FTA plans driver campaign 1
Page 10
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• First on the agenda was a dose of reality from some of the truck drivers who are out on the roads day in and day out. Their messages (captured on video) came across loud and clear to the 100 or so transport bosses and managers assembled in the room.
The pay is not good enough, there's a lack of respect for vhat we do, the hours are antisocial, the roadside facilities are a shambles—and why on earth would anyone want to stump up £1,500 to get an HGV licence for rewards like these?
One seasoned driver said he was "going back to brick-laying", to which the ETA's head of training, John Hix's reaction was; "You tend to take heed when a guy like this says he's staying away from trucks."
The figure is up for debate but Hix alluded to a shortfall of between 50,000 and 80,000 HGV drivers in the UK over the next two years, and that is in addition to the numbers needed to offset "natural churn". The demand for drivers could be in the order of 600,000 by 2010, says Hix, driven by the effects of European legislation such as compulsory and continuous driver training and the Working Time Directive which will cut dri
vers' hours to a maximum of 60 a week.
The Road Haulage and Distribution Training Council has already secured £5m in government funding for driver training, and schemes are in place to bring in new recruits including the young drivers training scheme, modern apprenticeships and the transferable training loan study. But everyone in the room agreed that these alone will not plug the hole.
"We are dealing with a decade of erosion," says Hix, who blames "a cocktail of influences" such as the drying up of ex-service drivers and the emergence of the IT and telecom sectors. He claims that around 13,000 people with HGV licences are simply not using them: "The problem is a staff shortage. not a skills shortage."
Fat, dim and dangerous
By way of getting discussions moving, Hix suggested that truckers were seen in the public's eyes as "fat, dim and dangerous". The inflammatory words certainly stirred the FTA's director general and conference chairman, Richard Turner, who urged people "to see this as a turning point" and never to refer to those words again. He added that "vital, safe and reliable" would better reflect today's professional truck drivers.
But the order of the day was solutions, which meant facing up to some harsh realities. For example, hairdressers were given 1107m for training in the last Budget, while transport got £5m. Why? RHDTC chairman, Ian Hetherington claims it's because hairdressers articulate their arguments to government better.
Hetherington told delegates that one of the barriers facing the transport industry is an "over-reliance on regulation" which means firms do only what they need to keep themselves out of jail. But if hauliers spent more on training and best practice, the government would take the industry more seriously "But it's not all doom and gloom," he added—a point which Hix agreed with, citing untapped money from the UK's Learning and Skills Council ([SC). "The [SC needs to be persuaded to direct some of its £5.5bn training fund towards us, but it's up to the industry to make its case," Hix pointed out.
Hetherington also spoke about encouraging more minority groups and women into driving jobs—currently only 2% of truck drivers are from minority groups and 4% are women. "We cannot afford to ignore 57% of the workforce," he warned.
But that still leaves the problem of how to attract these people in the first place.
Danny Bryan, national road transport secretary of the Transport & General Workers' Union, warned that pay and conditions must be addressed; 'People do have choices. You're not going to attract people into this industry when the driver delivering the goods to a supermarket is paid less than a counter assistant."
Exit interviews
This is not a view shared by UPS. In fact Peter Harris, the firm's North Europe automotive manager, claimed that an investigation into the high turnover of drivers at its West London and Abingdon centres revealed that other forces were at work. According to Harris, in exit interviews 'nobody mentioned money".
However, the idea that the industry needs to develop a system of transferable benefits such as pensions for drivers was met with broad agreement. This would improve drivers' sense of security and fewer problems would arise when contracts are moved from one employer to another.
As sensible as that sounds, can anyone really see transport firms across the land giving up their commercial choices over pensions and the like?
Another idea from the day— that of developing better "career paths" for drivers and attaching more "value" to the job—seems rather more achievable.
UPS claims it saw driver turnover in west London go down from 54% to 19% between 1999 and 2000, and in Abingdon from 25% to 10%, by acting on employees' complaints and restructuring jobs. It implemented the following changes: • Setting up teams under team leaders; • Setting up league tables and targets to make drivers more accountable: • Improving communication by holding daily briefings; • Ensuring promotion fro within.
Other suggestions from tt floor included the introductic of a driver skills passport— official document outlinir experience and training—and programme for school leaver getting young recruits into tt warehouse or office with a cor mitment to train them to dri% when they become eligible.
Recruitment drive Inevitably some ideas are moi tangible than others. But or certainty is that a recruitme drive of such hefty proportior is going to cost firms time ar money. Perhaps the most seri; ble suggestion of the day v■/ that now is the time to get cu tomers to realise that the: costs have to be passed on.
As for next year's budgE perhaps the industry shoe take heed of those well-fundE hairdressers and tell the go ernment (in the words of th famous shampoo brand) "because we're worth it".