new competencies and
innovations in logistics

Randstad has four divisions in their temporary work business:

• secretary
• ICT
• technical
• education (teachers)
• young professionals (people who finish their school, but cannot find a job)
• logistics (highest costs)

The fact that logistics is a separate division illustrates that logistics is an important market in this area.

In the second half of the '90s Randstad became operational in the logistics market. At that time there was a great shortage of logistics workers. Therefore the logistics branch became a high priority for Randstad. Randstad mainly focuses on physical movement jobs in warehouses. Yaught Logistics will hire out highly qualified specialists. This is a daughter company of Randstad. Randstad employs two types of workers. The first group are people who do short temporary work, but are not an employee of Randstad. The second group are those who have an employee status with Randstad and are hired out to companies, often for somewhat longer periods. Randstad does not want to use the word temporary workers. It sounds better to use the name flexible worker (flex-worker).

One of the services provided which has proven to be quite successful is to send a complete team to a customer of Randstad. In times of a great shortage of workers in the logistics this type of demand of companies increased. These teams consist of a warehouse foreman with several workers. These teams can be placed anywhere. One of the advantages of these teams is that people work with the same colleagues, even if they work in various companies. Through research, Randstad has learned that a certain stability in colleagues is appreciated by the workers.

Traditionally, organising training is a problem for temporary work offices. If they invest in workers, the benefits will be limited for the temporary work office, because workers often disappear soon. However, Randstad considers training more and more crucial. There are many reasons for this:

• Because this is laid down in a collective agreement for temporary labour offices, Randstad is obliged to spend at least 1% of the wage bill for training. This is the result of changes in this market. The restrictions for temporary work offices have been loosened. As a sort of "compensation", the temporary work offices have taken on some obligations towards their workers, including training.
• Many of the workers from Randstad are poorly educated. Mostly they have little or no experience in a warehouse in the beginning as well. Training is necessary to avoid problems and to make a start in this line of work possible.
• A few years ago it was a big problem to find people for temporary work. At that time Randstad did research among their workers to find out what factors were crucial for them to make them stay. Because of the labour shortage at that time, it was very important to bind their workers to them. In this research it became clear to Randstad that the three main elements to make people more certain about their jobs are: a contract, money and good colleagues. It is like the pyramid of Maslov: first you have to give the unemployed a contract, after that you can organise training. If the contract is secured, training will also become important for the worker, because training gives more certainty that he will be able to keep his work in the future and it gives more career prospects. So at this stage training perspectives will increase the feeling of job security and therefore will be an incentive to stay. This latter outcome of the research among workers was an incentive to Randstad to improve their training policy. The worker also feels more connected to Randstad because he follows a training.
• Companies want more quality in the warehouse. Mistakes must be avoided and workers must be productive.
• All-round work becomes more and more important to companies. So for example a forklift driver must also sometimes pick orders. A lot of temporary workers are not happy with the all-round tasks. They want to do the same task, in a team with the same colleagues. A forklift driver often does not want to do the work of an order picker. By training, it will be easier to create a basis for more all round work. By being trained for more skills, the resistance against other type of work will be less.

Because training is so crucial for many reasons, Randstad tries to be very active in this field. Examples of training policy and training activities are the following:

• Randstad organises training for people who start working in logistics. This consists of one day at school (VTL, which is the training institute of the sector transport and logistics). During this day they are shown a warehouse from the inside. Work processes are presented in order to stress that mistakes in one place will have important consequences in the whole chain. However, because the numbers of (starting) workers in logistics are now (temporarily) lower, these courses are replaced by a video. This film can be viewed at every location, which is also a great advantage.
• Every temporary worker will have an interview with a Randstad officer after every half year of work. Training is one of the main issues in this interview. In order to be prepared for these interviews and be able to match the demand of companies and the skills of workers, the officers can use job profiles in logistics that have been developed by EVO (organisation of own account operators). This helps them to get a better idea of the contents of these jobs and possibilities for extra skills to be trained for. In these interviews training is promoted and the officer stresses that training is important for the future career prospects. In the interviews one of the issues is where a person is now and what he has to do in terms of training and experience before he can reach another function he aspires.
• Per year there are four evening training meetings on location with the temporary workers. Every evening has a specific theme. For example a training evening about working conditions (avoid back problems by lifting correctly), a training about a Warehouse Management System, about dangerous goods and about developments in the logistics market. The subjects and contents of these trainings are developed in consultation with customers of Randstad in this area. With the help of this consultation a number of risk factors are determined which sometimes lead to problems in the work for temporary workers. The evening training courses are carried out by hired in people from VTL. The training courses are very practically oriented and a school's atmosphere is avoided as much as possible. Many of the workers are dropouts from school and have bad experiences of school-like environments. To increase the attractiveness, the meetings are linked to a good meal before and drinks afterwards.
• Workers can follow a number of training courses. This includes order picking, lift-truck driving (leading to a licence), and warehouse foreman. The latter is an official qualification in the regular vocational education system. The courses are carried out by EVO (mentioned earlier), TNS Blom, and VTL. These courses take place partly in the participant's own time and partly in working time (50-50).

Randstad tries to match the training courses and seminars to the requirements of the job contents. As described above, the contents of the seminars is determined after consultation with employers. Issues such as working conditions (good lifting) and WMS came up from these consultation rounds. Career interviews to determine training needs are supported by job profiles used by the Randstad officers.

The first experience with the training courses was that many of the trainees did not finish the courses. Dropout rates in the courses were large. Course participants did not even show up. Therefore Randstad has introduced a payback regulation. If a training is not finished and the reason is not reproachable to Randstad, the participant has to pay back the costs. If the participant quits the job at his own initiative within a certain period after the training, he has to pay back the costs as well. This is an extra incentive to bind employees to Randstad.

Another - related - implementation problem is that many of the workers are poorly educated and do not like a "school type" of environment. Therefore the training courses are very practical and in some cases embedded in a social meeting including drinks and food.

Again another problem is that the workload for Randstad in this area varies considerably. Some years ago the prospects in this market were enormous. Therefore investments in training were high, also to bind and attract workers (who were scarce). Now, the market has gone down. This means that Randstad contracts fewer workers as own employees, but works more with temporary workers. Because lower prospects, less labour scarcity and shorter periods of temporary work, the incentive to invest in training for Randstad is less. However, because this is believed to be temporary, in the long run, this market is expected to grow and labour shortages will reappear. Training will then return even stronger as a crucial instrument to profile Randstad to employers as well as potential workers.

Randstad has on average 200-300 participants for the training courses per year (excluding the evening seminars). The total of temporary workers is on an average approximately 1,200 per year. However, training investments vary over the years. In the first years, Randstad Logistics spent around 250 thousand euros per year on training. This is much lower now in a market that is "down". Structurally, the budgets for training are higher than what is actually spent, which illustrates that the workers do not use the possibilities, because a training culture is not present among many of them.

Research showed that training increases the feeling of job security, which makes working for Randstad more attractive. So it also increases the chance that workers will stay longer.

The results from the payback rules that were introduced were very good. For example in the course for forklift-truck driving, the success rate increased from less than 50% to about 85%.

In many countries work in logistics is partly carried out by labour from temporary labour offices. This is because workload fluctuates strongly within companies and the work cannot be delayed. For temporary labour offices it is not so attractive to invest in training, because workers often stay for a short period and therefore the office only partly reaps the benefits from these investments. However, in the Netherlands, training policy in Randstad in this area has developed, because legislation makes it possible for Randstad to employ workers for a longer time. Moreover, training investments are now obligatory in the collective agreement. Finally, Randstad felt the need to invest in order to make it easier to attract workers in the years of labour scarcity.

The experiences with training underline the need for practical oriented training for these target groups. Moreover, commitment to finish a course has also to come from pay back rules if one does not show up or drops out. Moreover, by partly being trained in "own time", a participant is more aware that he is investing in himself as well.

The cases show that a different institutional environment (training commitments in collective agreements and less restriction in temporary work) helps to start tot develop a training policy. Moreover, the case shows the problems that emerge when developing training activities and how to tackle these problems. This can be helpful for actors in temporary work in other countries.