If you’re running a Shipping team right now, you’re battling two crises at once: A global freight shortage and a global staff shortage.
You’ve likely heard how using technology can help you overcome the crisis in shipping by building resistance in your supply chain and helping you reduce your rate spend.
But did you know procurement tech can help you overcome staffing challenges, too?
The right tech offers significant benefits for employees which in turn help you recruit new shippers and retain top talent.
Here’s how digital procurement platforms can boost your staff morale…
1. By reducing tedious administrative tasks
The shippers in your team are highly qualified professionals. So why do they spend so much time on repetitive administrative tasks that don’t utilise their expertise?
It’s not just a waste of your team’s talent – it makes your shippers’ jobs less enjoyable and more tedious. And when a job isn’t enjoyable, your staff are less likely to stick around. In fact, studies have found that 1/3 of employees cite boredom as the main reason why they would leave their job.
If your team uses digital procurement tech, up to 90% of RfQ creation is automated by the software, so making an RFQ takes just 6 minutes instead of hours. Time-consuming Excel work, like sanity checks and scenario building, is also automatically prepared by the software making choosing the best rates fast and simple.
And with less admin, your team has more time to spend on tasks that will help them progress their carriers...
2. By increasing career progression opportunities
Your employees want to develop their skills and grow their career in you company. In fact, over one quarter of millennial and Gen Z employees say they would leave a company if it didn’t offer them the opportunity to learn and progress.
When you remove manual administrative task using digital automation, you free up space for your team to focus on the strategic activities that directly lead to progression.
Giving your team more time to focus on strategic value-add activities, offers them the opportunity to take on more strategic responsibility and build up the skills they need to progress to the next level.
If they’re stuck doing admin, they’ll have less opportunity to grow and could be easily tempted away to another company that does offer the progression they desire.
3. By enabling your team to build carrier relationships
As the old saying goes: ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. This is especially true in today’s shipping world. With capacity tighter than ever, your team is relying on their good relationships with carriers to secure space.
When your team uses a digital platform, they have more time to focus on building strong relationships with their carriers. Plus, a good digital platform speeds up communication with carriers using automation tools - so their carriers will love them for always coming back swiftly to any queries they have.
This not only helps them secure freight and increase supply chain resilience, but it also enables them to grow a business network that can help them succeed in the future.
4. By reducing stress and burnout
A study by Indeed of 1,500 workers in the US found that an unbelievable 52% of respondents reported feeling burned out. Workplace stress and burnout is a massive topic for employers and team leads right now as it can lead to staff resignations and long-term medical leave.
Supporting your team with a digital platform reduces their administrative workload, giving them more flexibility and reducing overtime - decreasing workplace stress.
However, stress isn’t just caused workload; it’s also caused by feeling you don’t have the right tools to do your job. One of the biggest issues in freight procurement is not having proper visibility into rate data. Without good visibility, it’s difficult for your team to make confident, stress-free decisions.
For example, imagine you’re purchasing a washing machine, but you don’t have access to any reviews or information on how much it can hold – you’d be worried (and feel stressed) that you’ll make the wrong purchase. This is the same for your team when they’re trying to make the procurement decisions without full visibility into their procurement data. And if they make the wrong choice, it could impact their career.
Digital platforms give your team the visibility they need to make confident, stress-free decisions. Not only can they create a data-driven stratify, but if something does go wrong, they can easily show that at the time they made the best decision. Giving your team these kind of resources and support is key to ensuring they’re happy in their role and will stay with you for the long run.
Want to see how SHIPSTA's freight procurement platform automates those tasks your team hates? Book a demo with one of our consultants in the link below.
About SHIPSTA
SHIPSTA powers smart logistics procurement with a digital platform that connects shippers and carriers to ensure a frictionless procurement process for spot and contract buying, entirely online. It automates complex tasks, provides unrivalled visibility and supports fast data-driven decision making.
Designed and built by experts in logistics procurement, SHIPSTA is bringing transparency, automation and efficiency to the global logistics industry. It is used by some of the world’s largest companies to respond to market volatility, control freight costs and manage risk. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in Mertert, Luxembourg and Hamburg, Germany.
