STARK Driver Academy

Workforce Planning – The STARK Driver Academy Jewson has 486 sites across the UK.

With around 850 Class C rigid vehicles with a vehicle mounted crane. Over the years as the number of drivers in the UK has diminished, the ability to recruit drivers with an accredited crane licence has become increasingly difficult. Our fleet is large but spread thinly across the Jewson estate, therefore losing a lorry for training purposes has a very big impact to the branch profit for that month. Quality and consistency of our training offer which spanned the UK was a significant challenge.

As were drivers leaving the business within the first few months of joining the organisation. To overcome all these factors, and to secure our driver workforce in the future, we created our own Driver Academy. We connected our specialist driver recruitment to a dedicated bespoke residential training course, at a central location.

The result of which vastly improved our driver health and safety incident record and created a consistent approach to our challenging off-loading requirements.

It will also be the foundation to all our future driver training requirements.