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ALL PART OF Till
Page 103
Page 104
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SERVICE...
E MD of a well-known .age group relates that he ce drove onto the foreart of one of his petrol tions and waited for ever some good competitive gressive selling. Finally, he is spotted by the foreart supervisor who greeted n: "Very sorry, sir, I ought you were only a ;tomer."
The moral is that, in a service ustry, experience and train, or preferably both, should iw at the point of sale. If they l't, there is little point in crying about them, because, a service industry, the ;Mess you're in is live, [-to-face customer satisfac1. Stating the obvious per)s, but sometimes not all t obvious to the customers. f the training needs have in properly diagnosed, they iuld relate to improvements )erformance, and, in turn, to better response from the tomer. Identifying training ids properly must be the first D.
This series of articles has in a straightforward presenon of various aspects of nagement today — "Mana77" as the Board's presenon at the Royal Lancaster icalled. "Manager 77" is an i'npt to take management ning closer to the industry, to people thinking beyond the urses' approach, to put ning on the job and in the
rk place — or as the first cle put it -'job-related ning in the working, envir-nent.'
Nay back in 1967, we led a phrase about 'mail training' in the Board, and somewhere near it with a ge of visual aids designed in port of operative and craft ning The Board's latest elopments extend this cont to management training take it beyond the simple 3entation of information. For mple, there are individual ning packs which test and check, as well 'as inform, and these show promise of becoming brand leaders on the management scene.
The newly introduced Guidelines for Managers, dealing with such topics as Making Managers Effective, Organising Health and Safety at Work and Admission to the Occupation of Road Haulage Operator are hitting a much wider market than was anticipated. Part of the appeal of "Manager 77" is that it is taking training to the manager as an alternative to the more traditional gambrt that mane
gers take themselves to training. DIY management training has arrived, to provide training for the varying needs of individual managers.
Some aspects of "Manager 77" have their origins in TASC. Business Improvement Groups, Fault Diagnosis Clinics and Applied Company Training take the idea of close analysis of a company's methods and systems a stage further, and retain. the consultancy back-up which characterised the TASC approach to analysis. But their real importance is that they tackle training in terms of real problems.
Problems in the small cornpany have always been ry concern to the Board — the MOTECs (50,000 trainees in 1C years!), Group Training Associations (116 nationwide) anc Mobile Training Units (now sir in the fleet) are all concernec with the small operators. Now, the service has been extended by the introduction of training packs designed for small groups of trainees. The packs are portable, self-contained, and come with full instructions, as they say. The first on Employment Legislation has sales topping 200, and has been declared a winner.
The series has emphasised the usefulness of a systematic approach to training, and we hope that the question When did you last see your job description?will become When did you last revise your job description?"
The argument for definition (job description), purpose (targets) and improvements in performance (training) are not hard to follow, and, to good management, should need no justification. They are no more than a professional approach to management, and should have a place, without argument, in an industry which grows more professional year by year.
The apocryphal haulier who didn't want his son hampered by an education is becoming rarer. So, too, are the employers who would't pay graduates in washers.
Nobody pretends that graduates are a race of supermen, but they do represent the best brains available. The least the industry should do is to get its share, and it is not doing too badly. At least it now recruits a number each year as a matter of course. As one employer once said to me "That lad's a good scholar, and not bad at his job either." The Redbrick connection?
There is also the Continental connection, in the form of the EEC Conditions of Entry to the Profession, which will be operative from 1978. The course of study leading to qualification is not very long, the standards required are not very high, and grandfather rights will result in a gradual rather than sudden rush of learning to the head. It is the 1968 Act Transport Managers Licence dressed as a Paris model, but no less welcome for that.
The RHA favoured the old TML concept and there was talk, at one time, of a basic entry qualification with a gradual superstructure, the top grade of which would represent true professionalism in transport management. The hope has not been entirely buried, and if past experience is any guide, the effort will continue to be made. At home, the worry is more about survival in the profession — exit rather than entry. But it was ever thus in an industry where entrepreneurial adventure meant running on worn tyres and not charging rates high enough to replace them. In fact, the evidence on the roads is that the industry is more professional, maintaining good driving standards in clean vehicles to project a more stable and reassuring image. The national chairman of the RNA no longer spends his leisure time on TV explaining that juggernauts are not really juggernauts and Ford produced : the Intercontinental unnoticed by the public at large.
It is tempting to conclude any series by offering predictions about the future. But the fact is we don't know. Some things are certain. Haulage, despite temporary setbacks, remains a growth industry at heart. So it will attract businessmen great and small, with the small predominating for some years to come. The industry will become more managerial simply becau
se, in today's climate, mane ment is more and more c( trained by legal requiremE which impose responsibilitie society, to workers and managers themselves. It hat choice.
The social climate wor some managers who feel, 1 they aren't allowed to mane The politics of Jack as gooc his master don't fit v comfortably with the ,cla ideas about the leaders and led. But as times change, sc management syles, and haulage industry has historic thrived on individual respo bility — the ''once he's throi those gates" view of dril, calls for more faith in hur nature than some indust have yet to show.
So, the last thing to certain about is that the indu will adapt, and will adapt nby choosing training than at time in its past, if pret training trends continue. days when the first prize hauliers was a week's mane ment training, and the seci prize two weeks are fading