managing driving agencies
Created | Updated Dec 11, 2005
There are many disadvantages a few advantages to working for driving agencies. Most of these can only be solved be gaining permanent employment, preferable in an entirely different industry. However if you should find yourself working as a agency driver the following tips gained over five years of dealing with the driving agencies might prove useful.
1. NEVER GO TO A LAST MINUTE JOB. Agencies will call you from time to time asking that you report ASAP to such and such job. You might be tempted (no pun intended) if you haven’t worked recently. Unless your literally starving do not do it. Should you “do them a favour” it will be remembered forever. To a “recruitment consultant” this means that you can be relied upon to go a short notice to anyone who phones in needing a driver. Therefore you will be the last person to be assigned a job since once you are sent you are not available and on stand by for last minute calls. If no work turns up then you will be the guy left waiting for the phone call. The amount of work and therefore money you will miss out on for doing an agency a favour is enormous. The more Bolshie you are the more (and better) work you get.
2. SIGN UP WITH MULTIPLE AGENCIES. Working for more than one agency at first glance might appear to be a hassle you could do without. There will be taxation issues because you will be getting two lots of tax free allowance. Or worse paying two lots of Basic Rate tax. There will be paperwork issues as you sort out different agencies timesheets and tachos. However once an agency has phoned you once and found you unavailable because a you are already booked by a second agency you immediately go to the top of the list of the first agency. This is because they must book you ASAP in order to prevent the second agency from doing so. Failure to do so not only means they run the risk of turning work away for lack of drivers but have to do so in the knowledge that the second agency could well be fulfilling a vacancy which had customarily been there’s with there own drivers. This is tantamount to adultery to a recruitment consultant and evokes the same kind of insecurity and outrage in their souls. The process will be reversed as some as the second agency finds you booked by the first.
3. ALWAYS TURN UP FOR THE JOB. Agencies can forgive almost anything. This Christian outlook is inspired more by the enormous amounts of cash which they stand to make out the driver than any philosophical conviction. However the only thing worth more than a driver to an agency is a client with a lot of trucks which need drivers. Unlike other jobs where a sicky results in nothing more than a smaller pile of useless paperwork failure of a driver to attend a job results in twenty tons of cargo in a sixty foot truck sitting conspicuously in the wrong place. This causes massive problems and costs for everyone concerned. It might be worth no more than a ton to you but don’t imagine that is a reflection of the importance attached to the task by everyone else. Acquire a reputation for unreliability and be prepared to watch a lot of Richard and Judy.
4. DON’T RUSH IT. You’re going to be paid by the hour and the working time directive applies to people in telesales and customer relations not grimy truckers like you. The only way to make any money in this game is on the time and a half overtime. Nobody will thank you for doing the job quickly and nobody will notice if you lose a couple of hours. Once your out the gates you effectively cease to exist as far as the office monkeys are concerned. Because you will be automatically stopped three quarters of an hour after eight hours if you work nine hours you will only be paid one quarter of the ninth hour. This means you have to work slightly MORE than ten in order to actually get the advertised hourly rate(1). You want at least twelve ideally to make it worth your while. Great job isn’t it?
5. TALK TO THE OTHER AGENCY DRIVERS. Agency drivers cultivate information on the prospects of the logistics industry and agencies with the same degree of assiduousness as stock market brokers do with the FTSE. If an agency breaks ranks and increases the hourly rate by 2% they will know. Information is also available on average hours, working conditions and preferred agencies at different transport companies
REMEMBER YOU’RE A DRIVER NOT A CLIENT. EXPECT NO LOYALITY AND GIVE NONE
#1. 8 hours @ 10 quid = 80 quid. 9 hours @ 10 quid = 83.75 or 9.30 per hour adjusted. 10 hours = 9.88 per hour adjusted
1. NEVER GO TO A LAST MINUTE JOB. Agencies will call you from time to time asking that you report ASAP to such and such job. You might be tempted (no pun intended) if you haven’t worked recently. Unless your literally starving do not do it. Should you “do them a favour” it will be remembered forever. To a “recruitment consultant” this means that you can be relied upon to go a short notice to anyone who phones in needing a driver. Therefore you will be the last person to be assigned a job since once you are sent you are not available and on stand by for last minute calls. If no work turns up then you will be the guy left waiting for the phone call. The amount of work and therefore money you will miss out on for doing an agency a favour is enormous. The more Bolshie you are the more (and better) work you get.
2. SIGN UP WITH MULTIPLE AGENCIES. Working for more than one agency at first glance might appear to be a hassle you could do without. There will be taxation issues because you will be getting two lots of tax free allowance. Or worse paying two lots of Basic Rate tax. There will be paperwork issues as you sort out different agencies timesheets and tachos. However once an agency has phoned you once and found you unavailable because a you are already booked by a second agency you immediately go to the top of the list of the first agency. This is because they must book you ASAP in order to prevent the second agency from doing so. Failure to do so not only means they run the risk of turning work away for lack of drivers but have to do so in the knowledge that the second agency could well be fulfilling a vacancy which had customarily been there’s with there own drivers. This is tantamount to adultery to a recruitment consultant and evokes the same kind of insecurity and outrage in their souls. The process will be reversed as some as the second agency finds you booked by the first.
3. ALWAYS TURN UP FOR THE JOB. Agencies can forgive almost anything. This Christian outlook is inspired more by the enormous amounts of cash which they stand to make out the driver than any philosophical conviction. However the only thing worth more than a driver to an agency is a client with a lot of trucks which need drivers. Unlike other jobs where a sicky results in nothing more than a smaller pile of useless paperwork failure of a driver to attend a job results in twenty tons of cargo in a sixty foot truck sitting conspicuously in the wrong place. This causes massive problems and costs for everyone concerned. It might be worth no more than a ton to you but don’t imagine that is a reflection of the importance attached to the task by everyone else. Acquire a reputation for unreliability and be prepared to watch a lot of Richard and Judy.
4. DON’T RUSH IT. You’re going to be paid by the hour and the working time directive applies to people in telesales and customer relations not grimy truckers like you. The only way to make any money in this game is on the time and a half overtime. Nobody will thank you for doing the job quickly and nobody will notice if you lose a couple of hours. Once your out the gates you effectively cease to exist as far as the office monkeys are concerned. Because you will be automatically stopped three quarters of an hour after eight hours if you work nine hours you will only be paid one quarter of the ninth hour. This means you have to work slightly MORE than ten in order to actually get the advertised hourly rate(1). You want at least twelve ideally to make it worth your while. Great job isn’t it?
5. TALK TO THE OTHER AGENCY DRIVERS. Agency drivers cultivate information on the prospects of the logistics industry and agencies with the same degree of assiduousness as stock market brokers do with the FTSE. If an agency breaks ranks and increases the hourly rate by 2% they will know. Information is also available on average hours, working conditions and preferred agencies at different transport companies
REMEMBER YOU’RE A DRIVER NOT A CLIENT. EXPECT NO LOYALITY AND GIVE NONE
#1. 8 hours @ 10 quid = 80 quid. 9 hours @ 10 quid = 83.75 or 9.30 per hour adjusted. 10 hours = 9.88 per hour adjusted
