A few days ago met one of their drivers at services, and was told they sent them all of them emails asking to recruit drivers on their behalf, and for every new driver that stays till December this year, Abbey driver that recommended him, gets £250.
Wouldn’t it be better if Abbey simply made the job more attractive in the first place, such as pay decent wages, or am I getting it wrong?
A few years ago, when I enquired about working for them, I was told if I left within 1 year I would have to pay the training fee back, which at that time was £500, but I’ve heard someone saying it’s £1000, but could be wrong.
So, assuming a new driver still has to pay £500 if he leaves within the first year of employment, and Abbey has to pay their drivers £250 for referring a new driver, Abbey is still going to be quids in, but if a new driver stays long term, they still get a low wage driver working for them, possibly long term.
Sometimes when firms do this, its because they want drivers that can work. You wouldn’t want to recommend a deadbeat to your boss because it would come back on your head if he screwed up.
They are paying £9.69 for Mon-Fri and £11.■■ 4 on 4 off.
They are losing 3 to 5 drivers a week.
The work is easy.
The trucks are ok, clean and working.
So apart from the low pay it appears that the drivers are not happy. The organisation is partly to blame along with a lack of respect top down, which bounces back up.
yeah, I was told by one of their drivers, when customer can’t take the load for a few days, they are told to park up in a lay by, when truck stop, or services are available near by, but that’s too expensive for Abbey
Getting current drivers to do your recruiting isn’t a new thing, it tends to work quite well.
The company arn’t going to automatically recruit an idiot because the yard half wit who met him in the pub fancies £250 to ■■■■ up the wall, most drivers in good jobs know and feel more strongly than the admin/office mob that the job is safest long term if idiots are kept away.
I’m a bit surprised by the pay quoted above though, seems rather low for presumably tankers, i’m not questioning the figures for hourly rates but wonder if there’s some sort of bonus scheme in operation added those figures, plus time and a half applying after 8 hours .
Juddian:
Getting current drivers to do your recruiting isn’t a new thing, it tends to work quite well.
The company arn’t going to automatically recruit an idiot because the yard half wit who met him in the pub fancies £250 to ■■■■ up the wall, most drivers in good jobs know and feel more strongly than the admin/office mob that the job is safest long term if idiots are kept away.
I’m a bit surprised by the pay quoted above though, seems rather low for presumably tankers, i’m not questioning the figures for hourly rates but wonder if there’s some sort of bonus scheme in operation added those figures, plus time and a half applying after 8 hours .
They are fairly well known for low pay. It was possible in the past to offset this by working excess hours but they had their collar felt. Still poor payers.
This practice is quite normal here in the USA where good drivers are hard to get. My company offer a similar bonus for recommending new drivers but it is much more, we get $1,500 after they have stayed 6 months and another $1,500 6 months later, as do the new drivers who we recommend, it is as suggested used by companies who pay poor wages and have bad conditions but not in the case of my company that pays far higher wages than most companies over here.
Juddian:
Getting current drivers to do your recruiting isn’t a new thing, it tends to work quite well.
The company arn’t going to automatically recruit an idiot because the yard half wit who met him in the pub fancies £250 to ■■■■ up the wall, most drivers in good jobs know and feel more strongly than the admin/office mob that the job is safest long term if idiots are kept away.
I’m a bit surprised by the pay quoted above though, seems rather low for presumably tankers, i’m not questioning the figures for hourly rates but wonder if there’s some sort of bonus scheme in operation added those figures, plus time and a half applying after 8 hours .
They are fairly well known for low pay. It was possible in the past to offset this by working excess hours but they had their collar felt. Still poor payers.
You do surprise me, for some reason i had these, and Suttons, down as the better end.
You can strike Sutton off your list Juddian, I have many mates who (through a takeover) work there. They, to a man despise the company. Perhaps way back when it was a family run business it was some kind of shining beacon. Unfortunately nowadays it is by all accounts merely a logistics provider who not only engage in but actively embrace the whole race to the bottom ethos.
It is a company with a massive turnover but very little profit due in part to the top heavy management style adopted whereby anybody with an ology and no connection to transport save having once been overtaken by a lorry can thrive and prosper without actually contributing positively to the company.
I don’t get this ever increasing layers of management cobblers, but i’ve seen it with mine own eyes when i worked at a hellish busy car transporter operator where the planning was run, efficiently because the main man had a mind like a computer, by two people only with a fleet of around 60 full size transporters, so how come it needed a bloody buildingful of the sods and dozens of poxy computers and became a bloody shambles by the time it reached 100 lorries , though getting the at the time must have BS kitemark (good wheeze that one Claude, kerching) must have quadrupled the paperwork.
We have a lad working for us who went there for an interview.
He said the wage seemed ok at first, the recruiter & retainer promised him the best job on planet earth… regular trips over to Holland, Italy… lots of hours… new fleet coming.
The trainer then replaced by the transport manager - who swiftly told him the truth… polar opposite.
One of the main sticking points was the cost of paying back the training… if he had left within a year. About £700 I’m guessing this might have been plus vat, so a thousand quid is not far off the mark.
Seems to me they are getting very desperate and need to review their plans.
This whole issue of paying companies back for training - or for uniforms / PPE, is completely wrong imo. If the company stipulates it - they should stand the cost.
Juddian:
though getting the at the time must have BS kitemark (good wheeze that one Claude, kerching) must have quadrupled the paperwork.
Ah, the good old British Standard scam that was so prevalent in the late 80’s and early 90’s and shortly thereafter fizzled away into obscurity!
I have it on very good authority that the Co that was the main driver for this in the first place was I.C.I. It turns out that one of the directors of ICI was also on the board of The British Standards Institute and obviously recognised a money making scam when he saw one.
The whole pointlessness of the exercise was highlighted when my employer (Brian Rosier) who along with Youngs and Prestons was the main haulier of ICI packaged goods in Europe point blank refused to partake in their hoop jumping and was granted a dispensation in order to carry on hauling their tat! Prior to that the threat was “if you ain’t accredited you no longer carry our goods”.
Jingle Jon:
This whole issue of paying companies back for training - or for uniforms / PPE, is completely wrong imo. If the company stipulates it - they should stand the cost.
That i agree with, a good company should be very sure of the applicant before employing them in the first place and thats why good TM’s get paid the big bucks to cherry pick and get it right, you won’t get in where i am if you’re a here today gone tomorrow job flitter or without a very decent checkable CV.
Training does cost a lot, especially on specialist work, though mentoring is making a return at enlightened places which helps new starters have some confidence when going out on their own the first few months if they are running with someone tasked with looking after them and if not then that someone is always available on the phone to help them if they have an issue, its different ringing a work colleague to involving the trainer if you have an issue, the colleague can tell you if you’re being a pillock where the trainer has to be more ‘official’.
Those extensive training cost pale into insignificance compared to the results of ■■■■ ups, and no matter how much some players try to instill this one size fits all ■■■■■■■■, everyone learns at different rates.
Course if they’re doing the job on the cheap, then they’re going to attract people who only want to be trained up and then bugger off to better pastures soon as the payback time has expired , eventually they’ll twig it aint working.
trouble is transport companies are still not getting it are they,pay a decent wage and they keep drivers,they treat drivers like sxxxe they lose them then moan they can’t get drivers,they will never learn
the maoster:
You can strike Sutton off your list Juddian, I have many mates who (through a takeover) work there. They, to a man despise the company. Perhaps way back when it was a family run business it was some kind of shining beacon. Unfortunately nowadays it is by all accounts merely a logistics provider who not only engage in but actively embrace the whole race to the bottom ethos.
It is a company with a massive turnover but very little profit due in part to the top heavy management style adopted whereby anybody with an ology and no connection to transport save having once been overtaken by a lorry can thrive and prosper without actually contributing positively to the company.
you are spot on about both companies, Maoster.
From what I’ve learned so far about both of them, I would only use them to get trained and get some experience, and then get out , even before my commitment expires.
When I enquired about the job with Abbey in London, I was told the rate per hour was Mon - Fri £9/hr, overtime paid at £10/hr after 50hrs, sat paid at £11/hr, sunday and bank hols were at £13/hr, not sure if that changed.
Only know those employed outside of London were on a bit less per hour.
Was also told I would be cab hopping for the first 9 - 10 months, obviously it’s the best case scenario.
Paid only for parking on snap, otherwise lay bys.
Hi All
I worked for Abbeylogisticsgroup for 6 years, the new contract Abbeylogisticsgroup put into place is the worse package ever.
The drivers I still speak with say it’s bottomed out on pay, tackle, and attertude from the new management is appalling.
The new CEO I’ve been told, is going round all the depots to ask what the drivers issues are… again the lads tell me it’s only lip service and no action.
Out of 60 drivers armet had before Abbeylogisticsgroup bought them 32 have left in a 5 month, think that says it all.
Whilst the new operations director is employed by Abbey the problems will never go away.
Hkloss1 is correct in that last post.
All these comments bring up a question that has perplexed me for the few years before I retired, why do the management of quite a number of companies, big and small, have such a bad attitude towards their employees, A truck Driver is not someone you can just drag in of the road, I know there are idiots among the ranks, but then there are idiots in every industry, there are 600 + in the house of commons, but the Truck Drivers always seem to come in for the most abuse and crappy treatment, from what I saw in over 30 years we were no worse than anybody else…and yet?.
I wonder if the problem with Abbey is that it is no longer owned by the owners,it was sold to a venture capital backed management buy out in 2016,so apart from financing the business they have to finance the loans they used to buy it,so it is the workers who have to pay in the form of poor wages.
Gardner6LYT:
I wonder if the problem with Abbey is that it is no longer owned by the owners,it was sold to a venture capital backed management buy out in 2016,so apart from financing the business they have to finance the loans they used to buy it,so it is the workers who have to pay in the form of poor wages.
If that’s right about venture capitalists then it’s probably doomed. Venture capitalists are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are rarely serious planners and more risk takers. That said, they’ll limit their risk… bleed it dry and flog off the skeleton.
.
, though getting the at the time must have BS kitemark (good wheeze that one Claude, kerching) must have quadrupled the paperwork.