Working on the logistics workforce

The impending driver shortage of Large Goods Vehicles (LGV) is one of the most pressing issues in the logistics sector, reports Dr Ross Moloney from Skills for Logistics

The UK logistics sector has slipped to tenth position from eighth place in 2010, according to the 2012 Logistics Performance Index.

The UK’s overall ranking in the Index, developed by the World Bank, fell due to decreases in all six indicators from which the LPI score and rank is calculated. These indicators include logistics competence, tracking and tracing and timeliness, which are directly dependent on the skills levels of the logistics workforce.

Given that the UK is just 25th in the world in terms of the amount of staff training carried out by logistics companies, this should be seen as a call to arms.

Workforce issues
There are approximately 200,000 logistics employers in the UK employing some 2.2 million people – that’s one in 12 of the UK workforce. With half of the sector’s existing employees deemed to fall below minimum qualifications – which is five good GCSEs – levels of training in the sector must be raised if the UK is to climb the international competitive league. In addition, the sector needs to recruit 500,000 people by 2017, partly because of growth and partly due to an aging workforce that will soon be stopping work.

One of the most pressing issues is the impending Large Goods Vehicle (LGV) driver shortage. In April 2012, Skills for Logistics published the report titled ‘A looming driver shortage? The evidence behind the concerns’, which shows that there are substantially more vacancies than candidates seeking an LGV profession. The concern is that 16 per cent of LGV drivers are aged 60 or above so retirement over the next five years is expected to leave a replacement demand for 48,000 drivers. However, there are fewer people taking LGV tests and over the last four years there has been a 31 per cent decline in the number of individuals passing their test.

Seeking out new talent
Across the logistics sector we have to become a little more imaginative in terms of solutions, such as recruiting from new talent pools, such as people leaving the armed forces, which presents is own set of challenges and providing a bridge between military and civilian life. The overall figure for women working in the sector is approximately 23 per cent, compared with an all sector average of 45 per cent – so it’s lamentably low. In transportation there is an even greater imbalance: just one per cent of LGV drivers and five per cent of van drivers are female. Figures for logistics workers from ethnic minorities are also low. In England, individuals from a Black, and Minority Ethnic (BAME) background make up four per cent of the workforce.

The Green Agenda
Environmental sustainability is another challenge for the logistics industry. Companies will increasingly pay for decarbonising the supply chain and this will call for particular skills sets relating to compliance and environmental audits.

Collaboration will become an increasingly important skills set: you can collaborate with your customers and with your suppliers – for example, a vehicle returning to a depot having delivered to a store could pick up from a supplier.

Collaborative opportunities
The next level up is to collaborate between supply chains on routes and counterbalancing flows. A further level of sophistication is where you start looking for collaborative opportunities with the competition – ‘co-opetition’.

But you need the skills set at the supply chain management level and the industry has not been training people in these skills, which are essentially communication skills.

Career progression
There also needs to be career pathways for logistics and career progression in organisations. The ‘Professional Development Stairway’, created by Skills for Logistics, which offers clear career opportunities across ten different career pathways that run from unskilled new entrants up to Global Supply Chain Director, can help to make people aware that it is not just about gaining individual qualifications, but that there are pathways to progression.

There has been a lack of suitable investment in vocational development in logistics as opposed to mandatory training, such as health and Safety.

To improve this situation, companies must have the same quality of decision making relating to the development of their human resource, as they have to apply to decisions on investments such as materials handling equipment or trucks. Craft Skills Groups chaired by the relevant trade association or professional institute and comprising real operators with ‘on‑the‑ground’ experience can have a critical role to play in determining skills needs, initiating solutions and driving them forward.

Changing mindsets
Action is also required to change industry mindsets. Creating a ‘Guild’ to give operatives a body to belong to will play a part in raising the self esteem of people working in the sector.  We must also move smaller employers away from expecting the state to carry out our training for us.

We don’t expect the state to re‑rack our warehouse, or replace our vehicles for us, so why should the state be expected to develop our most important resource? We need to move towards working with a subsidy by the state to enhance one of the most critical investments a company can make – and that’s in its people.

Further information
www.skillsforlogistics.org