The human factor in transport and logistics

In a LinkedIn post, you wrote: “#Electrification, #Digitalisation, #Sustainability and #Automation are strategic pillars and are increasingly becoming operational enablers for an industry in times of change! But never underestimate the fifth factor: people!” What is the significance of this factor in logistics?

Even though people are becoming less and less the brain of logistics, they will always remain its heart. Because despite all the developments, it is still people who realise everything practically. Companies are already beginning to select staff more for their talent and character and less for their skills and affiliation with the industry. I think this is the correct path: you have to hire people who are really enthusiastic about logistics. Technical and digital know-how can be taught and imparted in further training. But the foundation should be passion.

How do companies find these people and keep them in their teams?

They have to be open to giving talent from different industries an opportunity. And they should look carefully at the individual loads their employees carry. A lot has happened in the world and in our society over the past three years. I have come to realise that stress has become the norm: everybody is constantly hounded. So there should be people in every company who continually look at the team structure and consider who has what workload and how resilient he or she is. Then you can provide targeted support or redistribute tasks.

You only came to logistics in 2018 yourself. What have you seen in the industry since then?

Up until 2020 I remember very calm waters. Almost all companies were doing well and we were looking at trends with great curiosity. Since 2020, that is, since the start of the corona pandemic, I feel like the logistics engine has been running continuously at 120 per cent, because new challenges are always arising at short notice. One minute the freight rates are up, then next they’ve hit rock bottom, new climate protection regulations are being added, there is a shortage of truck drivers and other specialists. If you aren’t at the forefront of digitalisation, you feel like you’ve lost anyway. Everything is happening more quickly than all these new challenges can be mastered. We hold annual meetings with our company partners at Digital Hub Logistics. At the start of 2022, everyone there was thoroughly positive and ready for workshops and new projects. Then came 24th February – the day Russia attacked Ukraine – and everything changed again: continuous change is the ‘New Normal’.

What can entrepreneurs do to continue to motivate their workforce despite this?

Jürgen Klopp said: he draws more energy from the joy of winning than from the fear of losing. Every entrepreneur should take that to heart: it is a privilege to be creatively active. So you need to motivate your team and let the employees participate. It’s part of a new management culture, being open and discussing new ideas – as well as things that don’t go so well – and trying out new approaches. The belief that everything will keep getting a bit better is more motivating than the fear that a company will fail.

You are in contact with a lot of start-ups. What do they do well in terms of the human factor?

Start-ups naturally do a lot of things correctly: “We are young companies with flat hierarchies and short-term development perspectives. We work on innovative topics, processes and solutions which are supposed to make the world better.” That speaks to the zeitgeist in many employees. And that works, as long as start-ups are still a manageable size. However, at some point, they have to make the move towards setting up more stringent HR development and refining their teams. For some, this is lost between financing rounds, proof of concepts and other requirements – but they should never lose sight of it. It is smart to plan a small amount of the acquired finances for programmes aimed at employee retention and education. Start-ups which do this may then get the odd developer more quickly than a company which only offers an 08/15 contract. If we consider IT developers in particular, who are in extremely high demand, the most attractive employer can secure itself a competitive advantage – it’s no longer ‘survival of the fittest’, rather ‘survival of the most attractive employer’.