roughyed:
I went for an Assessment/Induction last Wed through NDS Agency.
I was taken through the whole process by a chap called Derek, and the driving part went well, apart from one or two minor errors, and at one point did 33mph in 30, which I corrected quickly. I was driving a new Actross, which I was unfamiliar with. This vehicle came with satellite control, which when switched to Aeconomy mode, will hold the gears on on incline so the driver will not be allowed to change down, and will drop it a gear when going down hill. All very technical,and all designed for max mpg. So all this was being explained to me whilst out on the road, and I found it useful.
On returning to the depot, I was told I had passed with a hight standard of driving, and not to let it slip.With that, now 2 hours into the assessment, I had to go through the induction part, covering the MAN’s and DAF’s, the trailers, Double Deckers, and other on site rules. Then the paperwork.All in all, I was there 4 hrs. I was told by Derek, I’ll email NDS to tell them you’ve passed, and good luck working here. I rang NDS and ttold them, they said leave it with us, and we’ll get you a start time for tomorrow.
After not hearing from them since, I rang them yesterday to see what was going on, to be told , we were told you have failed, so I informed them Derek had passed me. So NDS rang Yodel, and they were informed the Manager above Derek has failed me for “excessive speed”. The only time I broke the limit was doing 33 over 30, and it was rectified very quickly.
So that’s it for me, no more assessments and inductions. I’d rather go hungry than allow myself to be humiliated in this manner. This cost me a days wage last week to this requirement at Yodel. NDS didn’t seem to want to challenge the decision, just got the lackadaisical reply "there’s nothing we can do about it. NDS got the email the same day, and I find it disgraceful that they didn’t have the decency to inform me as soon as they new. For a driver with 37
yrs experience to pass me, with 25 yrs exp, then to be over ridden by a “manager”, is quite ridiculous.
As far as I’m concerned now, it’s Yodel’s loss.
I went for an assessment at TNT in Crawley a few weeks ago after a local agency told me this was one of their two biggest clients (the other being a pallet company). I had to take a day out of work to go through all their paperwork and lectures and take a test drive in their nice new Actroses. I passed the test, but had two days out of them – one being a Sunday run down to Eastbourne and back, the other being a night shift run to Tamworth. That night, I got off in good time and had to drop a trailer at Kingsbury and pick one up at Atherstone to go back to Crawley.
When I got to Kingsbury I dropped the trailer OK, but couldn’t find anywhere to park the tractor on site that didn’t risk getting blocked in, so I drove off and took my break at Tamworth services. I then headed for the Atherstone depot at the postcode I’d been given, which turned out to be a building in the centre of Atherstone which showed no signs of being a TNT building on a 7.5T weight limit section. I pulled over and Googled “TNT Atherstone” and found the correct postcode, headed back out and parked up on the outskirts of the depot as it was the only place there was a space. As it turned out, the trailer was already loaded and ready to go, so I went back out, hooked up and headed back down south. As I was leaving, I got a call asking where I was and I said I was three hours away, and was told I should be back in an hour. I told him the reasons and he basically said get back ASAP.
Anyway, the evening after, just as I was about to go off to work, I got a call from the agency saying I wasn’t needed because I’d been late back the previous day. I told them that there were a number of reasons and most of them weren’t my fault, but they still weren’t interested in having me back. And this was after they’d pestered me to take on work there all that week saying they were desperate, even though I had medical appointments on one of the days they wanted me to work.
I also went down for an assessment at Bleach of Lavant when I was still a class 2. No assessment as such, except for driving, but I think that bit went off fairly well. Never heard a word out of them again, and I’d travelled 50 miles to get to them. I also sent an updated application form after passing my class 1 (and after getting a bit of experience, including a Pallet Force run), and they didn’t even acknowledge it. Their pay rates aren’t that great, though, even for class 1, and I made it clear that if I was offered more, closer to home (highly likely), I’d take that.
The problem with assessments is not just that they take a day out of your working life which you don’t get paid for. It’s also that once you’ve done them, they will always want you to do that job even if you’re busy or have appointments or just don’t want to work for them, or work that day at all. Their other drivers can’t go in because they’ve not been to the assessment, and they blame you if you “let them down”. The odd thing is that it’s only big companies (TNT, Yodel, Norbert Dentressangle) that do this sort of thing.
