Hi, it’s been a while since I posted on this board. I’ve recently started to take a good look online to see what jobs are out in the world of Agency driving, or perm job as a driver at your company.
I suggest we as drivers underestimate the power of review sites, to hold our agencies more accountable.
Review sites have been around for a while, and it’s a great way to vent your frustrations, so in a way it is a way of making a public complaint, or compliment, or (objectively) both at the same time.
I personally try to get into the habit of finding reviews before I contact a company of agency for work. As a self confessed habitual complainant, I can assure you companies, and agencies worry about reviews a lot.
Both staff and managers, worry that their position is mentioned in a bad review. Think about that for a moment. Put yourself in their shoes. To an extent, they are accountable (online) for the world to see their transgressions.
The company and agency overall are also concerned, that a bad review will appear in a google search for their contact number, so I suggest you use the word contact in your review, to align it with the google search criteria.
Individually we are just a number, and when raising a complaint, the manager gets on the phone, and makes you feel you are a number, a nobody important to them. Yes, that maybe true, but collectively we are very important.
By collectively I mean adding our nobody numbers together to be a big pain in their derrières.
I use TrustPillot, and Indeed jobs , Google Reviews etc… to post honest and fair reviews.
I believe that there are good staff, mixed in with mean spirited staff, usually it’s the manager that sets the moral tone of your dealings with an agency or company. If there is a lot of bad reviews, then it’s safe to say that the local manager is not the right person to lead the staff, and you should always contact the manager first, and mention your experience with that person, as they have the most to lose in a review.
Staff often hide their darker sides, and watch the manager’s attitude to see where the boundaries are, and then there are little cliques of meaner spirited staff who back each other up in their behaviour towards drivers.
Next year, when the tax laws change, and our income will no doubt fall, there will be a lot of drivers retiring. It will be harder for agencies to recruit staff. I think it’s time we show the agencies that they need to get their act together in advance of this event.
Remember, a whole lot of nobodies adds up to bad stain that can’t be rubbed out. That is definitely a big concern for any company, and would be alarming for any company to have multiple bad reviews. Remember to mention the words contact and manager in your reviews to get maximum value for money.
It’s time we became a little more savvy in using the tools available to us, to effect the industry for the better.