Room at the Top
Page 79
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N-OBODY. seems to have noticed one odd feature of last Thursday's debate on transport in the House of
Commons. Although ostensibly it was concerned ith the report and accounts of the British Transport ommission for 1961, the real intention was to allow the pposition to move an amendment expressing concern the proposed large-scale closure of railway workshops id the withdrawal of unprofitable branch line services. ievitably, therefore, a good deal was said on both sides out the redundancy that threatened many railway orkers. It may seem contradictory that the first speaker, fr. John Hay, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry ' Transport, in an account of what the Government was )ping to achieve, began by saying that its main task had :en "to get the right men for the jobs that have to be He was, of course, talking about the men at the top, ho were being recruited to run the companies and boards to which the B.T.C. is being divided. Many of the mointments have already been announced, and Mr. Hay ,peared to anticipate no difficulty in filling the remaining ists, in spite of the exacting criteria that are being 'served: "First, individual ability, which is essential, and condly, willingness to work happily as a member of a am." These qualifications are found in the same person rely enough to make it surprising that a sufficient imber of suitable candidates have been found, particurly to run the railways, which even the Government have reed to be a declining industry.
Road haulage, on the contrary, is expanding, and one ight reasonably expect a long queue of applicants for ecutive vacancies. This is certainly not the case with itish Road Services, whose chairman, Mr. T. G. Gibb.* mplaincd last week of the inadequate response to their anagement cadet scheme. He suggested as one reason at road haulage was not sufficiently widely recognized as worth-while career for young men. There was an urgent cessity, said Mr. Gibb, to attract the right type of man provide for future management. "
NIDENTLY he believed that the problem was common all hauliers. He pointed to the gap left by the departure the pioneers, and warned executives now in middle age be prepared to grapple with the situation for some years come. The fault, he suggested, might lie with the Justry itself. There had been no adequate recruiting and tining scheme for the up-and-coming generation.
There is some substance in these strictures. On the her hand, Mr. Gibb is not entirely consistent in deplorsimultaneously the lack of a scheme for the industry nerally and the lack of support for the very good scheme thin his own organization. The explanation may be nply (as he also suggests) that there is no appreciable mand. Young men of executive calibre with an ambition ,make their career in road transport would naturally ink first of all of B.R.S., not because it is Publicly owned t merely because it is by far the largest and the bestown haulage concern, and is likely to offer far more
lpe for a thorough and comprehensive training. If R.S. with these advantages cannot attract enough zuits, what chance is there for the rest of the industry make much impression on the labour market, whatever it is spread?
There are no doubt other reasons. In spite of the steady increase in the growth of individual haulage companies and in the number of amalgamations, the small family business is still characteristic of the industry. The sons follow their father's example, and learn about transport in the school of experience rather than in the classroom or study. If one of them is of a practical more than an academic turn of mind, he may train as an engineer and return to take over the mechanical side of the business, leaving his brother—who in his turn may have spent some time in studying business administration—to look after the operational side.
If the business is not too large, and the family not too small, there may be few opportunities for the outsider, however gifted, to work his way to the top. He can do this more easily in the big haulage companies that are slowly increasing in number. In practice, even these seem to have little room for the applicant with purely academic qualifications, especially if he expects to come in at executive level.
WHETHER this paternal approach to the staff problem is the best it is not easy to say. There are advantages. Every employee in a firm run on these lines should have a clear idea of what his prospects are and need not fear the promotion of an outsider over his head. The personal touch which still means so much in road haulage is encouraged when so many of the staff have grown up with the business, even if for the same reason their outlook may be unduly narrow and they may fail to seize upon the new developments that could improve their efficiency.
Mr. Gibb is not the first representative of B.R.S. to draw attention to the dangers of inbreeding. There are new opportunities and new problems opening before hauliers. Obvious examples are to be found in the decline of the railways, the plans for Britain's entry into the Common Market and the related debate on a new crossChannel link,' current thinking about the advantages of building roads as a stimulus to the economy, and the inevitable tendency of the Government to look at transport as a whole in order to decide priorities among the different forms of transport, and possibly also between the professional carrier and the carrier of his own goods.
For a long time to come, road transport should have the major role. To match its position, it should be attracting new blood more rapidly than at present. With the exception of B.R.S., operators are relying for the most part on the activities of voluntary committees, backed by the facilities for study organized by such bodies as the Institute of Transport and the Royal Society of Arts.
More active steps may have to be taken. The possibility has been mooted of regulating entry into road haulage less in accordance with the procedure in the traffic courts and more by means of an examination on the lines already adopted in Holland and in Italy. If this ever happened, schools for hauliers would become an attractive proposition. The Road Haulage Association would be well advised to take a lead in promoting and supervising the educational B.R.S. would also have a strong interest, and the best plan might be for nationalized and independent road transport to co-operate, as they have done with their plans for promoting quicker turn-round. It might even be possible for other training projects to be undertaken by the road haulage industry as a whole.