‘Skilled staff will always be assured of employment’

THE FREIGHT industry is “vital and exciting”, according to Margrit Wolff, MD of Buffalo Freight – and it’s “an industry which offers frequent opportunities for travel and gives employees the chance to find out lots about other businesses." And you don’t need to have an extensive academic background to be able to make a go of it in the freight industry, she added. “It’s a low-skill entry level. And, if someone shows initiative and a spark of intelligence, you can train them very easily.” Wolff feels her own career history proves the point. She entered the industry as a very basic employee, but quickly acquired experience through hands-on learning in the trade. “I had a limited formal education,” Wolff told FTW, “and had to fib about a non-existent standard eight certificate to be allowed to sit my matric at an educational college in my mid-twenties. “But, although I wouldn’t describe myself as being the easiest employee in the industry, the skills I acquired always stood me in good stead – and I’ve never once been unemployed in my many years in freight.” This compared very favourably with the career path of a close friend of Wolff’s – a student with a degree who has twice had rather lengthy periods of “sabbatical leave” during a career as an architect. “Ours is an industry where you’ll always find employment if you’ve got skills,” Wolff added, “and it offers a vibrant career path on both the sales and operational side of the business.” She also feels that the industry should be credited with being an equal employer in both male and female salary levels, and that it has a good record in attaining the black economic empowerment (BEE) guidelines. “I feel we have an example of this in our own company, with Buffalo having an employment equity plan which looks really good.”