Inspired by “Sorting the wheat from the chaff” by toby1234abc.
Driving agencies bring together transport companies and a drivers. (stating the obvious here) So simply middle men retaining the lions share of their fee and offering the driver the least amount they can get away with. I know of one company who paid them £25 per hour. Even if the driver received half of that they (agency) still do very well off the back of the hard working drivers. thank you very much. Early starts, long hours, away from home… the list is endless.
These middle men are surely costing the industry, what with increased fuel costs on top etc. So develope a website of freelance drivers together with transport companies looking for drivers, set up properly it’s possible it could run itself and most importantly the driver would be paid what they are worth and the companies would pay less than with an agency. Any advertising revenue would pay for the site.
Their must be some alternative to the agencies.
Anyway just thinking out loud…!
global
That’s just basically being self employed isn’t it?? There’s a fella that is working for us on “agency” except he’s not got going through his agency he’s just billing them.
I can’t see how Agencies have helped the industry. If they were actually recruiting for companies then fine but it’s an endless cycle of temp jobs. I’m glad I managed to avoid it.
FarnboroughBoy11:
That’s just basically being self employed isn’t it?? There’s a fella that is working for us on “agency” except he’s not got going through his agency he’s just billing them.
Exactly. I realised what was going on and decided I wanted the agency’s share of the pie so I set up self employed using my reputation locally I’d got as an agency driver and approaching the same businesses I’d driven for on the agencies.
Maybe it worked for me because I took pride in my job even as an agency driver unlike many I see who don’t seem to give a rats arse how good a job they do “cos they’re just agency drivers and people expect them to be crap”
The Saxmachine:
I can’t see how Agencies have helped the industry.
Are you being serious? It supplies a flexible workforce which you don’t have to keep when the work isn’t there and you as an employer don’t have to pay employers NI and holiday pay to.
But aren’t the jobs harder to get because they are farmed out through agency as part time or as and when needed jobs. And then you have more people after the job because they have so many people signed up.
I may well be completely wrong but I never liked working through agency.
Of course there are agencies around now and if that is your only way of getting the bills paid then fair doos. You do what you’ve got to do and that’s that.
The Saxmachine:
Maybe good for an employer but not employee
i started off on agency and have done a lot of agency work on an off. i think it was a great way to get into the industry, driving different trucks, doing different types of work, gaining contacts, time off when i wanted as opposed when allowed! getting permanent jobs out of it when suited and usually getting paid more then the employed drivers whilst doing so. granted this was 10 years ago under a different economic climate, but it worked for me at the time.
people in business can choose how they want to run their own business, if that means they want to use agencies then so be it, no one has a right to “that job”
agencies are in business, the basic idea of which is charge as much as you can and still get the trade whilst paying as little as you can but still getting the right quality of resources - they are not a charity!