Industry leaders have offered their solutions to the freight industry’s labour crisis at a panel on the first day of Multimodal 2019
Link work to a bigger purpose: that was one message from HSBC’s global head of resourcing and onboarding during a Multimodal 2019 panel focused on the question of how to solve the current labour crisis faced by the freight industry.
Speaking on the first day of the supply chain solutions exhibition, taking place this week at the Birmingham NEC, the bank’s Hamish Nisbet said: “People increasingly ask themselves not: ‘What am I doing?’, but: ‘Why am I doing this?’, and so as organisations, it becomes really important that we help create that connection and purpose.”
Mr Nisbet also called for ensuring access to the broadest talent pool possible and establishing a cultural environment “that allows everyone to be themselves”.
According to him, organisations with the ability to do these three things are the ones that will “win in a commercial environment”.
The event saw panellists give their thoughts on, and solutions to, the freight sector’s labour crunch.
Leigh Anderson, Bis Henderson Recruitment managing director, said of the crisis: “This is as bad as it’s been in 30 years,” while Sally Gilson, the Freight Transport Association’s head of skills, said that a diversity problem exists “right the way across the board”.
According to statistics presented by Mr Anderson during the panel, over a quarter of supply chain personnel worldwide are over retirement age and just 15% of senior leadership roles in the supply chain are held by women — an amount Mr Anderson called “pathetically low”.
Furthermore, 70% of businesses claim that industry perception is their biggest challenge regarding hiring to the labour pool, while 45% of firms are finding it difficult to employ.
Communication was an overarching theme expressed by the panel concerning the question of how to remedy the labour crunch.
Beth O’Neill, business development director at DHL (for the UK and Ireland and the Mainland Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions), called for simplifying language in logistics, while Dr Naomi Irvine, director of Naomi Irvine Ltd, talked about “using conversations about culture to underscore the importance of change”. Additionally, Ms Gilson called for people to be positive about the industry, noting that it “[suffers] from a really bad perception problem”.
