivers come from Overdrive and the warehousemen come from Manpower.
Seasonality is a key word in the Overdrive vocabulary. Because temporary drivers are often sought on a seasonal basis, this makes Overdrive's business equally seasonal and the number of drivers it employs varies from 1,000 to almost 3,000.
The second half of the year is generally the busier part although there are some particular peaks that can be identified. First and foremost are the months of July and August when temporary drivers are needed to cover for holidays. This is typically a week's work for the temporary man, or the client may stagger his regular drivers' holidays so that one temporary driver can successively cover for each holidaying driver and stay a couple of months.
The month before Easter is also an important time for temporary drivers; spring in the air seems to stimulate the public's spending buds. Until a few years ago the pre-Christmas rush stood out head and shoulders as a frantic time in the distribution industry but Overdrive managers have noticed that now this does not seem to occur to quite the same extent — the peak is less pronounced and is nearer Christmas.
In February and March temporary drivers are often in demand to cover for sickness among regular drivers and so this is usually just a two or three-day asignation.
Individual clients have the own seasonal trends, dependin on their line of business. Idealll Overdrive would like a cros; section of clients so that thes trends dovetail — the chille food company's requirement for temporary staff would fit n cely with those of the heating o distributor. In practice, does thi occur?
Overdrive's central manage Neil Young told me that it doe not usually work out quite s neatly. "Most of our clients ar in the own-account sector, part cularly involved in food, drin and confectionary distributio which means that many of ther need temporary drivers at th same time."
Another important huntin, ground for temporary drivers i the express parcel carrier secto and Neil Young remarked tha most of Overdrive's clients ar, household names in this fielc Some of these will have national agreement witl Overdrive covering all thi client's depots.
It is ironic that the highest de land for temporary drivers is in le distribution sector, often ivolving multi-drop work, defled knowledge knowledge of the delivery rea, product recognition and its of paperwork. In short, just le type of driving work that uts the temporary driver at the iggest disadvantage. A trunkig run is relatively straightforPard. Is it surprising that temporry drivers sometimes have Jch a bad reputation?
Neil Young acknowledged that us was true and went on to exlain the lengths his company rent to cosunter this image and lake sure the driver supplied is Porth having. It is really a twoart process, starting with verdrive attempting to employ nly good drivers in the first lace.
A primary stipulation is that le driver has no other job — he annot be a part-time fireman, ar instance — so that his first ommitment is to Overdrive. he applicant will have a medial questionnaire to complete a ichograph test and an exceponally complex application )rm. He must give references )r his last five years of employlent and these will betaken up. Overdrive is usually looking ar at least five years' hgv drivig experience and will rarely ake people who are new to the )1). A class I licence is always 'referable, but a few years of lulti-drop class ill experience is Iso most welcome. There is no ctual driving test, a point that ome might consider a serious ■ mmission. Driving licences are hecked and only one minor enlorsement is permitted.
Neil Young estimated that 40 ier cent of Overdrive work reluires a class III licence, 25 per ent is class I and 20 per cent is ion-hgv work. The remainder is nore specialised driving such as ,ranes, forklifts or chauffeuring. Assuming that the driver is aken on by Overdrive, what loes he get in return? He will 'early always get four or five lays' work a week. On any day le works, he will get a guarinteed minimum of eight hours aay and at the discretion of the ocal office manager any driver vho has done more than four veeks continuous work can ivalify for a guaranteed 40 hour veekly minimum wage.
If the driver is working for a lient for just a single day he nust contact the Overdrive )ffice for details of his next day's work. If there is none he does lot have to stand spare at the )ffice, Overdrive will ring him at iome.
Having made sure the driver is ;atisfactory, Overdrive then has to match the driver to the client to ensure the best chance of a successful temporary "partnership". On his application form the driver will have already listed his previous experience on different vehicles and his familiarity with equipment such as tail-lifts, demounts, fridge units and lorry-mounted cranes. He must also detail other abilities such as multi-drop experience, tipper work and routes or towns known particulary well.
All this is designed to ensure that Overdrive does not take on the driver who nobody else wants and who cannot get a permanent job. Neil Young said that there are drivers who prefer this style of work and who like the variety of driving for a different company each day or each week. Many stay with Overdrive quite some time; the average is around a year and a good proportion of them will subsequently get a full-time job with one of the clients. The other party in the successful match is the client and Overdrive claims to be equally thorough here as well. Clients will be visited to find out the exact type of business, drivers' duties and any special skills needed like cash-handling or roping and sheeting. All this information is stored in the client's file so that when he rings up for a temporary driver Overdrive will be able to supply the best man.
Neil Young admitted that this approach does mean that Overdrive can be slower to react when an unknown company rings up out of the blue and wants a driver immediately; with no client record the Overdrive manager has to start the process from scratch.
If, despite these precautions, the client is not satisfied with the temporary driver, Overdrive offers a 24-hour money-back guarantee. Each driver has a £10,000 insurance indemnity.
As stressed earlier, although the temporary driver is a full time Overdrive employee, he is under the control of the client and so if the driver breaks the driving hours regulations this will count against the client's 0Licence. If the driver is working for a different company every day of the week then it can be all too easy to break the driving hours regulations, particularly the minimum daily rest rule; a late finish with one company could be followed by an early start with another who would be unaware of the problem.
This is an aspect that some companies using temporary drivers tend to forget; the driver's previous work must be taken into account if the operator is not going to unwittingly commit a "cause and permit" hours offence.
The moral must be to use temporary drivers from a company' that understands transport regulations and which makes sure that the drivers do as well.
A similar problem can exist with tachograph charts where a temporary driver does a day's work with one company and then moves on to another client the following day. The first company will want its tachograph chart back but by law it is the driver's responsibility to keep the previous two working days' charts.
Overdrive therefore tells its drivers to keep all their tachograph charts for the week and then return them to the Overdrive office for Monday morning when they will be sent to the respective clients within the legal 21-day period. Each driver is also issued with a record book so that he can keep track of hours worked.
Temporary drivers do not come cheap; understandably an operator must expect to pay for the convenience of being able to summon extra driving staff at short notice. Overdrive in particular does not come cheap. Admitted Neil Young: "We are unashamedly at the top end of the market" and spoke of undercutting by other suppliers of temporary drivers.
The temporary driver employed by Overdrive is paid a wage comparable to the fulltime drivers of the Client for which he is working. Similarly, Overdrive gears its rates to the client around this parity and will typically charge between 1.75 and 2.2 times the regular driver's normal wage. The precise multiplication factor depends on the particular client and the size or length of the contract.
Can it make economic sense for a company to pay around twice the usual wage for the use of a temporary driver or does the temptation of short-term expediency overcome sound financial judgement? Much depends on the individual business. A highly seasonal one may easily find the occasional use of temporary drivers far cheaper than a permanent staffing level that results in over-manning that is conveniently absorbed during the quieter times of the year.
And if the penalties are high for failing to provide a promised level of service then a temporary driver can be worth it at almost any price. This might explain the number of express parcels carriers using Overdrive — they have a guaranteed delivery promise to fulfil.
On the reverse side of the coin, temporary drivers can be likened to convenience foods; very handy but expensive if you depend on them for your daily diet.
Any financial assessment of temporary drivers must take into account their actual performance and productivity. The hourly rate for the temporary driver may be twice as•much as a regular driver's but if he brings half the load back, the true cost is four times the regular wage, plus a whole lot of problems in the form of customers' complaints and late alterations to the traffic planning.
So if your justification for a temporary driver is going to stand up to the accountant's eagle eye, make sure the temporary driver can really "deliver the goods". Planning an easy delivery round for the temporary man might help but this is perhaps giving in to the deficiency of the system and is not fair to the full-time drivers.
It is not unknown for temporary drivers to spark off industrial relations problems in a company. They are paid too much, they are doing the job for less than the going rate, they are getting easy loads, they are working too fast ...
The Transport and General Workers Union takes a dim view of temporary drivers for a different reason — job protection. It reasons that a temporary driver is restricting permanent job opportunities; driving staff will be kept to a minimum in the knowledge that by picking up the telephone an employer can hire a driver for one day and discard him the next.
Neil Young acknowledges that the TGWU takes this line but claims Overdrive has a "working agreement" with the union to be recognised as an "ethical employer" and all Overdrive men are members of the TGWU or an affiliated union.
I was unable to clarify the position with the TGWU head office but a district secretary told me that nothing altered the fact that the union's official stance is one of opposition to temporary drivers and that some regions apply this more stringently than others.
Despite recession and well over three million people unemployed — some of them hgv drivers — there is still a demand for temporary drivers. Neil Young reported that Overdrive men in total worked 32 per cent more hours in 1982 than in 1981. He told me that 1980 was a bad year for the company due to the recession biting deeply and companies laying off drivers; the first to go were naturally the temporary men. Since then he claims Overdrive's improvement has been due to some hard work in increasing its market share.
There is also an element of some operators cutting back their driving staff to a bare minimum in the recession an then having to take on sorr temporary men to help whe business shows a brief upturn.
Neil Young believes that th system of manning for the basi steady level of business an then using temporary drivers fc anything above that will ever tually become the accepted wa of doing things in the UK. "Fle; ible staffing is the way of th future" is how he put it, addin that he expects 1983 to show further growth in Overdrive hours-worked figure.
Although it's the largest singl temporary driver supplier in th country Overdrive still ha plently of the market to go a There are hundreds of genen temporary employment bus nesses that also "dabble" in th provision of hgv drivers, plu some smaller specialist hgv drh ing employment businesses thi have a strong local clientele.
The value and feasibility temporary drivers is heavily d4 pendent on the quality of the ir dividual driver and of the err ployment business providin him. Nearly all the criticism commonly cited can be traced t bad temporary drivers, poorl run "agencies" and careles matching of driver to client. A the saying goes, when they ar good they are very, very goo but when they are bad they ar horrid.