According to some, chauffeuring is no more than common sense and signing-up to specialist courses serves no purpose.
Andy Dubberley would most certainly beg to differ and investigates – just what industry training is out there?
Common sense is defined as ‘a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge things’. What we do certainly can’t be described as rocket science but it encompasses a large range of both interpersonal and practical skills, and to cheapen that fact does a major disservice to my beloved profession.
So, let’s start by being realistic, because we all aware a surprising amount of people clearly don’t have the ability to be a quality chauffeur. We’ve worked with, witnessed, and even employed individuals who, for whatever reason, just don’t ‘get it’.
If I could accurately define what ‘it’ is, I’d be bottling the damn stuff but those of you who’ve done the job successfully for a while will know just what I’m trying to say. Yes, common sense is part of the equation, varied life experience another. Add to the mix maturity, intelligence, conscientiousness and the necessity to be articulate and perhaps you’re getting to what makes the services of some chauffeurs be requested time after time.
These are the soft skills everyone has but display to enormously varying levels but the big question is, are these soft skills enough on their own? In my humble opinion, far from it and that’s where a closer look at industry training kicks in.
For the purpose of this exercise I’m going to break down our profession into three pretty general groups to better explain how and where training choices can be made;
