Companies Must Adapt to Attract Talent
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People see that there is more money in other markets that also give the option of working flexibly at home, so “the project cargo market just doesn’t have the pulling power,” said Alchemy Global Talent Solutions’ David Cohen.
He believes that breakbulk and project cargo companies are going to struggle to continuously attract good talent unless they become more adaptable because they are competing with different markets.
Cohen said he was encouraging businesses to take on people with no experience in the industry – for example college leavers and train them from scratch. However, companies dealing with large, high-value contracts don’t like taking risks and hiring people without experience, he said. “But there is only one way for people to get that experience.”
He suggested companies should take on an experienced person as a part-time consultant, to act as a tutor and support junior members of the team.
“A lot of people who are retired want to give back to the industry they worked in. Years ago, companies would have taken on juniors and trained them up. But now they want someone who can start in the job and immediately do it – they haven’t got time. But in our experience, bringing in a young person and training them makes them more likely to stay – they tend to have more loyalty.”
He added: “In many instances, companies won’t even consider someone who has freight forwarding experience because they don’t have time to teach them about out-of-gauge cargo.”
Time is the biggest issue, he said, and while the volume and value of contracts is considerably more, the margins are so low compared with 20 years ago. This means training programs are often put on the backburner.
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