Not many people understand the lifestyle of the trucking industry. They just see a big Truck or semi, going from point A to point B. It really doesn’t sound that difficult, well, unless you become one. The best way to get started is to actually go to a trucking school or university with such a course. Apply for a license, and then a job won’t happen. Along with the “Rules of the road”, there is map reading and understanding truck routes, bridge weights, underpass low clearances, parking and backing, load securement, Hills, Weather conditions, and the log rules. I have attempted to write and blog about the roles of this profession, but more for entertaining. Now, I work on a different aspect and approach, and wish to note it is not a job, but a profession, and it is not a career, but a lifestyle. It falls short of ever being declared a form of higher education, and still the work involved requires an ongoing exercise in discipline, motivation, and improvement.

      I still wish to keep the interests of the general reader, but I need to reach out to others in the field too. More likely to new generation of professionals, because, although there is an obvious difference in the seasoned senior generation, the business of transportation keeps evolving towards that higher form of education, without losing the need to build it as a lifestyle. Logistics typically referred to the Office Administration, support, and managers, but slowly it is working towards not only an understanding but a practice that every driver will be challenged to know. It won’t be simple to define “us” and “them”, as the roles of logistic may someday only be noted as “inside” or “outside” duties and roles, with technology becoming a common place in trucks, the driver inherits the role of Data Entry. And although it may seem that communication is one sided; they eyes towards mutual communication and information, shared back and forth. After all, over time, a driver knows where the delays will be (in short term periods, with regards to construction); properly communicating such location will become the eyes for those indoors. Even this evolution will reach the executive staff, for the future to successfully work.

Inner Workings Of A Business Plan

       In any size business, whether Small to Corporate, the Business Plan is the architecture structure for any Product Line or Service. Someone needs to write out the steps and process to the assembly or that approach to resolve and repair. That business plan gets better noticed to those employed as the rules, steps and procedures, all of which defines the purpose of that employing business. But a Business Plan is not just written once, and like anything, it is constantly added onto, refined, and even restructured. I can actually see the Business Plan now being the first change of focus. It used to be that the Business Plan could be the foundation to the start and success of any business or idea, but with the first real fall in this world wide economy, it now needs to be fluid, and ready to react to the next level in what has been constantly heard for decades, change. There will always be an executive role, but that role will now work on getting input that will be designed in future business plans. Charts and graphs, meetings and reports will eventually need a form of gathering data, not on a monthly basis, but as it happens. No real format of education has been developed as a school of higher education, and yet, no business can just wait. Not much in the initial designing of any business plan will change, but once the “open” sign is lit, there will be a need to adjust approaches, procedures, and resolutions throughout the future days of the business (no real off time for the bosses).

Architecture in its simplest form

      When a small business grows, in becomes many departments, needing managing, and a multiplied amount of laborers, equipment, and resources. Its those laboring employed who simply notes the steps and rules of that “Master Plan”. Managing focuses on the flow of work, and reacts to issues that become the change in the way things flow. That covers almost every department a business grows up into. Someone needs to focus on the the “results” and feedback of the operation, and through a high level management, address the undesired results, or affirm the satisfaction of those results. Somehow, the executive staff focuses on keeping that plan intact, and the vision of the product or service the defining written architecture of the business. It remains the business plan that makes one business different than its competitor.

The Laborer –  The Key and Force of Change

      The new change could not happen at a better time or milestone than to by marked in the first decade of the twenty first century. Many cities show the history of the rise and fall of businesses, only to note the new rise of business. In the last century, the focus on Assembly Line and Industrial lifestyles also welcomed in Technology. What an exciting conclusion to a Centuries history. If we know this history, which included the great depression, we knew that anyone publicly shouting “change” is only addressing what will naturally occur. What also becomes natural is insight. Weather you think of research or investigations, that word insight may be the next focus on the initial designing of future Business Plans. It has always been stated that communication is the most important part of any business. It is defined to go in only one direction. Now, it is about to be exercised in the form of exchange, where the information that once flows down the chain, needs to flow back up. The trick is receiving only the information needed, and not the noise that is included when this has been attempted in past years. The key to the results of a Business Plan has always been in the performance and production that comes from that labor force. Incentives used to be applied, such as pensions, and paid time off. Fair labor rights has been the legal specialties of many lawyers, trumped only at times by the small success stories of the Union Forces. But the ongoing results of a business has always been how the Business Plan stays together, and the laborer has been the force that leads to the cause of change, both good and a businesses devastating end.

      In the second half of the second decade, and in this twenty first century, the success story seeks a new beginning. With many businesses forced to shut down, all small and major businesses are looking for the ingredient that will design the new century’s role in business, Industry, and it’s newest player Technology. All first will start with the laborer. It has no other starting point. Over the last century, changes in securities and incentives have allowed pensions to have its place in time, and the now need to survive roll of IRA’s, 401K, and Marketing Plans are what became its focus towards one’s individual retirement plan. This had to happen. By trying to allow pensions to continue, more companies would have reached a pinnacle saturation of promised funding for those retired, and eventually would default (as some have already done). Paid time off is slowly the individuals responsibility to take time off with monies saved aside. Everything has it’s limitations, if nothing else, history has shown this to be true.

      So how to bring a new light to that key to success, may fall on bringing to light the self awareness needed to keep the future going. Responsibility, Discipline, and Accountability has always been addressed and expressed through those they were employed by. Rewards and recognitions, fines and retributions were the approaches to the much needed responsibilities and disciplines. Over time, the labor forces expected just as much rewards and recognition, as those who were fined and held accountable. Now, the search is how to let those rolls be based on the individual laborer themselves. One way this has started to become a focus is through such programs as the Lease Purchase program. With the exception of it happening at the time of an economic fall, the ability to get the individual to own a part of the role and responsibility has had mixed results. I think it has been solely based on what has already changed, and the last change is in the individual themselves. In its simplest explanation, work has become work, and the results of proper payments has not been acknowledged. In the end of that twentieth Century, a generation was allowed to play that old song of keeping up with the “Jones”, and indulge in the next new fad and frill that came along. Although a short time to exclude the word pampered and spoiled, the individual responsibility of living a life within one’s own means has become the returning basis. But we didn’t go back in time. The minimum wage did not go down. The cost of living kept up with every income increase. But everyone one knows that if business offered the ability for ownership of a labor role to the laborer, any new resistance would lead to the lose of that part of business. The key to a business Plan may be in the production of the Laborer, but the laborer don’t hold the keys. Thus the reasoning behind downsizing, and closures. So, the lease purchase program may not be the solution, but it is an ongoing avenue towards keeping the business plan together, as those who thrive for ownership work hard and sacrifice for ownership; the employment role remains in full force, and the resource to keeping production and service can be seen as a workable flow towards production. No set of employees can walk away leaving a business short handed, and no number of owners could just leave, since employment has been established from the beginning. The results still too early to weigh in on.