From Then to Now: Ian Datlen

I joined the company as Recruitment Consultant in late 2006 after a period of working as a temporary 7.5t driver whilst I was retraining to be an electrician, when Nathan, Gwynne and Steve made me an offer I couldn’t refuse to go back into sales, my original career!

My role has changed many times over the years starting with over 10 years as a Recruitment Consultant registering drivers, account management, filling client shifts, 24hr on call and taking on the role of growing the customer base using my new business sales experience. The company was then sold with Kieran coming on board, expanding the business became even more important we had new goals and expansion targets to achieve. During this period I passed my LGV2 and LGV1 to improve our customer relationship potential then through necessity during 2009 I spent more time combining account management and driving to help get the company through the financial crisis, a tricky year!

I stopped being a consultant and spent time swapping between driving for customers, as ‘driving ambassador’ (not sure who thought title up!) and taking on various projects such as setting Driver Require Ltd up as a CPC training centre and conducting Driver CPC courses, full implementation and training staff in the ‘new’ Infinity database, writing the GDPR policy for the company and more. During this period we also experienced COVID another VERY tricky year!.. once again I was able to fall back on driving lorries to help do my bit to get Driver Require Ltd through.

Currently I am office based again and have started with projects like introducing a new driver registration portal designed to save administration time for consultants and drivers alike, resetting the recruitment process to ensure we maintain our compliance standards and assist the sales team in focusing on growing the company again.

Overall it’s been a wonderful company to be involved with over the years, it’s been a pleasure to help create a company that has consistently achieved its goals over the years in a tough industry, whilst maintaining a collaborative, caring and team centered environment. For me personally the enormous variety of work I have undertaken and the interesting array of colleagues, drivers and customers I have had the pleasure to work with is what has kept me at Driver Require Ltd.

I look forward to help taking Driver Require Ltd into its next 25 years and then retiring before we get there!