It has been all over the news, papers and the Internet and I doubt there is a haulage company who has not felt the strain of trying to recruit drivers, hold on to drivers against a backdrop of huge pay increases offered by bigger companies and simply finding more drivers to cope with the massive increases in freight the industry is seeing. We would advertise jobs, recruit candidates only to find at the last minute they have decided to go where the pay is more attractive and with which family run businesses simply cannot compete.
So what did we do? We decided to try a new avenue and offer to pay for the training for drivers to qualify as a Class 2 driver or a Class 1 if they already held their class 2. We advertised on Social Media and were delighted to receive applications from over 50 people. It was difficult to trim down the list but as much as we would have loved to train them all, HGV training is costly and indeed, that was what was holding a lot of the applicants back. We chose candidates to go through the first round of training and I am delighted to say that they have settled really well in to the team. They spent some time with our regular drivers getting to know what the job entailed, the systems we use and what it really is like to be an HGV driver and then we let them loose on our smaller vehicles. They have integrated in to the team fantastically and we are so proud to be a part of their journey. HGV tests were sat this week with the practical training following shortly. Keep an eye on the website and we will let you know their progress.
Really great to hear this. If all business owners took it upon themselves to do this, then it would surely make a significant difference, not just fir now but for the future. Very well done.
Thank you for your kind words. WE will keep you posted as to how they get on!