How branding helps attract talent for your logistics business

TD;LR

• Staff shortages are an issue for logistics businesses with an aging workforce, lack of women, and higher demand for services, contributing to this problem.

  
  

• Branding can help attract and retain talent by differentiating you from competitors, attracting the right candidates, and reducing costs per candidate.

  
  

• Branding can result in faster hiring cycles, more qualified applicants, and more committed staff with higher productivity.

  
  

• Create an employer brand by producing brand guidelines for consistent messaging, create inclusive marketing.

  
  

• Monitor your employer brand through cost per hire, employee turnover rate, website traffic, and brand recognition.

Many logistics companies face challenges with recruiting new staff.

While you might assume that increasing salaries or adding more benefits will help (if you can do this), you can actually attract staff through branding.

State of retaining and attracting talent in logistics

Attracting talent has been an ongoing issue for logistics businesses.

An aging workforce, underrepresentation of women, and higher demand in services, have all created an issue with recruitment in logistics.

In the first quarter of 2025, the UK’s HGV driver workforce declined by 1.9% from 2024.

This has led to a 160k driver shortage, with 40% of logistics companies reporting they don’t have enough workers to meet demand. And with an increase in logistics and warehousing job vacancies by 9%, both these issues are causing an ever expanding staff shortage.

With only 12% of drivers aged 25 or under in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, there is a problem with a lot of drivers coming to the age of retirement, without anyone replacing them.

The share of women truck drivers is only 6% in many regions and only 20% women overall in UK transport and logistics sector which means a significantly smaller base to recruit from.

The UK government also landed a blow to the industry by announcing they would discontinue the HGV Skills Bootcamps Programme which trained new drivers. The programme had a job placement rate of 72% but ended in September 2025.

These issues were highlighted during a recent event Lissah & Boyle attended in conjunction with Women In Logistics.

In 2025, TST Group, hosted a panel event at their headquarters in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. Director Marie-Claire spoke about her journey in logistics and the underrepresentation of women. The panel then discussed the challenges faced by the industry and recruitment was one of the biggest with all of the businesses in attendance finding this to be a problem.

Why branding is important in logistics

Thirty four percent of logistics firms lack a digital transformation strategy but when evidence shows that logistics marketing can significantly increase brand presence and enhance customer acquisition, many logistics firms are missing out on a massive opportunity.

There are many other benefits for investing in branding for your logistics business:

Differentiation of your logistics business

With so many logistics companies looking for staff, how will you stand out?

Take a look at logistics job ads. Most of them are similar and lack personality. So, how does a potential candidate choose?

It could come down to salary which many SMEs would struggle to compete with bigger companies. So, how do you stand out? Branding.

Ninety four percent of candidates are likely to apply for a job if a company manages its employer brand and 91% of job seekers find a poor online presence damaging.

Attracts the right logistics candidates

Many companies hire the wrong people which costs a lot of money.

DPD, one of the UK’s largest delivery companies, had this problem. They found applications didn’t meet their standards and demand for deliveries had increased.

So, they embarked on a campaign to entice people with the same values as DPD. They wanted people that go the extra mile, and so they created the ‘Van-Do Attitude’.

This campaign saw a 81% reduction in driver deficit, a 48% increase in new starters, and twice as many female applications.

Reduces costs and time

Companies that have a stronger employer brand compared to competitors, see around a 43% decrease in the cost per candidate hired.

Not only does a stronger employer brand cost less it can result in a 50% more qualified applicants and takes 1 to 2 times faster to hire.

DHL, the global leader in logistics, had a fragmented brand due to so many different career sites and inconsistent messaging. When they created a unified global employer brand, they saw applications increase dramatically, had faster hiring cycles and higher quality candidates when they improved their employer brand.

Increased retention

With 56% of employers finding it more challenging to retain talent over the past year than previously and 41% of them saying new recruits often resigned within the first 12 weeks, it’s not just hiring staff that’s the problem.

Companies with an employer value proposition (like a unique selling point but for employees) found staff were 38% more committed which resulted in higher productivity and longer tenures.

 

How to create branding that attracts and retains logistics staff

So, how do you actually create an employer brand?

Brand guidelines

Creating brand guidelines helps to keep your branding consistent with both customers and staff. Brand guidelines generally include your mission, goals, unique selling point, values, tone of voice, and various other essentials.

If there are documented brand guidelines then all staff understand what they are working towards and it helps with decision making.

If you’re a logistics company that wants to make the world a better place and focus heavily on sustainability. Then all decisions will be based on this. You won’t work with suppliers that have high carbon emissions. This makes decisions quick and simple.

Your employer value proposition could be part of your brand guidelines, or this could be a separate document, solely focusing on retaining and recruiting staff.

Just like your unique selling point, your business should have a specific reason why potential employees should choose you over any competitors.

Vector Logistics undertook a brand refresh when they had a change of ownership. They created a new identity that highlighted their innovation and sustainability across external and internal communications, such as learning materials. This helped them to appeal to a new generation of potential employees.

Logistics marketing

Your marketing activities should reiterate your brand. If you want to be seen as a diverse company, for example, you should show this in all of your marketing.

Your website, social media, brochures, photography, should all show you value diversity. Including women in non-traditional roles, like driving HGVs should be part of your brand, for example.

From your job adverts to onboarding staff, training, and exit interviews; all of your marketing should reiterate your brand. This will help build up the perception you want people to have of your company and differentiate from competitors.

Cathy Doherty, founder of The People Navigator, specialises in how to ‘avoid hiring and holding on to horrible people’ says,

How to monitor your employer brand

Most organisations don’t calculate the cost of labour turnover which means you don’t know how much you’re spending on it, and if it’s improved through branding or other changes. There’s no point going to the effort of creating a new employer brand if you don’t monitor if it’s worked.

So, how do you monitor it?

Cost per hire

How much does it cost you to hire one person? Before creating an employer brand, you should check to see how much it currently costs you to hire a member of staff.

Employee turnover rate

Do you have a high employee turnover rate? If you do, then your recruitment process and branding may not be aligning with the reality of working in the business and therefore leads to a high turnover of staff.

Website traffic

Whether you’re actively looking for new staff or not, you should have a careers page on your website. Not only will this help when you are looking for staff because you can refer them to this page, but you can monitor how much traffic you get to the website as a whole and your careers page specifically.

This will show you if any of your recruitment campaigns are working.

Brand recognition

People like shortcuts. When faced with lots of choices, people pick brands they are familiar with. They don’t have to be the best but because they are known, they have an advantage over their competitors.

Branding is how to get this advantage, and this can be monitored through how many people search directly for your company, your share of voice in your industry, how your website statistics compare to competitors, along with many other brand recognition metrics.

Reviews

Are there employee reviews of your company online?

When people are searching for a job, they want to hear from people who actually work there (or previously worked there), what it’s like.

Reviews are powerful, not just for attracting customers, but also for new staff. People will believe what other people say about you quicker than what you say about yourself.

If your marketing matches what employees say about your brand (hopefully mostly positive), then this will help attract staff.

Branding in logistics

For logistics companies, recruiting will continue to be a problem. But branding is a cost-effective way of enhancing your brand amongst potential candidates and customers alike.

In such a competitive industry, branding is the way to differentiate your brand from competitors and is more likely to have long-term success.

Interested in creating brand guidelines for your logistics business? Get in touch.