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 articleAn import export trading company sources goods abroad or sells overseas, working on relationships, paperwork and timing. A small team of traders, coordinators and accounts staff holds the contacts and the process in a few heads.

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Share your requirementsAn import export trading company buys goods from suppliers in one country and sells them in another, earning on margin and service. A typical team has a founder or head trader, sourcing and sales executives, an export-import coordinator, a documentation person, a shipping and logistics coordinator, an accounts and finance person, and sometimes a quality inspector. Customers and suppliers are reached by phone, email and chat across time zones, so calls come late in the evening. Orders depend on trust built over years. Documents must match contracts, letters of credit and customs requirements. Margins can vanish through one missed deadline or error. Because teams are small, each person holds a large part of the business, and confidentiality of prices and contacts matters. See also HR for logistics and transportation.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
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.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in import export trading companies. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Supplier and buyer relationships sit on individual chats and numbers, not in company records.
Calls and messages arrive at night, and expectations of reply become unspoken rules.
A mismatch between contract and papers can delay payment or cargo.
Traders, coordinators and accountants all touch an order, and tasks fall between them.
Margins and supplier costs, if leaked, damage the business, but staff are rarely briefed on confidentiality.
Knowledge of terms, documents and markets is passed on in conversation, and juniors wait for seniors' time.
Trade fairs, visits and sample shipments are arranged at the last minute.
Staff wait for the owner on pricing, credit and exceptions, and growth stalls.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Organisation Design; Policies, Compliance and Governance; HR Operations and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for logistics and transportation, not in general.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
The pieces a import export trading companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A shared contact system with notes and a second owner for key accounts.
A shared contact system with notes and a second owner for key accounts. See employee information management.
Core hours, a rota for late calls and time off after them.
Core hours, a rota for late calls and time off after them. See attendance, shift and leave.
One checklist per order showing documents, owners and dates.
One checklist per order showing documents, owners and dates. See HR documentation.
Who owns the contract, shipment, papers and payment follow-up for each order.
Who owns the contract, shipment, papers and payment follow-up for each order.
A short briefing and signed acknowledgement on pricing, supplier and buyer information, reviewed with a qualified professional.
A short briefing and signed acknowledgement on pricing, supplier and buyer information, reviewed with a qualified professional.
Terms of trade, document sets and markets, taught in stages.
Terms of trade, document sets and markets, taught in stages. See learning and development.
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 requirementsConfirm 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.
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.
Company-held records of contacts, orders and staff roles.
Role descriptions and order file standards.
A staged learning path for trade terms, documents and markets.
Core hours and a rota for late international calls.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in logistics and transportation, and one on each of the topics this page points to.

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Record them in a shared system with notes, add a second contact per key account and make it part of daily practice. Have the terms checked by a qualified professional.
Set core hours, rotate late cover and give time back after late calls.
One order checklist, a second check before sending and a review of past mismatches.
List each stage of an order and name one owner and one backup for each.
Brief staff, limit who sees margins, and record the understanding. Ask a qualified professional for suitable terms.
We would trace one order from enquiry to payment and ask who touched it. A fitting first task is role boundaries with an order file standard and a contact record. Scope and fees are put in writing after we talk.
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