Opinion: Why we all need to attract new blood to fleet management

By Paul Hollick, chair at the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP)

It’s a fair guess very few teenagers have ever entered a school careers office and said they wanted to become a fleet manager. It’s even possible it has never happened.

Why is this the case? After all, everyone working in the sector knows this is an exciting and interesting job.

Yes, one that is often stressful and demanding but also one that is stimulating, rewarding and simply, quite a lot of fun.

There’s much appeal in working with people and vehicles to problem solve – and that’s what fleet management is essentially about.

The fact is this is a job that most people fall into. They are doing something else – perhaps facilities management – and a smaller fleet becomes part of their responsibility.

From there, they quickly find out that there is a whole wide world of fleet management out there, and one with considerable appeal. Often, they become fleet management lifers.

At the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP), we’ve been working for some time on the introduction of a formal fleet apprenticeship.

It’s not an easy process but we are making progress and hope to be able to announce further news soon.

Our intention is that it operates in the manner you would expect – someone enters the apprenticeship as part of a fleet department and gathers the core skills needed for the foundation of a future career.

This project means we have been considering in some depth how we can bring more people into fleet management in the future, especially younger ones?

This is especially pertinent because we estimate the sector will soon suffer from a skills crisis as a large cohort of senior people approach retirement. Attracting new blood is essential.

To solve this problem, we are looking to you and everyone else reading this. Yes, once the apprenticeship is finalised, the AFP will embark on the kind of supporting activity you would expect – especially when it comes to digital marketing – but there is also much to be done at an individual level by proactively promoting fleet management, especially at a local level.

A simple step could be to approach schools and colleges to talk about the profession and offer your company up for work placements.

Larger organisations could take part in careers fairs and other organised events. There are many possibilities. It’s about forging links over time that will help to promote awareness and create a steady flow of new people into the sector.

It’s our belief fleet management is undergoing something of a process of formalisation. In recent years, there has been much wider recognition of the contribution we make to industry and the value of the skills we possess.

Yes, there will always be some people who fall into the role, but this shift means it is both desirable and important to also attract others directly into the profession on its own merits.

Everyone in the sector has a role to play in this change.