Freight Forwarding Group Ahead of the Curve as Logistics Staff Shortages Addressed

UK – The past two or three years have seen a rising fear amongst those who run road haulage and freight forwarding companies at the lack of staff, with shortages of HGV drivers and qualified office and warehouse personnel, a situation aggravated of course by Brexit uncertainty as EU nationals may choose to leave the UK.

One company which obviously decided to take this paucity of suitably skilled logistics staff in hand long before it became de rigeur is independent forwarder Davies Turner & Co, which has just seen its own trainee recruitment programme enter its 10th year.

The Davies Turner training scheme, which includes both BIFA-accredited and in-house training in its wide-ranging and multimodal freight services, as well as its international logistics operations, means an excellent foundation for its students in all elements of the forwarding industry. The latest group of recruits for its 2019 training scheme recently completed their initial induction programme at the company’s regional distribution centre at Coleshill in the UK.

The new trainees will learn all aspects of Davies Turner’s multimodal business during the training scheme, which started this month, and the company says they can be confident that, subject to performance and practical experience, they will like many of their predecessors, have the opportunity to progress into management and supervisory roles.

During the training programme participants spend time in all surface freight and logistics divisions, in addition to gaining an overview at Davies Turner Air Cargo, central administration, IT and the company’s accounts department. Once again, this year, Davies Turner has also recruited additional trainees separately to the group training scheme who will receive training specialising in one area of the company’s business, such as overland trailer services, ocean freight or third party logistics. Davies Turner Group Chairman, Philip Stephenson, said:

“Although training and apprenticeships for graduates and A-level school-leavers wishing to follow a career in freight forwarding and logistics are firmly back on the agenda in the UK following the recent introduction of the Apprentice Levy as well as the Trailblazer and Government Apprenticeship schemes, Davies Turner has always been ahead of the curve on this important issue. We need to recruit and train good all-rounders to safeguard the long term future development of the company as well as benefitting their own career satisfaction.

“We are now in the tenth year of investing in our own comprehensive training programme and I’m pleased to report that most of the more than 100 trainees that we have recruited over the last decade are still working within the company, which I attribute to our mentoring system and determination to challenge trainees with interesting and responsible career opportunities at the end of their two years learning with us.”