Hi people,
I’m currently completing my university dissertation on ‘UK HGV driver skill shortages’
I am urgently requiring feedback from my survey which will contribute to the success of my research and my degree!
If I could ask you to spend, 5-10 minutes just to complete my survey, It would be much appreciated!
https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/HGVSkillShortage
Thank you!
The skills shortage isn’t only in Driving roles the Goods Vehicle Technician, Mechanic or Fitter whatever name you care to use is desperately short of fully qualified (including licence’s) experienced and knowledgeable personnel. The trade is just not attracting young people and finding adequate replacements for staff is increasingly difficult much more than in the driving role I would say. Recent recruitment initiatives in my organisation have produced no successful applicants and agency staff have had to be relied on which unfortunately have been below standard. Dealerships in particular suffer badly from this skills shortage. Franky.
Unfortunately IMHO the industry has gone right down the “Karsie” no matter how many fancy motors are now operating!
Bewick:
Unfortunately IMHO the industry has gone right down the “Karsie” no matter how many fancy motors are now operating!
Mine too Dennis, What ever happend to the good old days when we could make a good living in the haulage game, & salt a bit of dosh away to replace motors & of course for our retirement fund, Its all red tape tape now & jobs for the ■■■■■ that no sweet ■■■■ all about the haulage industry, God help us Eh, Regards Larry.
Lawrence Dunbar:
Bewick:
Unfortunately IMHO the industry has gone right down the “Karsie” no matter how many fancy motors are now operating!Mine too Dennis, What ever happend to the good old days when we could make a good living in the haulage game, & salt a bit of dosh away to replace motors & of course for our retirement fund, Its all red tape tape now & jobs for the [zb] that no sweet [zb] all about the haulage industry, God help us Eh, Regards Larry.
i reckon Dennis has got a couple of his old Borderer’s stashed away…just in case he get’s a bit short 
Not to mention a barn full of ■■■■■■■ and Rolls engines, plus the 50 or so Gardner 240s that he failed to sell before his customers got wind of his dubious practices! 
No, Dennis, I won’t let it lie! Not until I get my cut. 
Oh ■■■■ ! Well it is the right way up in the file so how the ■■■■ it’s ended up on it’s side ■■■■ knows ! I think ROF is ■■■■■■■ about with this thread ! 
I told you, I’ll leave it be when I get my cut!!!
Bewick:
0
Many thanks Tacho for your kind assistance in placing the shot the correct way up ! Apparently ROF keeled over when what blood he has in his body rushed to his head as he was “cocked” over to his left studying the shot and he went blank for 10 minutes and had to be revived with three large brandies. He’s just PM’d me to ask if I will stick another “sideways shot” up Thanks once more Tacho Cheers Dennis.
I haven’t filled out your survey as I don’t think you’re coming from the right direction…
If for generation after generation you have an essential part of society that you systematically witch hunt, belittle, and whose members even though proud themselves, are continuously treated with contempt by the general public, then there’s little wonder that there is a problem recruiting and retaining a stable work force…
The problem often starts with the customer who are them selves under pressure to deliver the goods at the lowest possible prices… all they’re interested in is maximising profit… the company that’s going to win the job is often the company that’ll do for the least amount of money… that then reflects on the equipment that they operate and there fore the personal they attract…
Until you pay the haulage industry what they’re actually worth then things are not going to get any better…
In recent years the over zealous health and safety Nazis who naively bumble around leaving unexplainable turmoil in their wake have encroached into the industry who are them selves covertly driven by the unscrupulous and gouging but necessary insurance industry…
Continuously recruiting inappropriate high turn over staff to infill a quick fix might get you out of an immediate problem but it’s is not a long term solution. Until the industry accepts that driving a truck requires years of accumulated skill to have a profitable out come and rewards its employees appropriately then the situation will continue…
Jeff…
Jelliot:
I haven’t filled out your survey as I don’t think you’re coming from the right direction…
If for generation after generation you have an essential part of society that you systematically witch hunt, belittle, and whose members even though proud themselves, are continuously treated with contempt by the general public, then there’s little wonder that there is a problem recruiting and retaining a stable work force…The problem often starts with the customer who are them selves under pressure to deliver the goods at the lowest possible prices… all they’re interested in is maximising profit… the company that’s going to win the job is often the company that’ll do for the least amount of money… that then reflects on the equipment that they operate and there fore the personal they attract…
Until you pay the haulage industry what they’re actually worth then things are not going to get any better…
In recent years the over zealous health and safety Nazis who naively bumble around leaving unexplainable turmoil in their wake have encroached into the industry who are them selves covertly driven by the unscrupulous and gouging but necessary insurance industry…
Continuously recruiting inappropriate high turn over staff to infill a quick fix might get you out of an immediate problem but it’s is not a long term solution. Until the industry accepts that driving a truck requires years of accumulated skill to have a profitable out come and rewards its employees appropriately then the situation will continue…
Jeff…
I reckon you have it spot on there Jeff.
What I am seeing for some years now and not just inside the haulage industries, is a unrealenting race to the bottom, everybody is encouraged to pick up a knife and stab the guy in front of you until the “winner” last man standing will be required to cut cost just a little more for the good of corperate profit billioneres who will in turn outsource your job to some lucky punter from a third world economy who is not into the banksters for a morgage on a first world house. The bubble CANNOT keep growing and a reset is long overdue.
I was lucky in that when I left school at 16, I got apprenticed into engineering until I was 21 and able to take my class 1 then absorbed into Dads company. I have no regrets about that as it took me all over Europe and being free and single, could stay out for months on end for the sake of a lifestyle that also brought in a few beer tokens. However in my late 20’s it was time to grow up and settle down so back to a 9 to 5 in engineering making about £7.50 an hour in the early 2000’s.
As I read in some of these very forums, there are guys doing night trunks over weekends for the same money 15 years later. Am I skilled driver. Yes. Would I work for that money. HELL NO!!!
It’s not got a lot to do with the money you pay or the top motors you have, never thought I would see this industry be like it is today. Now retired and thankful for that my two sons have carried on but nowadays you cannot even get a bad driver let alone a goodun, the whole haulage game has gone to pot with foreigners everywhere chopping rates to get the work. We are pretty astute at knowing what our costs are and used to get work especially on the fact that we provided a good service for a fair return and there used to be a bit of loyalty in the game, not so any more and proof of this is we have lost work recently by some company cutting not a small slice of our rate but 30% and you are not able to compete with that & to boot it was a foreign company, lets just see how they get on with the reliability stakes, I just hope they fall over so we have the last laugh.
How do you define the skills required to be a lorry driver these days?
Im not sure theres a skill shortage its more down to attitude. No one seems to care if the job doesnt get done .Its been getting worse with an attitude of how can i get out of doing something . I think theres a big percentage (not all) of the young and upcoming generation that just dont give a toss ,who come in and cant finish early enough.With Brexit we have an ideal situation where we can set our own rules and regulations and make our industry more attractive … but don`t hold your breath
ramone:
Im not sure theres a skill shortage its more down to attitude. No one seems to care if the job doesnt get done .Its been getting worse with an attitude of how can i get out of doing something . I think theres a big percentage (not all) of the young and upcoming generation that just dont give a toss ,who come in and cant finish early enough.With Brexit we have an ideal situation where we can set our own rules and regulations and make our industry more attractive … but don`t hold your breath
It seems to me, reading postings in the Professional Drivers section, that these days nobody does nothing without expecting payment for it? Wanting paying for the time taken to walk to the office at the end of the shift etc, when I think of what we did ‘back in the day’ for little or no pay! Things like greasing, oil changing, washing (except H. Gill) tyre inflating plus other routine maintenance tasks which most drivers were expected to do to keep your lorry in good order, sometimes the gaffer would give you a little extra in your wage packet and sometimes not. I can’t ever remember havng a contract, I certainly never signed one, it was all done on trust but these days all that seems to have gone out of the window? 
Very sad, but I guess that’s life in the 21st century?
Pete.
The industry has dumbed and deskilled itself down, aided and abetted by the training industry.
So much of the haulage sector requires no more than a car driver’s capability because so much work is now basically chauffering, select D press the loud pedal and steer, any fule can do it and thats why an increasing minority of fule’s are doing it, it’s reversing the things where they come unstuck.
There are still jobs out there that require a bit of nous, and arguably provide some job satisfaction, not all drivers want to be a bloody brain dead robot attending a steering wheel, this rush to dumb and deskill the job has ripped the heart out of the people still doing it.
Companies, often old ones who should know better, increasingly want robotic clones not lorry drivers with all their faults and different attitudes and strengths.
Little wonder so many of the remaining old school out there are disillusioned and buggering off soon as.
You get handed the keys to your new lorry, it requires no more skill than a car to drive, it will now have automatic braking and active cruise (to help prevent tailgating), it will almost certainly have an auto gearbox of some sort…because they’ve gradually dumbed the job down to lowest common denominator point, so instead of training up the idiots who can’t, you penalise demoralise and do your best to take away the remaining bit of pride your dwindling old school had. (by the way thats not a dig at younger or newer drivers, because old school is an attitude not directly related to age)
Where once upon a time an old hand would take a youngster under their wing (a bloke called Dennis Cowell, decent stick took me under his wing when i first started), and the transport manager (remember when they ran the show instead of sat behind a bloody screen watching the results of in cab spyware?) if he had any sense would try and pair the unofficial trainer and trainee up on various jobs, well that don’t happen any more.
They don’t want the old school ways, Christ some companies even program out the auto gearbox manual override, and many new lorries default back to auto after about 20 seconds should the driver have the audacity to use his eyes and brain reading the road ahead and know better than the bloody machine what sodding gear he might need at what exact moment to maintain smooth progress.
My problem is i can’t understand why anyone would this so called progress is a good thing, one could be forgiven for thinking it was dastardly long term plot from some foreign secret service designed to destroy Britain from within, its not just haulage thats seen this, Britain has been systematically de-industrialised from the 70’s but it really got going in the 80’s, and the honed through generations industrial skills have gone with it, other countries have benefitted.
This will take many years, possibly decades, to repair, University degrees in golf course management social and media studies are not going to rebuild our country.
My other problem is that the latest lorries are no better than what went before (80’s 90’s best years IMHO) for all the electronics they are now stuffed with, ridiculously complicated and far more likely to cost an arm and leg to fix, and so many companies bought into these complcated dealer only machines when the fad for foreign is best (image, looks the part apparently) took off, well now look where we are, the top 5 foreign makers have the industry by the ■■■■■■■■, only the maker’s appointed dealer has a hope in hell of fixing it when any one of a thousand faults crops up, it will have a very limited life so the modern operators are now stuck on the 5 year replacement treadmill they willingly climbed onto.
Well now the talk for our future is about driverless lorries, thats going to work well in the increasingly overpopulated country we live in (sarc), lorries won’t be negotiating anything other than the open road themselves for generations let alone decades, but if you have drivers of the future who only actually drive occasionally when the bloody computers can’t cope, then they won’t have any feel for the lorry and skills will be lost further still.
Do we stop scraping when we reach the bottom of the barrel i wonder.
As usual the questions in the survey are aimed at achieving the answer the sponsor wants. Virtually none of the multiple choice answers give the option which someone considering driving or returning to it would deem important. I suspect the conclusion required is that the taxpayer should subsidise training so that the industry can carry on with its suicide. Starting from the manufacturing top of the supply chain, passing all the way down to the retailer the problem is corporate greed, until the last and weakest link: to those who actually have to do the job. Is it a wonder that the term for round robbin long distance work is called tramping when drivers are viewed and treated as tramps?
Rather than closeting himself in academia and compiling a spreadsheet of tabulated answers, the OP would be better served by visiting a number of MSAs and talking to drivers face to face. This would have the added advantage of demonstrating the extent to which foreign born labour has started to take over the industry.
I baled out of road transport in the mid 70’s just as the lunatics started taking over the assylum. Now computers are taking up the slack between the lunatics ( HSE, Highways Agency, Customs and Excise. Border Patrol, etc) and the Robots (drivers, lorries,transport “managers” traffic clerks etc).
The only way to make any real money these days is to manufacture traffic cones. Glad I am retired Jim.
I did the survey but it was not much kop ,I think there was only one mention of lolly you know that stuff we all get out of bed for then of course conditions no real mention.Young ones are not going to drive a truck for the questions in the survey, I think they will go the foreign route to fill the shortage that will come in 20 years time and good luck to them 
