The changing landscape of logistics and transportation recruitment

We know that employees have many different opportunities of where to work, so we take our goal of becoming an employer of choice very, very seriously.

To us, it means providing an enriching employee experience from the recruitment process through the entire time a team member is employed with us (which, we hope, is their entire career!).

The employment landscape in logistics and transportation has changed, and we’ve prioritised being on the cutting edge to stay ahead of our competitors and recruit and retain top talent.

Our primary areas of recruitment and retention fall into two distinct role types: recruitment and retention for drivers and professional (office) roles.

Driver recruitment and retention

Many factors impacting driver recruitment are outside of our control, such as the pandemic, Brexit, government legislation and the conflict in Ukraine. All of these have caused drivers to withdraw from their roles and move outside of the UK. The driver shortage has impacted across the industry, especially during peak periods like the holiday season.

Another challenge in the recruitment of drivers is the ageing workforce. There’s a slow trickle of new entrants into the field each year. We’re working to target new drivers and hire them into the industry by reaching out to potential candidates on social media, expediting the application process and utilising government-funded training schemes to make enrolling in a training program as appealing as possible.

For car, van or lorry driving roles, we’ve established our upskilling academies to train drivers and prepare them for full-time positions with XPO.

We’ve also made a big push to attract drivers from diverse demographics and those that may not be traditionally represented in trucking.

Recently, we held a female drivers forum where our female drivers spoke about their experiences in the industry, their challenges, and how they’ve overcome them. As an employer of choice, we learned a lot from our participating colleagues about advancements we could make to improve their employee experience.

This feedback prompted us to look at alternative uniforms better suited for women, provide better access to restroom facilities, and install alarms in our vehicles. Some delivery points are unmanned at late hours, and the alarms provide an extra layer of safety for all our drivers.

We’re also targeting ex-service members and ex-offenders, as other groups we feel can add value to the company and provide excellent customer service.

Through the Pathfinders initiative, a repatriation programme for former military members, we can find great frontline and management talent for our teams. XPO has a long history of helping men and women leaving the armed forces successfully transition into the transport business. We’ve also hired recruiters trained in military culture who connect with veterans through targeted hiring events, customer partnerships and outreach programs with armed forces groups.

Recruiting for professional (office) roles

For our professional roles or those based primarily in offices, we’ve adapted to offer hybrid work for some of our positions, which is typically two days at home and three days in our office.

Since the labour market is generally tight, we’ve emphasised conducting internal stay interviews with our candidates to understand our talent pipeline.

We’ve also hosted talent forums where we discuss opportunities within XPO for advancement. These talent forums are paired with a robust professional development program through our internal XPO University platform to offer employees a chance to upskill themselves. XPO University courses include materials on a vast range of leadership skills and compliance, health & safety and legal requirements.

Other areas we’ve considered include partnering with secondary schools and colleges as a way to introduce ourselves to prospective candidates. Many young people don’t consider logistics and transportation a career but are drawn to it once exposed because of its exciting nature and ample opportunity to solve complex problems.

The future

We don’t view talent recruitment and retention as problems we need to solve – they’re ongoing parts of running a high-performance operation and an opportunity to bring difference-makers into our organisation. While our human resources teams are navigating a challenging labour market, we're motivated to find success and help move XPO forward.