FUTUREPROOFING TRANSPORT: UPSKILLING IN TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS

If the events of the past few years have taught us anything, it’s that the modern world is knitted together by the transport and logistics industry.   

The Australian transport and logistics industry dwarfs many other sectors of the economy. In 2022, the industry is worth more than $100 billion and employs more than half a million people across its major sub-sectors: road transport, logistics, warehousing and stevedoring.  

With the industry changing so much every year from a wide variety of influences, it is incredibly important to the Australian economy that talented and highly skilled workers are attracted and retained.   

In this blog we’ll be looking at some of the initiatives that are being taken across the nation to keep the industry and the supply chain strong and healthy.   

FUTURE PROOFING  

Some organisations are actively future proofing, recognising the critical need for training and upskilling to ensure the longevity of the industry.    

A good model for this sort of work is The Queensland Trucking Association (QTA).   

The QTA has been investing in training, skilling and upskilling for many years now, but more recently, workforce development has been listed as a core tenet of their COVID recovery plan for the transport and logistics industry.   

The QTA have designed the Road Freight Resilience Program to provide “micro-credentials” for people in the transport industry. These courses cover a range of topics from COVID-19 Hygiene to Fuel Tax Credits and Heavy Vehicle Safety.   

This extra content delivered through webinars, structured courses and online quizzes can be beef up a CV, to expand a worker's knowledge or to boost safety on Queensland's roads. A great example of this is the upcoming seminar on vehicle camera systems, a course driven by the key learnings from the Emerging technologies project aimed at battling driver fatigue.   Meanwhile, transport industry stakeholders set up the not-for-profit Transport Education Audit Compliance Health Organisation (TEACHO) to administer the BlueCard initiative.   

Under this program, you must pass a course to prove you have shown consistent safety standards and an appreciation for the danger of the work. The BlueCard Skills Training Passport System was designed to help incorporate national competency standards within the industry.  

INCENTIVISING THE WORKFORCE  

More than ever, it is critical to shape the industry in a way that will attract young people who will view it as a genuine career path. An important way to do this is to focus on the exciting professions that fall under this umbrella.   

Many transport businesses are currently pushing hard to recruit quality service technicians an bring on apprentices.   

These is a highly skilled and valuable positions to any capital equipment manufacturer, dealer or supplier and are increasingly being treated as such.   

Many OEMs run annual skills competitions, wherein service technicians compete against one another in written and practical tests to first form a national squad who will then compete against rivals from all over the world.   

There are a range of other incentives and value-adds in this space, helping to attract and retain the best talent within the industry.   

Experience-based incentives, such as the opportunity for technicians to attend sporting events like V8 Supercar race meetings - provide a combination of experience and thrill, keeping technicians motivated and engaged.     The emphasis for industries now is to guard themselves against an uncertain future.    With a changing economic environment expected to put further pressure on many Aussie businesses, it is in everyone’s best interests to ensure that the transport and logistics chain, Australia’s backbone, remains strong.  Interested in a career in the automotive world? Give our Job Opportunities page a visit to explore the variety of career paths available across Isuzu.