US lines: Where is all the sales talent in freight forwarding?
Perhaps we should go back to basics
In one of those rather unusual pieces of weekly analysis for me, I recently caught up with John Delgado, the founder of Search Logistics, who agreed to share some insightful interviews with the industry executives he regularly meets.
I asked John to share his views on the market; here are some key excerpts of a recent Q&A that touched upon staff trends, M&A, sector changes and others.
Trends for staff and new requirements that are key for employers in ...
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Comment on this article
Tom
July 04, 2019 at 10:33 am“People just don’t have the same loyalty to companies as previous generations. People routinely leave a great job for another $5k a year… I’m looking forward to a commonsense return to old-fashioned loyalty. It’s becoming common for people to move, on average, every three years, not even I have the power to make that look great on a resumé.”
If only companies had the same “old-fashioned” loyalty and pay fair wages.
Also, $5000 / year more is for the common man a lot of money!
John Delgado
July 04, 2019 at 11:08 amHello Tom,
I agree with you that 5K is an impactful figure for most people or as you say “the common man.”
People are a company’s most valuable asset. Within the logistics space I can’t think of any companies that would rather lose a valuable employee vs paying them another 5K per year, or 10K or maybe even more. The cost of a rehire and the ancillary expenses exceed the 5K number. The X factor in this discussion is the specific candidate, does the specific candidate warrant being paid more per year when they approach their company for a raise.
My point in the article was simply there is a culture in logistics that the grass is always greener on the other side and rather than give their current employer a chance to implement a raise, people just leave.
All the Best,
John
Tom
July 04, 2019 at 12:46 pmHello John,
thank you for your explanation. I agree that employees who stay 10/20/30 years in one logistics company are rare nowadays. I think this has to do with expecting a lot of flexibility from employees, especially in logistics.
But I have made also the experience here (airfreight forwarding in Germany), that people are aware that it’s not greener on the other side. They leave because wage rises are seldom, even in good times. Ironically, they are very often offered one when they quit.
Best regards
Tom
John Delgado
July 04, 2019 at 2:11 pmHi Tom,
Sounds like we should just meet at a cafe and talk logistics for a couple hours 🙂
You make a fair point, pay increases in Europe tend to happen less frequently compared to the US, unless you are middle to senior management.
John
Rajesh Nair
July 05, 2019 at 6:29 amHi, John
Please let me know the email I’d.
Regards,
Rajesh.
John Delgado
July 05, 2019 at 11:04 amI believe to leave a comment the email ID is your own email address.
Hope this helps.
John
Mike Pipia
July 08, 2019 at 2:12 pmI have to agree the lost talent of logistics people is networking to gain knowledge. I call that first hand knowledge, most important. This allows you to act faster, act with confidence, making the correct choices for your customers. Longevity is a thing of the past, and I would say the blame falls on both sides here. Current Management do not understand the importance of LONGENVITY, and employees what to much to fast. Longevity feeds networking that feeds knowledge that feeds UNDERSTANDING.
WHAT IS TO HARD ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THE BASIC NEEDS TO BE THE BEST?
John Delgado
July 08, 2019 at 6:04 pmI can tell you based on compensation structures, and incentives that companies are very interested in longevity, the cost of anti longevity is a heavy cost for all companies…these costs get passed on to the customers…employees need to be patient, I agree with that assessment.