In most metropolitan areas of the U.S. today, the unemployment rate is lower than it has been for many years. The result is that finding good people is a real problem. Logistics employers have some problems peculiar to the industry.

The worst job shortage is truck drivers, and the shortage is aggravated by heavy turnover of those who take the jobs. Long-distance driving is a lonely and demanding job with long and irregular hours and unpredictable delays. For drivers who are paid by the mile, the delays mean loss of income, which adds an element of frustration to the other disadvantages of driving a truck.

However, every job has compensating advantages for some workers. Even truck driving has its devotees. Some time ago, National Public Radio broadcast an interview with a female driver. The lady held a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, but she had decided that driving a semi between Illinois and California was a better job than others that she was qualified to handle.

In the interview, she pointed out that her "office" stretched from the Midwest to the Pacific Coast. She described the friends she had along the way: fellow drivers, truck stop operators, toll both attendants and many others with whom she interacted on a trip she has driven many times.

She took pride in her ability to handle the job on schedule and to deal with the inevitable surprises calmly. She described the frequent sightings of wildlife as she moved across the mountains. The job of guiding an 18-wheeler on a long journey was clearly attractive to this woman, and the independence and solitude agreed with her. There are many other people like her, but the key is to find them.

When the job market is tight, the aggressive employer needs to make a logistics career attractive to those who are interviewed. You do this by emphasizing the positive, and by working hard to be sure that you place round pegs in round holes.

As you look at the task of recruiting good people to work in a logistics business, consider the advantages as well as the problems.

Blue-collar logistics jobs

The two most common hourly jobs in logistics are truck driving and warehouse labor. Within these broad categories are a wide variety of truck-driving tasks and warehouse work. These blue-collar jobs have certain common advantages.

Both a driver and a warehouse worker operate in a reasonably independent environment. They don't have a supervisor looking over their shoulder. They are required to make independent decisions and to use their ingenuity to solve problems. Some of the jobs are strenuous, but all of them have a degree of variety that is not found in many other kinds of work.

Clerical jobs

In this age of information, the clerical drudgery is now done by a computer, so that left to humans is the task of dealing with customers, suppliers and colleagues.

Today's office clerk is a communicator rather than a number cruncher. Like the blue-collar labor, the clerical tasks in logistics have substantial variety. Every shipment is different, every receipt is different, and every new customer represents new challenges.

Therefore, if your job profile still refers to clerical work, you should change the description to illustrate the fact that the prime skill needed is to maintain customer relationships.

Upward mobility

One of the peculiar advantages of a logistics career is the frequency of promotion from hourly work into supervision, middle management and occasionally even senior management.

Frequently, seminar attendees are asked how many people started their logistics career as an hourly worker. Typically, about one-third of the hands will go up. You are unlikely to find such a high percentage in manufacturing or merchandising. In fact, outside of the military, there are few fields that demonstrate as much upward mobility as logistics.

If you want to attract and hold the best people in your logistics operation, emphasize these advantages and describe specific cases in which people in your organization have climbed the ladder.

Improving quality of work

What can you as a manager do to make the jobs in your operation more attractive tomorrow than they are today? If you have a long-haul trucking operation, it is possible to structure the jobs to minimize the time each driver must spend away from home.

There is much that management can do to improve the quality of warehouse work. People react positively to good housekeeping and good lighting. If the housekeeping in your facilities is below standard, your people will feel that yours is a poor place to work. The general attitude is that if management takes no interest, why should the workers?

In contrast, a well-kept warehouse in which management shows substantial interest in housekeeping and productivity is likely to be populated by workers who enjoy their jobs and appreciate the chance to work in a productive environment.

Even when jobs are scarce, good workers will gravitate toward a good place to work. Therefore, the best way to attract and retain the best people is to ensure that the quality of work life in your operation is better than anywhere else in your community or your industry.