Q.
I have heard that training is an investment and not a cost, but can you provide me with more details please to help me to sell this internally.
A.
Firstly, let me refer you to this month’s ‘review of a driver training day’ in this same newsletter.
This alone should provide enough information to make a company’s board provide this to everyone who may drive on company business but of course most ‘directors’ will want more before committing to the expense!
The author of this article has been involved both directly and indirectly in ‘driver training’ for over 40 years and has hundreds of case studies, and even more anecdotes, that confirm that a properly constructed, and professionally delivered driver training programme saves money and even makes a profit.
But to give more details let’s refer to a current and ongoing live driver training programme being delivered to a Fleet Service GB client; you can’t get much more real than this.
Before I give you the numbers, I would like to point out that we always suggest that in vehicle training should be delivered ‘off the job’ to get the full benefit from it however, in this case the training is being delivered ‘on the job’ for a variety of reasons. Therefore, the training is in effect taking second place to the driver’s day job, the route is set by the needs of the business, as are the timings of the training. Additionally, some of the training time is spent loading and unloading and dealing with the client’s clients!
However, despite all of this, over the last 8 weeks the training, taking place in 3.5 tonne ‘transit’ type vehicles, that are each completing around 45k miles per annum has produced average Fuelsave figures of 8.9%.
Put into perspective these numbers mean that each driver will save, based on current fuel prices £765 just in year 1. The cost of the training day is £350 so even taking this into account the net year 1 profit on training is £415 per driver.
But of course, this is not just a one-off saving as this will be delivered every year moving forward which can then create a future training budget for even more improvements!
Additionally, and whilst achieving these savings, the journey times have been improved on average by 4.4%. Based on an 8-hour driving day, which is the norm for this business this will save every driver 21 minutes of driving time every day which will further improve their day and their wellbeing, particularly, fatigue!
So there you have it, these actual numbers are facts and quantifiable but additionally, the wear and tear on the vehicle and driver will be reduced, less tyre wear will occur, brakes will last longer, fewer gear changes will be needed, etc, etc…..
We hope that this hot of the press data helps to convince your board to get signed up and make your drivers make your business more profitable and more importantly help them to help themselves to improve their performance and wellbeing.
