Michael Thorogood, training director of Roadtrain Group, is willing to
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spend money on training would-be drivers providing they're really willing to turn up...and work.
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di The driver shortage has become so acute that the
only logical answer would appear to be to train drivers for the industry. Due to the serious downturn of people joining the industry, either of their own volition or from any other source, and because of the absence of any serious funding for driver training, we have set aside a dedicated fund of £150,000 for this purpose.
In order to attract new personnel to our transport and contract driver supply operations, we looked at ways of recruiting drivers. The Government's New Deal scheme was suggested and attempted. However, from the point of view of a transport operator, the scheme would appear to have serious drawbacks when applied to our industry.
I Take the fact that the New Deal is aimed at retraining the longE5 term unemployed and the problem would appear to be obvious. It sy. seems incredible that an able-bodied person in the south of England can be unemployed for a period of six years, for example.
k Now consider that New Deal candidates are supposed to be ready to undertake job training and it is astonishing that they
0 1– cannot attend an interview, or they are as late as half an hour for a F_ that interview. Put aside these problems and consider the drawback of using New Deal if taking advantage of the up-front Skills Subsidy.
If any employers take the up-front subsidy they are liable to repay it if the employee leaves for any reason. So if, for example, you are unlucky enough to employ someone who is caught stealing from your customer next month—look out...you will have to bear the loss.
The only protection you have is to make the employee sign an agreement committing him to repaying these losses if he leaves during an agreed period. Don't kid yourself—you've heard the expression 'getting blood out of a stone".
We now believe that if any investment is to be made in training for jobs it has to be spent on people who already have the work ethic. In other words, a recently unemployed person with a work record has to be less of a risk than someone who has spent literally years out of work.
With the working conditions, pay rates and benefits that the better employers in the industry offer, I believe there are such people who would be willing to train.
Our scheme is open to men and women who have been unemployed for a maximum of three months. Long-term unemployed, even if viewed sympathetically, need training in the work ethic before they will be able to join an industry like ours ,where punctuality and reliability are a first-rate concern. if their only commitment to date has been to visit a Job Centre between the hours of 9am-5pm how does anyone working in that Job Centre gauge their punctuality for a job which starts at 3am on a freezing morning?
It speaks volumes when I say that New Deal trainees have called in either sick or with "problems" on days when they were undergoing HGV training. How many trainees spending their hardsaved money and paying for their own training can afford to behave like this?
The industry needs drivers. The industry needs to train drivers. What the industry does not want is to fill its ranks with people who really don't care about rt.
Finally, what the industry cannot afford is to subsidise the Government by enlisting people from the dole queue at this industry's expense.