Been an interesting Christmas non rush this year, though i suspect Amazon (other inline stores are available) and black Friday increasingly is when much of non food shopping for Christmas is now done, and companies like Amazon who know their markets will have built up stocks for months beforehand.
Same for John Lewis…who incidentally we prefer to buy from due to the better free warranties they offer, but in both the cases of JL and Amazon it’s customer service and warranty, not price alone making them giants…so leading me to think the age of customer service (which the high street ignored and is dying) is making a comeback, another subject you might think but service is paramount, drivers who offer good service, reliability etc, don’t struggle for work
Lots of drivers on here looking forward to creaming premium rates for the period and up to now at least it hasn’t happened.
The good employers, particularly in own account, have been employing again this year and their dependence on agencies seems to be at a recent low.
The less good hire and reward operators who want as cheap as possible a bum to stick on the seat might be using cheaper agencies, for a variety of reasons, though some of those poor employers have set up their own demi agencies anyway.
I hold no candles for agencies, and if they go hungry i won’t be losing any sleep for them, but are their days numbered?
And a question for those who use or have recently used agencies, have you found operators generally taking more of an interest in you?
I don’t think they are dying out. Nor will they - when they can get staff in when needed and out when not at no major cost.
As a general rule - no matter how good/big the company, you are still treated like dirt if you are an agency driver. Given the worst motors. Given the runs no one else wants. And harassed if you don’t know all the small details of the workplace. Asked to do stuff their own staff refuse to do.
I just shrug my shoulders now. I’ve done my best - but it will never be good enough. Last night I did my first ever propper tight blindside reverse without having to get out or take a shunt. That’s the only joy I get from it. Seeing myself improve. Most of the drivers are sound. Everything else is pants.
My lot used to have 45ish agency bods in daily. Give or take obviously.
They’ve now decided it’s too expensive so have moved pay rates and conditions towards the top of the local area leaving them able to pick from a greater pool. The result is just a couple of agency remain as cover but the work force is now pretty much full time instead of 50/50ish, they’ve got a good pay rise and the company is still saving money so from my very local perspective at least the agency work has gone.
Can’t say i was treated as dirt by the clients when i did my agency stints (apart from one memorable attitude from an apparent female behind one supermarket rdc desk), the agency were comprised of one or two decent people, usually the owner(s), but the pointy shoed gelled haired bods they employed tended to be what we’ve come to expect and detest, the worse trait is their lying.
I had an agency lad training with me recently, he mentioned our place was a much nicer environment all round than anywhere else, they get exactly the same runs as the rest of us of us and inducted properly, use exactly the same vehicles and equipment as the full timers and our vehicles are top notch, sadly only two of the agency lads i can think of wash the vehicles when finished, despite receiving them spotless.
It’s quite interesting meeting and working with the agency drivers, you can spot those likely to end up as permanent from a mile off, a few professional wingers who haven’t a hope in hell of going full time.
In my opinion they cut their own throat when they insisted everyone was self employed.Do two shifts and like the job, you just go direct to the client.No need for the agency anymore and your rate goes up.
The Christmas rush has seemed to have disappeared over the past 5 years in all honesty. Whereas it was bedlam until Xmas Eve then dead in January, this is not the case.
January volumes are pretty good now.
I think this is mainly due to people’s drinking habits. The keg trade has died on the whole with the pub trade, while all of us drink at home all year now.
Over the past few years hauliers have been able to say that they can’t get drivers, (customers can’t get FLT and warehouse staff either) so peaks have been flattened.
With regard to agencies dying out, I think we will always need them BUT most of the big players have raised their wages so the difference is less now.
Juddian:
Been an interesting Christmas non rush this year, though i suspect Amazon (other inline stores are available) and black Friday increasingly is when much of non food shopping for Christmas is now done, and companies like Amazon who know their markets will have built up stocks for months beforehand.
Same for John Lewis…who incidentally we prefer to buy from due to the better free warranties they offer, but in both the cases of JL and Amazon it’s customer service and warranty, not price alone making them giants…so leading me to think the age of customer service (which the high street ignored and is dying) is making a comeback, another subject you might think but service is paramount, drivers who offer good service, reliability etc, don’t struggle for work
Lots of drivers on here looking forward to creaming premium rates for the period and up to now at least it hasn’t happened.
The good employers, particularly in own account, have been employing again this year and their dependence on agencies seems to be at a recent low.
The less good hire and reward operators who want as cheap as possible a bum to stick on the seat might be using cheaper agencies, for a variety of reasons, though some of those poor employers have set up their own demi agencies anyway.
I hold no candles for agencies, and if they go hungry i won’t be losing any sleep for them, but are their days numbered?
And a question for those who use or have recently used agencies, have you found operators generally taking more of an interest in you?
I’ve been trunking of late all over the place, but including up to the massive new site at MK that seems to be miles across… MP2
Looking across the yard at the liveried (full time?) drivers there, I would say that this is the very acme of trucking jobs. Straight-forward, and well-paid.
Nice easy work for top dollar at that.
The “Agency Renaissance” has come as far as I’m concerned.
Two days @ there, and 2-4 shifts @ RM across Christmas - and then let’s see what happens in January, where I’d be quite happy getting 2 and 2 ongoingly by that point. FFS at my former employer I was working 5 shifts for less money than I’m now getting for 4! Wot’s not-to-like?
I agree with OP though. This Christmas - is nothing like the ones that have been before, in recent years at least…
Is there any comparison with the time of year when the Soviet Union broke up all those years ago?
Didn’t we have a “golden age of agency” in the Early 90’s after that, where driver’s big bucks could go towards a mortgage on a property much cheaper than they are now?
What young driver, or blue collar worker come to that - hope to get a sole name mortgage on a 3-bedroomed semi these days?
Juddian:
Been an interesting Christmas non rush this year
I hold no candles for agencies, and if they go hungry i won’t be losing any sleep for them, but are their days numbered?
And a question for those who use or have recently used agencies, have you found operators generally taking more of an interest in you?
What Xmas non-rush? Been flat out, was supposed to be on holiday this week, done 50hrs in 4 days with a night out. Got text message saying Stobbies are wanting an extra 30 drivers for Xmas Eve morning and afternoon if I was interested.
Currently their days aren’t numbered however the government announced on Monday they were revoking the Swedish Derogation of the AWR so ALL PAYE agency drivers will be on parity pay after 12 weeks at a firm and agencies can’t use the loophole they have been doing to get out of that. As well as that holiday pay will be calculated as an average of the last 52 weeks, not just the last 12 weeks to counteract the seasonal effect on paid leave. I reckon that those two things which are in my case going to mean the agency is going to have to charge at least £5/hr more will see people like myself who are in effectively full time at clients being offered jobs. I reckon as well that some of the larger companies will take a leaf out of Stobarts book and open an in house agency.
Many of the large operators/3PL are having a rethink of their agency policy. It was recognized that a 50/50 core/agency split was a sensible balance until recently, now many are shifting towards something like a 70/30 with core (full time) being the majority.
The appeal of agency is waning, you can’t switch them off as easily as you used to, the agency will supply elsewhere if their drivers aren’t being utilised regularly.
An agency can be competitive in terms of cost compared to employing full time as long as the majority of their workers are Ltd Co/Umbrella. No agency can survive on the tiny margins they earn on PAYE drivers, typically around £0.80ph, so the forthcoming IR35 legislation terrifies them.
It seems that I was involved in the “golden days of agency”. I had a contract (PAYE of course) which guaranteed me five days work a week. Most jobs paid overtime rates and double time on Sundays. I could pretty well pick and choose what I wanted to do - at least I was free to turn down anything I didn’t like.
Apart from a couple of general haulage jobs, I was never treated as a second-class worker; in fact, agency drivers were often given the easier jobs on the grounds that they were less likely to mess up.
By the turn of the century, the good times were clearly drawing to an end and I switched to drive for one of my regular employers; a good move as it turned out.
I hope not. Im moving into my 12th year of agency driving...and I much prefer it to being tied down to an employer. Im treated well and appreciated as opposed to taken for granted. I have no complaints at all. I get thanked for my work and that goes a long way with me, although I realise a lot of people struggle. Maybe if youre not as confident or experienced it can be difficult...no offence meant, but if you are 100% sure of what youre doing its a whole lot easier and the office has confidence in you. You dont get that from a classroom, its hard earned over many years.
Agencies will never die out as long as there are people willing to be treated like dirt, there are a few who use them for their own benefit and good luck to them but as for the others there is little hope
I think there’s a rising trend for the bigger companies to “grow their own”; this inevitably means that there will be less new drivers who would formerly have had to go down the agency road to gain experience.
Whilst the shortage of experienced drivers, either real or perceived, has not noticeably improved rates, it has meant that employers have had to work harder to retain existing drivers and recruit new ones. Some, like my own, have started advertising vacancies themselves rather than outsourcing to agency.
I posted a few weeks ago how I felt it was very quiet this Christmas compared to last year- I’m working a Saturday shift tomorrow but that will be the first one this year, whereas last year I was being offered them from the beginning of November onward, often paying premium rates and bonuses.
The agency I’m on for do seem to be moving towards a model of supplying drivers on a temp-to-perm basis rather than supplying ad-hoc drivers, although obviously I’m not interested in that.
I know agencies get a bad rep, and rightfully so. However i got my first 6 months experience with an agency, and although companies can say we don’t want that particular driver, you too can say i don’t want to work for that company.
I had all the work i could have asked for on agency and after a month of working here there and everywhere i picked 2 companies i specifically wanted to work for and still had tons of work. They both offered me a permanent role but i didn’t want a mon-fri nights out job and had to turn them down.
Then just randomly out of nowhere after 6 months work with nothing but praises i stopped getting calls from the agency for exactly one month after that month they wouldn’t stop ringing me, but i had already moved on to a permanent role so i just blocked their number.
Now because of the agency work i have experience driving all sorts of trucks and carrying all sorts of loads which did help me find a permanent position so really i think agencies are needed to teach new truckers how to handle the job, but they are very poorly managed and have all sorts of idiot drivers, my gaffer has swore he will never hire another agency driver as long as he lives after the last one xD
Arrrgh! - I’ve been clobbered for 40% tax W0 . NOT happy that one apparently gets penalized for doing two jobs. I thought emergency tax was @ 20% in any case - not 40 plus the 10% NICs on top…
I’m gonna have to do more supermarket and less RM now, - or I’ll not be able to clear enough to pay the month-end bills…
As the RH flour contract has been winding down over the past couple of weeks and I was barely struggling to get 8hrs a day out of it and only working 4 out of the 5 day I was booked for, last week it went ballistic with customers trying to get a last stock delivery in before Fridays cut off date. Runs where planned to take into account of the de-hiring of kit ie: 26 plts to burton Latimer then run 142 miles up the M6 to hireco at haydock to drop off the trailer, then 92 miles bobtail back to the yard. Myself and the other drivers (inc staff) where due to work next Monday Thursday and Friday. But 30mins before I got back to the yard I had a text message from the office telling the job is finished and we are off next week, only a few office and warehouse staff are working next week and the 75 plts that are due to go out are being subbed out
