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am not a fleet manager. Never have been, likely never will be. Aside from coordinating press demonstrators, I do not know what it is like to be responsible for multiple vehicles, driven by other people. I have no first-hand experience with tussles over choice lists, dealing with a colleague’s accident, or anything else someone in the role might encounter. I am, however, reasonably familiar with the fleet industry. I joined Business Car’s staff in 2011 and have written for the publication on a freelance basis since 2014. Rarely does a week go by when I do not fire up Zoom/Teams/Google Meet to, say, the familiar face of a leasing company consultant, a telematics company’s MD, or the head of a trade body. I hear the words ‘off the record’ more than anyone really should. It was during one of these calls when AFP chair Paul Hollick and I were discussing the organisation’s Fleet Academy – its educational arm for industry professionals. Its entry-level offering is the Fleet Vehicle Management Introductory course, designed for those new to the business be they operators or suppliers, dedicated fleet managers, or those for whom vehicles are an ancillary responsibility – the likes of HR, finance, or facilities managers. It is approved by the Institute of the Motor Industry (all AFP courses are) involves around 12 hours of online study – you can dip in and out as you please – and you do not have to be an AFP member to do it.
22 | February 2024 |
www.businesscar.co.uk
Fleet school I
Back to basics
The format is as simple as it gets and familiar to anyone used to online learning. The content takes up the lion’s share of the screen and all eight chapters (click to expand into bulleted subsections) are housed in a black bar on the left-hand side.
Session one, An Introduction to the Programme, is a simple set-up and explanation job, and the course really gets going with session two. Called The Scope of Car & LCV Fleet Management, it provides a broad-brush overview of the industry, starting with jargon and acronyms, and
Jack Carfrae takes the AFP’s Introductory course to see if he would cut it as novice fleet manager.
According to Hollick, the course has been running for around 15 years and attracts about 300 students a year, many of whom are not actually managers. Some, he says, are leasing company employees, while other organisations treat it as a form of induction training for new staff. Thinking out loud, I asked if I could do the course, and before long found a set of joining instructions in my inbox.
Signing up for fleet management 101 was a sort of strange, dualistic thing to do from my position as an industry reporter with no hands-on fleet management experience, so I was probably not a typical student. However. I was keen to see how I would fare and examine the course’s relevance and application to its intended audience of newcomers.
“The course is just as relevant, arguably more so, to those with a greater level of experience; those further up the food chain who would get stuck in and find them- selves muttering, ‘I probably should know that’.”
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