Training must match technological breakthrough
Page 73
Page 74
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
IT was a relatively simple exercise to set out a training programme, produce training manuals and run courses. But none of these would be in the least effective unless the Board did the rather unspectacular spadework to establish its purposes. So commented Mr. K. C. Turner, chairman of the Road Transport Industry Training Board, when presenting a paper to the one-day conference on transport training and education organized by the Institute of Transport (Metropolitan section) and North-Western Polytechnic last week.
A significant factor in the timing of the setting up of the Board was that road transport was a young industry and, indeed, virtually 20th century. It had grown enormously, Mr. Turner continued, and would expand still further. During the past 15 years the number of vehicles had grown at the rate of 7.06 per cent per annum. In contrast, in the last five years the average growth of the number of people employed in the industry had been only 2.04 per cent per annum.
Concurrently there had been qualitative changes and major breakthroughs lay ahead in the technological field. Road transport management, Mr. Turner claimed, was now more professional and the entrepreneur was being replaced.
Enumerating the many activities covered by the Board, Mr. Turner said that as a result it had more members than any of the others so far established even though it did not include the C-licence sector of the industry. Nevertheless the Board anticipated that its training recommendations and standards would eventually be adopted by this sector.
The categories
Though the training of drivers and maintenance craftsmen was one of the major problems the Board was equally concerned with training all occupations within its scope. Mr. Turner then set out the categories which the provisional organization envisaged. These were:—
• 1. Directors, managers, partners, proprietors.
2. Accountants, company secretaries.
3. Clerks, secretaries, shorthand typists, copy typists, audio typists, non-technical office workers. 4. Foremen, inspectors, supervisors, superintendents.
5. Salesmen, demonstrators, spares stockists, spares salesmen.
6. Removal estimates and quantity surveyors, technical clerks, draughtsmen.
7. Vehicle repair craftsmen, service station mechanics.
8. Drivers, driving instructors.
9. Drivers' mates, conductors, other operating staff, vehicle recovery staff.
10. Removal operatives (other than drivers), warehouse operatives, cold storage operatives, porters, loaders, packers.
11. Filling station attendants, service station attendants, storekeepers.
Mr. Turner also disclosed that the Board was building up a team of specialist staff to deal with each of these groups. The Board believed that there was urgent need for analytical work on the training requirements of the road transport industry both quantitatively and qualitatively. There was the need to identify the areas where training was most needed and the. skills in each of those areas. This was the first task of the training staff.
The evidence so far collected was that the general level of formalized training was low compared with the manufacturing industries. This was partly a consequence of the brief history of the industry and partly because of the average size of companies, with 39,000 hauliers having five vehicles or less.
Elaborating on the Board's training plans, Mr. Turner insisted that too often training schemes were devised to meet what was believed to be a training need and when they failed to do this it was considered that there was something wrong with the training scheme. The real trouble was a failure to analyse correctly so that, in consequence, the schemes "fit only where they touch". Taking this line of thought a stage farther the Board was concerned not merely to identify present needs but also to establish the needs of 10, 15 and 20 years hence. This was when young people of today would be in their prime and the Board must establish what type of working environment they could expect and the demands that would then be made on them. "It is no use fighting the next war's battle with the last war's weapons", Mr. Turner added.
Such a prediction on future needs was a very difficult task. As a result it probably meant that the forecast would not be 100 per cent correct but that did not mean that it should not be attempted.
Many predictions were being made about the future of transport but these were largely concerned with the engineering aspect. The Board's concern was with the effects of the changes on the numbers and kinds people who would be employed in the industry, and how they would be employed.
Dual responsibility
Some areas of training, such as driving, were obvious. But other skills to which the Board would need to turn its attention were in connection with lifting, handling, packing, stacking, loading, securing, roping, etc.
All the training Boards were vitally concerned with accident prevention but the Road Transport Board's concern was even greavr because the nature of the work covered by the industry was largely carried out in public places. There was therefore a dual responsibility for the safety of those in the industry and the general public. Mr. Turner then confirmed that his Board was giving high priority to the appointment of a safety training officer, as announced in COMMERCIAL MOTOR last week. His duties in addition to direct safety instruction would include the vetting of all training programmes and activities in the Industry to make sure that the methods were inherently sound and safe.
The average ability of current entrants into the industry was lower than previously and this put greater demands on training techniques. Mr. Turner said that the Board considered that training schemes would need to be practical and visual. This meant that the scheme would have to be "very professional". Thus if one used closed-circuit television for training purposes then both programme content and production should be up to BBC standards because otherwise poor standards would be equated with poor training.
For this reason the Board hoped to have a member of its staff who would be specially qualified in visual and audio aids, programmed learning and simulators. This would enable the Board to offer an advisory service to the industry which would set professional standards for training personnel.
Ideally, the Board would have liked to have spent longer setting out plans in detail before taking action. But the need for training was there already and it felt that it had to start almost at once. The programme it had set itself envisaged a levy being made on the industry in October and grants being paid for training carried out this year after August 1.
Although the Board's grant proposal had not been finalized and submitted to the Minister of Labour for approval Mr. Turner set out the principles and guidelines for the first year grants. Emphasizing that it was for the first year only, he said that the grant scheme should limit itself to making a contribution towards current training costs. The grant, should, however, be large enough to provide a genuine incentive to employers to improve training and assist where legitimate training costs were incurred. In particular grants should be payable for all employees receiving approved training, including day or block release and sandwich courses.
It was desirable that the grant scheme should be sufficiently comprehensive to take account of widely different schedules of training in different sectors of the industry. While this scheme might involve a measure of rough justice, Mr. Turner admitted, it should seek to achieve equity between one establishment and another and between one section of industry and another. Care would be taken to keep the procedure for setting grant payments under review to ensure all sectors of the industry were treated equitably.
Because of the shortage of training and inspection staff, during the first year the scheme should be as uncomplicated and as easy to administer as possible. It should nevertheless be devised in such a way as to permit the Board's staff to check grant claims. As far as possible the scheme would be based on fixed grants with the grant linked to the number of man/days of approved training undertaken. But the first-year grant scheme should not contain any provision or condition which might compromise any future grant arrangement which the Board might wish to introduce in subsequent grant years.
Exciting growth industry
Transport was an exciting growth industry, Mr. Turner concluded. In contrast it was forecast that the manufacturing industries would contract ,in their demands for labour as production techniques, such as automation, developed. But all the evidence was that transport demands would grow.
By 1985 the total number of vehicles would be 2+ times greater, with commercial vehicles being 1+ times as numerous. If these predictions were correct the skills of those driving, maintaining and managing the fleets of tomorrow would be of an order which we could barely comprehend because an increase of this magnitude in traffic would make more than an arithmetical progression of demands on tomorrow's transport men.
The action needed to meet those demands was something beyond the scope of certainly the smaller establishments in the road transport industry on their own. But collectively that challenge could be met and the Industrial Training Act was an imaginative piece of non-party legislation which could ensure success.