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J ohn Davis knows when he is on to a good
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thing. This might explain his reluctance to answer too many questions on Fowler Welch Coolchain's (FWC) development scheme. It awards HGV licences through in-house training to employees expressing an interest in dri
ving trucks for the temperature controlled dis5, tribution firm.
F.. Any talk of money is off the cards and disci cussing the finer details of each trainee's .8. agreement leaves the group driver develop ment manager decidedly ill at ease. "It might ggive people ideas," he deadpans.
But despite his reticence, Davis is proud of E. what he has achieved since being recruited to the Spalding HQ in October of last year. His brief, to find competent drivers for the company despite a national shortage currently estimated at 45,000, appears to have been met—and FWC is very happy with the results.
"Training your own people at your own cost is the only way, I believe, of going forward with the recruitment situation the way it is. You have to use some sort of initiative to cope with your shortfall and this is the initiative I have come up with. I used it at other companies and it's working equally well here."
Traikting periods
As well as offering the scheme to existing employees, Davis says the company takes on both C-Class licence holders and car drivers. New recruits are first placed in the warehouse for four weeks: "Just to make sure they are keeping time, and interest in the company is there."
Then there follows a three-week training period. The first week is spent getting their CClass licence, if they do not hold one; the second week is intensive professional driver development (including tachograph and vein. de legislation, trailer types and fridge settings, load security and economic driving techniques) and the last week focuses on job development. It is a similar time span for the C+E licence.
"They spend five days with one of our 12 company assessors," Davis explains. "We try to take them out to some of the most difficult
places so that we know they can get the vehicle in and out safely. They will be able to tackle most things before we let them out on the road; it gives us confidence in their ability, too."
Each candidate carries out their training and professional development in the vehicle they will eventually drive, and the Scania used for artic training is identical to the ones used in FWC's fleet. FWC's fleet consists of MANs, Dafs, Mercedes and Scanias.
So is the company saving money doing this in-house P "We deduct an amount from them per week to cover the cost of the training over a two-year period," he eventually concedes. "There's on-going training within that two years for the driver and there's a two-year tiein through a training agreement."
Additional training within that period touches on all aspects of the job including health and safety issues.
The training agreement helps FWC retain staff: Those who complete two years are rewarded with a refund of all the money deducted from them. Davis says, in his experience, drivers are more than happy to stay with FWC after this time.
Driver development
The cost of in-house training is roughly the same as external training but Davis is adamant that helping employees to get their C and C-FE licence is just the beginning.
"The fact is we are not just giving people a licence, we are giving them professional development before we let them on the road."
Talk turns philosophical at this point. "I have a saying that I have adapted from a Chinese proverb," he continues. "Give a driver a licence you will give them a job. Give a driver development and you will give them a career."
Davis was a driver himself for 13 years before leap-frogging into his new career. "I got involved in training by accident. I had an external assessment and it was suggested I went on an assessor's course and a fuel economy course. And that's where it all started; I enjoyed it and I have been in training ever since."
When he started at FWC, Davis outlined the ideas he wanted to implement. He then set about instigating defensive driving in order to reduce the firm's accident rate. Additional training on economic driving has led to a cut in the firm's fuel bill of around 5%.
The training scheme was rolled out in January this year, although it was only recently that the firm took control of all stages of the training.
The time and effort Davis has put into developing the driver-training scheme is now paying off. The day before CM s visit the first candidate who was trained completely in-house passed the HGV test. Davis is clearly proud.
"It's what I do, I enjoy my job. I was very lucky because I started with a clean sheet of paper and my initiatives were taken on board quite quickly. The support was therefrom the start."
Davis plans to develop 20 people a year on the scheme, but recognises it is still too early to say with any certainty what the actual figure will be. He stresses that the firm will only take on trainees that it can place in a position.
Company oar drivers
"We are going to start addressing company car drivers as well, and we have already started thinking about the new training directive." He adds: "We are also looking at the Young Driver's Scheme and modern apprenticeships and doing NVQs in-house too,"
Davis believes that if the industry is to change for the better, some of his ideas may need to be shared around.
"There are a lot of people interested in driver development and how we do it. I believe that networking with other organisations is going to be the key to road safety and the recruitment problems most businesses are experiencing."