Over the course of the year, the transport and logistic industry will have plenty of vacancies. However, as a recent survey on potential threats on business conducted among the Transport & Logistics CEOs shows, there is a huge concern about the availability of core skills such as drivers in the industry. 19 percent of the respondents are ‘extremely concerned’.
That being, as part of growing your businesses, there still is a need to recruit drivers, even though Forbes lists it as one of the hardest positions to fill, alongside skilled trade workers, and nurses.
The difficulty in filling these positions emanates from a 31% decline in the number of students passing the LGV tests as reported by Forbes. Moreover, the largest proportion of LGV drivers are 60 years or older. Therefore, recruiting drivers is proving to be a daunting task for many companies.
These tips are designed to help you improve your chances of being successful in recruiting drivers.
Invest Well in Your Driver Recruitment Efforts
Right from the onset, to be successful in your recruitment campaign, you must invest time, money, and effort in it. Nonetheless, you want to ensure you consider and invest in the right areas.
To this end, consider using the combination of innovative talent acquisition tactics, robust onboarding strategy, and unique employer branding. As such, when you hand out cards and flyers at service stations, ensure the materials outline the advantages of working for your company. Furthermore, always highlight the various considerations that make your company the best place to work as compared to your competitors.
Consider Employing Apprentices and Graduates
You need to network with universities, colleges, and schools, building crucial relationships in the process with the institutions and their students. As such, when enthusiastic students finish their studies, they intuitively file applications for permanent roles, placements, or apprenticeships. A good CPD training provider will ensure that your staff are appropriately qualified.
Keep in mind that 96% of businesses that have apprenticeship programs report having benefited from the program. Moreover, there are plenty of government-driven schemes that support companies that run apprenticeship programs. As such, invest in apprenticeship and you will reap big from the programs.
Encourage the Over 50s in Your Workforce to Participate More
Recruiting skilled labour is an important growth factor for your business. As such, if you want your business to thrive moving into the future, you need to have strategies in place to rejuvenate your workforce.
However, it is important to note an ILC-UK report has suggested that higher participation rates for workers aged over 50 could increase economic output per person by as much as 12.6% by 2050 when participation rates stay constant.
Moreover, aside from being highly experienced and skilled, older employees can be great role-models for the new employees. They can lend a helping hand in training and moulding the new talent you recruit.
Referral Schemes
For your referral scheme to be successful, you need to have great incentives to encourage your drivers to participate in your scheme. You also need to make sure your driver understands exactly what you are interested in and what you are looking for.
Since your drivers have first-hand experience working for you, they can be great ambassadors. Furthermore, they will also have a great idea of who fits your business.
Encourage your drivers to make use of the referral program to earn referral bonuses.
Have A Marketer’s Mindset
You can make use of your website (and SEO) and your social media assets to drive traffic to the recruitment page, enabling you to attract passive candidates.
While direct sourcing and headhunting can form the core strategy of the recruitment process, using marketing tactics will help improve your outreach. As such, use content marketing and blogging to increase traffic to your recruitment page.
Additionally, if you have a recruitment budget, you can use pay-per-click campaigns to reach out to a wider audience. Using these marketing tactics will improve your reach quite significantly.
Research
Gain an in-depth understanding of your industry as well as your competitors. Keep abreast on the standard pay, hours, and benefits in your industry. This information will go a long way in helping you understand the minimum threshold of competitive packages. This, in turn, will allow you to craft competitive packages to the talents you are recruiting.
To attain this knowledge, you can use employee surveys, wherein you can get information on what employee like, what they are interested in, and the things that need improvements. Doing this and using their input will enable you to strengthen your employer brand.
Strategic Relationships
Build a strong relationship with a resourcing partner to encourage. Make sure you have a good understanding of the resourcing goals and objective, incorporating this information on your recruitment strategy. In doing this, your resourcing partner will improve their ability to meet your needs.
