This year’s Livestock and Bulk Carriers Association Conference took place in Tamworth with a wide range of topics brought to the fore, including fixing driver shortages among others.
One of the strengths of the LBRCA Conference is that it gets rural operators to stand up in front of their peers and talk about the issues which affect them all. There are experts on the stand as well, but it is the real world stories from trucking operations which regularly hit the mark.
One of the topics under discussion was the problem of finding drivers and then retaining them when they are found.
“We have a workshop which does a lot of truck repairs, and that’s where I got a lot of ideas from,” said Mick McCulloch, Managing Director of McCulloch Bulk Haulage. “We compete for drivers and mechanics with the mining industry. Everyone’s situation is a little bit different, when you look at where you are losing your drivers to. Our problem is the mines and lifestyle.
“The workshop runs a five/four roster and the blokes work 10.5-hour days and the do five off, four on and then five on, four off. So, they are working two weekends on and two weekends off. The night shift does 36 hours a week and the day shift does 36.5 hours a week. That gives us a very good coverage.
“Driving a truck, you might work ten days straight on AFM, and then they want two or three days off. We are trying a driver situation where they are working seven days on, seven days off. We increase the productivity of the truck by about 35 per cent. Obviously, our wages are a lot higher, because we are paying for their week off as well. We started it in January and it’s been a great success. The number of phone calls I have gotten from drivers that want to do it is unbelievable. The problem is you have to manage two drivers per truck, and we are working on that.”
Mick also points to the problem that truck drivers are not classified as skilled labour. His operation can bring in mechanics on a 482 temporary shortage skilled visa from overseas, but not drivers. Mick’s operation is making progress, unfortunately, not everyone can work on the kind of shifts he uses, because there isn’t enough weekend work for everybody, but it has improved driver retention.
For more stories like ‘Driver Shortages’ – see below
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