Truck driving is one of those skills that never goes unnoticed in the work place. Most businesses will generally employ specialist truck drivers to do the work required. It’s common sense. However, truck drivers are human, (at least I think they are) so they fall victim to all the human ailments that are around at the time. We are now heading into winter and that brings with it coughs, colds and winter flus. How does a business cope when one or more of their regular truck drivers falls ill?

Some companies are smart and have a list of casual drivers on file. If a regular truck driver is unavailable, they just call on one of their casuals. Smaller businesses don’t always have that luxury. Their only approach to the problem is to quickly ring everyone and tell them their deliveries will be late. It’s not great for customer service particularly if the delivery winds up being a week late.

What about the truck driver? They have been off sick for a day or two now whilst still feeling a little off color. They have to do twice as much work to catch up as soon as possible. It’s probably not fair on them and could lead to a relapse.

As a business, you do have another alternative and that is to ensure you have other workers who have the necessary truck driving skills. They could be storemen, shipping clerks, general office employees. In fact, as a manager, you could benefit from additional skills as well. With that sort of approach, you will always have a regular supply of drivers on hand. Your business will not suffer through lack of driving skills and your workers will appreciate the added skills. Truck driver training is a quick training program that only lasts three weeks. It is certainly worth consideration.

As follow up to yesterday’s post detailing the skills of a crane operator, today’s post details the skills required to apply for most truck driving jobs. The most important component to any truck driving job is the commercial drivers license that all truck drivers need to obtain.

Your commercial drivers license really only says that you are competent at driving a truck and that you know the road rules. The license says nothing about the other skills that truck drivers generally require. Here is a list of some of the skills that employers may be looking for when recruiting new drivers.

• Running, maneuvering, navigating, or driving vehicles of the size required for the job. This could range from a dump truck to tractor-trailer combination.
• Inspecting equipment, structures, or materials to identify the cause of errors or other problems or defects.
• Performing physical activities that require considerable use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stopping, and handling of materials.
• Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
• Being able to maintain records such as drivers logs, mileage and fuel details, deliveries and any other associated documentation.

Does it sound daunting? It isn’t. With experience these tasks are done almost without thinking. Most of them are also covered to some extent in any training you undertake. Operating the truck is only one part of your job. At your destination you may be expected to unload, or at least help, to unload your vehicle. You will also have to supervise the loading to ensure there is a reasonable distribution of weight.

Truck driver training covers a lot of the skills mentioned in this post. Obviously, truck driver training focuses first on learning to drive a truck and knowledge of the road rules required to gain your CDL. Experience over time helps to fill in any of gaps. If you have a flair for any of those skills then why not consider a career as a truck driver?