E-commerce has seen rapid growth in recent years. The pandemic in particular has given online shopping another big boost. Logistics companies, especially third-party logistics, have been hit by this development. And: demand will continue to increase in the future. An employee survey conducted by how.fm in Great Britain reveals current challenges.
On-time transportation, conscientious order picking and timely returns – 3PLs have many tasks. In the current climate, these providers are already extremely busy. In 2020 alone, global online retail sales increased by 24%. In total, $4.29 trillion was turned over in the first Corona year. The pandemic has permanently accelerated e-commerce, changing offline commerce forever. As a result, logistics and supply chain companies are mostly already operating at full capacity and still need to grow. The difficulty is that they continue to operate in a low-margin environment and have too many quality issues at too high costs. In reality, these conditions conflict with the high demands of customers. The modern shopper expects standards of delivery reliability – and speed – that he already knows from Amazon & Co. This results in high demands on the logistics industry in e-commerce. Costs must be greatly reduced and workflows optimized. This inevitable adjustment has a major impact on the working atmosphere. As a result, employee motivation continues to decline.
Reputation of logistics providers is crumbling among employees
In response, how.fm has compiled a report on employee sentiment at the top 25 logistics providers in the UK. Data sets from uk.indeed.com, one of the UK’s most important websites when it comes to evaluating jobs, were used as a basis. The company collected and analyzed around 86,000 employee reviews, with a further focus on Third Party Logistics (3PLs). The results show a clear trend: employee satisfaction is on the decline. Indeed relies on a five-point system for ratings, which is mapped via stars. The 25 logistics providers rated have lost nearly 1 out of 5 stars (-0.66) over five years. The situation is similar in the warehousing industry. Rapid and strong growth in work volume has created even greater headwinds. Thus, 3PLs, which account for 26,000 of all the ratings considered, have also lost an entire star (-1.08) over the same period.
The evaluation shows that Third Party Logistics were rated even worse than the logistics industry in general. The employees are not concerned about more salary or free time – the dissatisfaction arises in the daily work: The evaluations find the most criticism in management and a lack of consideration. This is followed by goal setting, job security and opportunities for advancement. In third place, employees complain about the corporate culture. These points show that employees are concerned about one thing above all: fair treatment in their daily work. An important part of this is the incomplete explanation of new activities and the mostly superficial and poorly communicated work assignments. These repeatedly lead to potential conflicts with management. A similar situation applies to safety training: Instead of receiving adequate and relevant training, workers in many places are asked to just read and sign a stack of paper. This poses a problem for job and long-term job security and is also not conducive to the corporate climate.
Qualitative employee training increases job satisfaction
What stands out in the survey is that employees are particularly dissatisfied with regard to management, career prospects and the corporate climate. These are mainly social and interpersonal factors. To solve this problem, good employee training is the first step. Employee training software can go a long way in having less conflict in the company and with management, supporting career prospects through training and early high-quality work performance, and expressing management’s appreciation.
One example is software producer how.fm. The company offers a multilingual, interactive software solution with processes for training and developing temporary and permanent employees on the shop floor. how.fm aims to train and develop employees in a sustainable manner. In short video clips with audio and text, the app intuitively conveys step-by-step information about internal work steps, mandatory training and individual processes. Logistics service providers can thus counteract the aforementioned problems. Although the trainer is still responsible for queries during the training sessions, he can devote his time to other tasks at the same time. Employees are no longer completely blocked from training new staff. The software enables consistent high-quality onboarding, tested and translated into over 20 languages. This reduces stressful situations around onboarding, training and education. This also increases job security, because facts are explained more precisely and in a way that everyone can understand. The software is then also available at any time as a FAQ reference work. As a result, new employees can start their day-to-day work more quickly and with greater motivation.
Ultimately, the e-commerce logistics industry must find a way to cope with the ever-increasing volume of online trade. As the study shows, satisfied and well-trained employees are a necessary start.
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