When the first national lockdown happened in March 2020 in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, many of us had to adapt our daily routine, literally overnight.
The order to stay indoors meant a switch to working from home (if you could), a big shift in shopping habits, with a huge uplift in online spending, and also a total change in how we educated our children.
It hasn’t just been remote learning for school children and university students that had to evolve, though. Essential training for key workers such as HGV drivers also had to move online – and it’s become really popular.
Driver Hire Training, part of Driver Hire’s Driver Risk Management business, has been delivering classroom-based Driver CPC training for over ten years.
Driver Certificate of Professional Competence (CPC) is a legal requirement for drivers of lorries, buses and coaches – so when classroom-based training was put on pause at the beginning of the pandemic, Driver Hire Training had to move courses online, and fast.
Since delivering their first online courses in April last year, Driver Hire Training has become a pioneer in the world of online CPC with over 130,000 training hours now delivered online. Their portfolio of remote training courses has advanced even further with online Transport Manager CPC and Refreshers, OLAT courses and more.
However, it’s the high service standards and selection of courses that Driver Hire Training have provided that stands out from other providers. Moving 16 modules online, out of a total of 20 in the usual classroom-based setting, has enabled drivers both experienced and new, to continue undertake training that is of genuine benefit to both their day-to-day role and professional development.
Choosing a range of different topics benefits both drivers and their employers (since the driver learns new skills and updates their knowledge), but it has in fact recently become a requirement. The DVSA announced in November that drivers should not take the same course more than once in each 5-year period – and that checks would now be carried out to ensure this rule was adhered to.
After all, the main purpose of Driver CPC is to improve road safety and maintain high standards of the industry, yet this was undermined by a loophole that allowed drivers to take on the same course over and over again – which also devalues the training itself.
There’s no doubt that online learning has come a long way in a short space of time. The opportunity to learn new skills and develop professionally on an accessible platform from the comfort of your own home is certainly changing the landscape of logistics learning.
For more information on Driver Hire Training courses, please visit their website.