I know it seems like a strange question, but I often see adverts for HGV drivers for pallet networks, but have little idea of what they actually do?
From my understanding, which may or may not be correct, pallet networks are similar to parcels companies with distribution sorting hubs and then drivers on local(ish) runs taking them to their final destination. The difference I am guessing is that everything has to be palletised and is more likely to be bulk multiple items rather than single items?
My question is where do those drivers deliver pallets to? It is purely industrial deliveries to trading estates, or is it also delivering to shops with handballing and also people’s homes. Reason I am asking, is that they always seem to be advertising for drivers, which I guess means other drivers create those vacancies by keep leaving?
It’s everywhere,also tonne pallets on pump trucks down gravel drives !! And normaly the lady of the house can’t understand why she can’t have it where she wants it .
Anything to anywhere. Good variation of work for a rigid driver, although it can be hard graft. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility to be sat in an rdc waiting room at 9am, a factory goods in at 11, a high street at 12 and a residential address at 2. Then you start all the collections, although they will be 99% factory/warehouse and loaded by forks. Hanball is normally in high streets, where you’re double parked so can’t get the pallet to the front door
Handball only if talked into it. The Tpn paperwork states curbside delivery only and your only expected to get it as close as reasonably possible rest is down to the person accepting it.
If you look at a typical palletliner (curtainsider double decker) whilst it’s being loaded, you’ll see items such as the following as “regular loads”:-
Bricks
4 Dustbins
Reams of paper
Stacked 24 can outers of soft drinks
boxes of 6 wine
Engine Axles
Turf
Cans of paint
and many other “bulky” items that are heavy, but not worth that much in terms of ‘load value per kilo’.
It would be ruinously expensive to send heavy low-value items such as the above through the regular courier services like Royal Mail, Fedex, Yodel, etc.
Euro:
was it “Palletline” at Fradley Park, Staffs?. Very rapid FLTs but, in my opinion, rather frightening.
Palletways. You’re not allowed out of the cab, you pull the curtains back as far as they go, they load ■■■■ on top of curtains, then you spend half an hour waiting for a fork lift to rectify the problem. Rather have a steady load done right than rapid done wrong tbh
Thanks for your input guys. Not hard to see why they always advertising for drivers, as at face value it sounds like a real ballache of a job.
Shall keep my eyes open for more traditional industrial deliveries jobs, although the market seems to be flooded with shop and home deliveries at the moment, neither of which are where I want to be. Strange if you think about it, the dirty general haulage work, carrying steel and machinery, lugging heavy tarps around and trying to rope down loads in strong winds vacancies they used to struggle to fill, but now those jobs seem almost impossible to find.
LIBERTY_GUY:
I know it seems like a strange question, but I often see adverts for HGV drivers for pallet networks, but have little idea of what they actually do?
From my understanding, which may or may not be correct, pallet networks are similar to parcels companies with distribution sorting hubs and then drivers on local(ish) runs taking them to their final destination. The difference I am guessing is that everything has to be palletised and is more likely to be bulk multiple items rather than single items?
My question is where do those drivers deliver pallets to? It is purely industrial deliveries to trading estates, or is it also delivering to shops with handballing and also people’s homes. Reason I am asking, is that they always seem to be advertising for drivers, which I guess means other drivers create those vacancies by keep leaving?
Usually industrial premises where a forklift can be used to offload, although sometimes the driver needs to use a pallet truck and sometimes it is a residential rather than business address. While working for a pallet network ‘spoke’ company near Staines a couple of years ago, I had to deliver a tonne bag of stones to a house, a job that would normally be done by a HIAB truck rather than trying to bump it up kerbs and roll it up slopes and then try and get it into a rough driveway. Yes, it’s always large items (not necessarily bulk, but pallet sized).
As for why they keep leaving, well, a combination of tough jobs and low pay is probably the answer – it’s basic class 2 work, so if you upgrade to class 1 or even HIAB you can get more exciting work or better pay. (Most HIAB work is not exciting, often local deliveries to houses, but the pay is often better than class 1.)
Dan Punchard:
It’s everywhere,also tonne pallets on pump trucks down gravel drives !! And normaly the lady of the house can’t understand why she can’t have it where she wants it .
+1,and the company you work for are allways quoted by the customer by saying and I quote your company said you can deliver up the drive unquote,does not matter if theres a lip on the entrance and you have a pallet weighing at 1000 kilos,i lost count of the amount of arguments I had with customers cos they think you are superman
m_attt:
Handball only if talked into it. The Tpn paperwork states curbside delivery only and your only expected to get it as close as reasonably possible rest is down to the person accepting it.
try telling them that and the response is ok I wont sign for it unless you unload it,then I would reply ok it goes back then,but if you phone the company expecting them to back you then forget it its usually the answer of CAN YOU TRY even though they go against their own policy,the company I worked for was palletways,greenford
On pallet work you will deliver all the items that are large and/or heavy that can’t go in a van.
If you are a class 2 multi-drop driver, you might start your day with 14 pallets on board maybe going to 10 or 12 addresses, both business and residential. From the moment you leave the yard you will need problem-solving skills as to what route you are going to take, how to get those pallets off in order, perhaps also collecting the odd pallet of stuff at some of your drops, and then doing some collections after all your drops are done. Biggest challenge will be bad postcodes and poor directions. However, you will build local knowledge as you gain experience which will help you to consider your options. Eventually you will know what to expect at certain places. Not all of the drops will have a forklift, but when you get the chance, you can ask the forkie to reorganise the load for you (just one or two items). You will need to consider which drops might need tail-lift, and therefore which pallets you might want on the back. Before you start your run, you might want to draw a little diagram of your load, so you know where each pallet is. By the end of the day you will hopefully be returning your truck to the depot with a lorry full of pallets but certainly NOT the ones you went out with! For these operations the transport office is your friend and you should be in constant contact with them (within reason).
The good news is that on this kind of work, I’ve always found the customer actually wants the stuff and will usually be friendly and happy to assist you (as opposed to other types of work I’ve done where the customer looks at you as if something the dog brought in).
LIBERTY_GUY:
Thanks for your input guys. Not hard to see why they always advertising for drivers, as at face value it sounds like a real ballache of a job.
The night trunking is mind numbingly boring but you do get plenty of time to get a kip or watch a film every night.
I found most of the collections to be from regulars, a lot of the drops are too. Once you get used to them it becomes a lot easier. Helps if the lads in your yard are decent too. Chances are they know the drop and can offer good advice.
When loading, a little “L” or “R” on the delivery notes is most helpful as quite often you park at the gates and the forkie will come and collect (as long as you park the correct side of course!)
I didn’t mind it too much, but each to their own I suppose.
The transport company usually gets a group of postcodes, plus the immediate 2 square miles around their yard. When I was at Matthews they used to fit the locals in as and when, or give them to a spare driver. My unit went for mot, so I lucked out with the locals. 6 drops, I was out 2 hours, and rang in more times in that 2 hours than I usually did in 2 days, doing groupage runs to the north west. A right pain in the arse
m_attt:
Handball only if talked into it. The Tpn paperwork states curbside delivery only and your only expected to get it as close as reasonably possible rest is down to the person accepting it.
We do pallex and they are kerbside drops too. Except when the customer pays a premium for the Retail Plus service. The driver then has to handball the goods from the pallet to where the recipient wants, and take the empty pallet, packaging and shrink wrap away. Funny thing is the drivers don’t get a share of the extra money charged for this service. But like most deliveries, if the customer is friendly enough, I don’t mind doing a bit of handball to help them out. It’s the ones that just expect you to help with their arrogant attitude that get their pallets left kerbside.
Dan Punchard:
It’s everywhere,also tonne pallets on pump trucks down gravel drives !! And normaly the lady of the house can’t understand why she can’t have it where she wants it .
+1,and the company you work for are allways quoted by the customer by saying and I quote your company said you can deliver up the drive unquote,does not matter if theres a lip on the entrance and you have a pallet weighing at 1000 kilos,i lost count of the amount of arguments I had with customers cos they think you are superman
Almost certainly whoever took the order thought the bag would be HIAB’d off and that the gravel driveway wouldn’t be an issue. The use of the pallet company was a last-minute decision.
Dan Punchard:
It’s everywhere,also tonne pallets on pump trucks down gravel drives !! And normaly the lady of the house can’t understand why she can’t have it where she wants it .
+1,and the company you work for are allways quoted by the customer by saying and I quote your company said you can deliver up the drive unquote,does not matter if theres a lip on the entrance and you have a pallet weighing at 1000 kilos,i lost count of the amount of arguments I had with customers cos they think you are superman
Almost certainly whoever took the order thought the bag would be HIAB’d off and that the gravel driveway wouldn’t be an issue. The use of the pallet company was a last-minute decision.
That’s what happens when people buy their building products from the internet and not the builders merchants. They think they’ve won a watch cos its £100 cheaper online than what jewsons want. Come delivery time, that’s when they realise it was cheaper, when their stuff gets dumped on the pavement and not hi-abd into their back garden like they thought.[emoji3]
I worked for one of the Palletforce companies. Their delivery area was East Birmingham, parts of Warwickshire and worcestershire.
A typical day would start at about 8am with being handed a stack of delivery notes. I liked to sit at a table and read every one, because there would be details that I needed to decide the route. Some would be ‘before 10am’ some might be ‘am’ etc. Then I knew by experience that ABC Company closed at 12am for lunch; CDF Company’s yard was full of their own trucks before 10am and so on. Also I would know which were FLT deliveries, which were tail lift and any handball. I would also know by experience which were big and wobbly (plastic bottles and stacked plastic bags). For private house deliveries, I always phoned them to give an ETA. This made the company look good, but mainly I wanted to be sure that there would be someone home.
Once notes were sorted I would head for the yard to get loaded. There were at least half a dozen others doing the same thing so FLTs flying about. First find the pallet and then a FLT driver to load it. Naturally I wanted the first drop at the back, but that was not possible if it was a big wobbly one that needed to be against the headboard. A lot of the deliveries were forked off and it paid to be nice to those guys because you wanted them to re-sort the load sometimes after they took their 2 metre high stack of compost off.
Once everything was loaded and scanned on (everything gets scanned at every stage) I would strap anything that needed it and head off. Unless I was late and in a hurry, I would stop in a layby, go through the paperwork and check the AtoZ (no satnav for me) and drink some coffee before setting off.
Most deliveries were regular and I knew the guys at goods in by name, or at least by sight - I also knew where to go which is a big problem in some places. As I said, it not only makes for a more enjoyable day if you are seeing friendly faces, but you also need their cooperation. After each delivery I would phone in to say the time and the name of who signed. This was important because some of them were pretty disorganised and would deny having received the pallet.
I always tried to get a 15 minute break in the first couple of hours (often while waiting) and would stop for at least half an hour around 12 or 1 O’ Clock. There was never pressure to do anything dodgy. Collections in the afternoon (sometimes overlapping with deliveries if it made geographical sense) would nearly all be forked on - again it needed cooperation as the load would often have to be re-arranged. Usually I would get back to the yard at around 5pm. At that time the yard was heaving. They would take the pallets off and sort the pallet system stuff from the rest (mostly Irish) and load the double deckers for the hub.
Household deliveries were nearly always to people who had ordered stuff on the internet and had no idea about the problems of hauling a pallet of bricks across a gravel drive, or even up steps. The rule was “delivery to the kerb” but we all tried to be as helpful as we could. I remember carrying patio furniture round to the garden; opening the boxes of trampolines to carry the heavy parts a bit at a time; ■■■■■■■ wraps of flooring into someone’s hall. I also remember delivering a large oven to a house where the owner expected me to carry it up the path - when I said that it would have to go back, she whistled up a gang of kitchen fitters. Negotiation was the key, but in the end, my office would always back me up.
