When it comes to finding courses for the transport manager CPC, or certificate of professional competence – the qualification required for industry professionals to become a transport manager – there is certainly no shortage of options. There are myriad providers who are willing to run the training for those interested, from industry trade bodies such as RHA and Logistics UK to independent training providers. In the case of the latter, it is just one of the suite of CPC offerings within their portfolio.
It’s a legal requirement that companies operating commercial vehicles on standard and international O licences employ a transport manager who is ‘professionally competent’ in the role. That standard applies whether the candidate is working in the HGV or PSV areas of the market. Interestingly, those looking to become a transport manager do not have to hold a driving licence to undergo the training. Nor do they have to have any prior experience of the transport sector.
Qualification for the transport manager CPC requires undertaking either an intensive course of up to 10 days or going the solo learning route. Topics covered include: civil, commercial, social and fiscal laws surrounding road and/or passenger transport; business and money management; paperwork – such as permits and international documents; technical standards and aspects of operation and road safety. The course culminates in two exams – one multiple choice, the other based on specific case studies that candidates are asked to evaluate.
As impressive as these courses sound, there is some concern within the industry that they might not fully prepare people for the role they are trying to qualify for. “When it comes down to training to be a transport manager, I believe you’ve got to have some industry experience behind you,” reasons Eddie Cross, managing director of consultancy ProSolution Management Services. As already mentioned, that experience isn’t required, but Cross believes it would help professional development. “Managing a fleet or workshop is very different from driving, and going from the latter to the former had been the traditional route for many people. It may be you’ve been a truck driver for a number of years and you’ve decided you want to want to progress into management, for example.”
MADE-TO-MEASURE TRAINING
Cross also argues that the training needs to be a bit more specific to be fully effective in business. “I can think of more than one instance where a so-called transport manager – because he has the piece of paper to prove it – has moved from one industry to another because it’s still vehicle related. But things don’t work out, because the decisions made were not relevant to the sector of the industry he was then in.
“If you look at big companies, there is a policy of bringing good people on into these types of roles,” he continues. “There’s a national shortage of drivers and mechanics, and businesses look carefully at succession planning to ensure continuity.” Problems can occur, thinks Cross, when it comes to smaller operators. “They might be recruiting from the local paper. They’re looking for a transport manager, but is that transport manager someone who can influence the transport with continuous and effective responsibility?”
GOING IT ALONE
Steve Moir, national operations manager at Direct Tyre, took the self-study route to train for his transport manager CPC qualification. There was no funding available to him from his employer at the time, but nine months later he passed first time. However, in the reality of his first transport manager role, a lot of the information he’d learned did not apply to the job.
“All the really interesting stuff that interested me during my training – such as the finance and legal aspects – were not my responsibility and weren’t ever likely to be in that job role,” he recalls. “The job very much centred around driver debriefs and more compliance-related subjects such as tachograph hours, component inspections, etc. Other aspects were dealt with by other parts of the business, by people who hadn’t had to go through a formal qualification to hold the role of transport manager.”
In Moir’s case, being a transport manager was less engineering-based and more operational in nature – something not hugely catered to in the training. “A huge chunk of my work was dealing with the drivers and other people within the transport office and also complaints,” he recalls. “It just felt to me that it was a big part of the role, but an area that was completely missing from any element of the CPC. There wasn’t a huge focus on HR in the training, nor on dealing with drivers or effective team management – it just didn’t exist.”
ON THE BUSES
Over in the PSV side of the industry, Satnam Cheema, group engineering director at Tower Transit, perceives some differences between the role of a transport manager there and, say, at an HGV-based operator. Because of the sheer volume of vehicles an organisation such as Transport for London has, elements of the job are essentially split between different people. “We have one transport manager who will focus more on engineering – such as vehicles and workshops – and another to handle operational aspects such as drivers, health and safety and finance,” he explains.
However, the CPC requirements remain the same, which means transport managers still have knowledge of all of the relevant areas. “Within the training, I think the content of the vehicle is a lot more intense on PSV because we are carrying passengers,” says Cheema. “You probably don’t get scrutinised on the load so much for other commercial vehicles, but we have to know more about areas such as defect categories and pre-service checks. There is also the fact that our loads – passengers – are more unpredictable. In a truck you have control of the load, but on a bus there is more risk of people moving, or damage to the vehicles.”
Cheema says that one of the biggest changes in the bus world has been a reluctance of people to step up to become transport managers. He hopes that nurturing them from the start of their career will make a difference.
“We need to identify people who could be a future supervisor or manager and get them into lower supervisory roles at an earlier stage,” he maintains. “We need to mark them out as future transport managers or engineering managers. Because, otherwise, it’s very difficult to get somebody who’s done 10 or 15 years on the tools to jump to the next level.”
Meanwhile, Moir believes the training content needs to be revisited. “I’d love to see more personnel or HR elements added. There needs to be a better understanding that, day to day, the job is more about dealing with people, rather than vehicles, pallets or goods,” he suggests. “You’re going to have easy people to look after, but then you’re also going to have to deal with some very challenging individuals. A way of giving people a sense of what the environment’s like when they get out into the real world would be great.”
Like Cross, Moir suggests aspiring transport managers should have some real-world experience. “It would be really valuable to have an understanding of a transport operation before deciding to do the CPC,” he says. “Something like working as an assistant transport manager in the office for a few months. Just to be in the environment to see whether it’s one you like, or whether you can grow into it.”
