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Why logistics employees leave and how to understand why
Drivers, warehouse staff and delivery teams often leave without a conversation. How to understand why, from routes and rosters to pay and supervisors.
7 min readRead article
Logistics and Transportation · Forklift and material handling dealers
HR for Forklift and Material Handling Dealers: Sales, Service Engineers and Rental Fleets
A material handling dealer sells and rents machines, then keeps them running at customers' sites. Here is how to run the field team that does it.
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Share your requirementsA forklift and material handling dealer sells new and used forklifts, pallet trucks, stackers and cranes, rents them by the month, and services them under annual contracts at factories, warehouses and ports. The team includes sales executives who call on plant managers, field service engineers who travel to customer sites, workshop technicians who overhaul machines, spare parts staff, rental coordinators and, in some cases, operators placed with customers. A breakdown at a customer's dock stops their business, so response time defines the dealer's reputation. Engineers work alone at distant sites, and a sale is often won by whoever has been visiting longest. See also HR for logistics and transportation.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in forklift and material handling dealers, you may see
- Engineers are on the road alone
- Breakdown response is uneven
- Engineers know a few brands deeply
- Customers poach trained engineers
- Operators on customer sites fall between two employers
- Sales and service have different clocks
- Spare parts availability drives repair times
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in forklift and material handling dealers
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Sales executives and key account managers
- Field service engineers
- Workshop and overhaul technicians
- Spare parts and stores staff
- Rental fleet coordinators
- Operators and drivers deployed at customer sites
- Service coordinators and call-centre staff
- Workshop and service managers
Where HR strains in forklift and material handling dealers
Engineers are on the road alone
Nobody sees the work, so quality and time on site depend on the individual's honesty and training.
Breakdown response is uneven
The nearest engineer is not always the free one, and customers with annual contracts compare how quickly they are served.
Engineers know a few brands deeply
Newer models and electric machines need training that the dealer cannot always provide, and customers notice.
Customers poach trained engineers
A factory that uses your machines offers your engineer a stable in-house job without the travel.
Operators on customer sites fall between two employers
Their conduct, safety and leave are managed from a distance, and the customer's rules differ from yours.
Sales and service have different clocks
Sales promises uptime and delivery that service must keep, and complaints return to the seller.
Spare parts availability drives repair times
Stores staff hold knowledge of what is stocked and what is not, and when they are absent engineers wait.
HR topics for forklift and material handling dealers
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Employee Administration; Retention and Attrition Management. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for logistics and transportation, not in general.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a forklift and material handling dealers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Organise engineer routes and standby
Regions, daily visit plans and a rotating breakdown standby, so response is predictable and the work is shared fairly.
What this coversHide
Organise engineer routes and standby
Regions, daily visit plans and a rotating breakdown standby, so response is predictable and the work is shared fairly.
What this coversHideRegions, daily visit plans and a rotating breakdown standby, so response is predictable and the work is shared fairly. See attendance, shift and leave.
Verify field work with simple records
A job report with arrival and departure times, work done and customer sign-off on a phone or paper, feeding service reports and engineer incentive.
What this coversHide
Verify field work with simple records
A job report with arrival and departure times, work done and customer sign-off on a phone or paper, feeding service reports and engineer incentive.
What this coversHideA job report with arrival and departure times, work done and customer sign-off on a phone or paper, feeding service reports and engineer incentive. The GullyHR software can capture time and records.
Build a training ladder by machine type
Skill levels for each model range and an annual plan for new models and electric machines.
What this coversHide
Build a training ladder by machine type
Skill levels for each model range and an annual plan for new models and electric machines.
What this coversHideSkill levels for each model range and an annual plan for new models and electric machines. See the learning and development process.
Treat deployed operators as your own staff
Induction, a safety briefing, a supervisor who visits and a clear rule for conduct and leave, agreed with the customer in advance.
What this coversHide
Treat deployed operators as your own staff
Induction, a safety briefing, a supervisor who visits and a clear rule for conduct and leave, agreed with the customer in advance.
What this coversHideInduction, a safety briefing, a supervisor who visits and a clear rule for conduct and leave, agreed with the customer in advance.
Pair sales and service on key accounts
A monthly review of each large account with both sides present, so promises and delivery are aligned.
What this coversHide
Pair sales and service on key accounts
A monthly review of each large account with both sides present, so promises and delivery are aligned.
What this coversHideA monthly review of each large account with both sides present, so promises and delivery are aligned.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Look at last month's breakdown calls and see how long each took from call to engineer on site.
- List your engineers by the machine types they are certified or trained to repair.
- Visit one site where your operator works and ask what the customer expects.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the employment and contractor obligations that apply to engineers and deployed operators.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Attendance, shift and leave
Standby rotas and visit plans that spread breakdown work fairly and keep response times steady.
- Learning and development
A training ladder by machine type so engineers are ready for new and electric models.
- Retention and attrition
A look at why engineers leave, including to customers, and what you can offer to keep them.
- HR reporting and analytics
Response time, visits and exits shown together so you see how people and service connect.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in logistics and transportation, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
HR Process
The training calendar nobody attends: fixing the learning and development process
A calendar of courses, a budget spent by March and no record of what any of it changed. What a learning and development process contains when it starts from need rather than from the catalogue.
7 min readRead article
HR Process
One employee, three versions of the record: fixing employee information management
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
HR Management
How to recognise and address employee workload problems
How to spot an unmanageable workload before it becomes an exit or an error, what to look at, how to talk about it and what to change, without guessing.
5 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Use a simple job report on a phone, with times, work done and a customer sign-off. It gives you a service record and a fair basis for incentive without constant checking.
You cannot prevent every move, but pay that tracks the market, a growth path by machine type and fair standby rotation reduce the pull. Review any restrictive terms with a qualified professional.
A published rota with compensation for the time, a limit on consecutive weeks and a backup engineer for each region.
Induct them yourself, brief them on safety, visit regularly and agree conduct and leave rules with the customer before they start.
Service owns delivery, sales owns the commitment, and a joint monthly review of each major account keeps both honest.
Expect questions about how long a breakdown call takes to reach an engineer on site, which engineers are trained on which machine types, and how operators placed at customer sites are managed. A practical first job is usually a standby and route arrangement for engineers, with simple visit records. Whatever we take on is written down and agreed with you afterwards.
More on HR for logistics and transportation
All 6 business types in logistics and transportation · Find another business type
Packers and moversCourier and delivery servicesStorage facilitiesAircraft sales and charter companiesLimousine and chauffeur servicesLearning and Development in logistics and transportationEmployee Administration in logistics and transportationRetention and Attrition Management in logistics and transportation
See all HR topics for logistics and transportation, or another industry.