Recruitment and retention
Key to having a trained, motivated and customer focused workforce is making sure we recruit and retain the right people.
The bus industry as a whole continues to face major challenges in this area with bus driver turnover still high and an ongoing shortfall of drivers. Our driver turnover has increased slightly during the last year but still lies well below the national average and shows an overall downturn over the last four years.
UK Bus driver turnover
A major contributor to our reduction in turnover has been our award-winning bus driver induction programme.
UK Bus driver induction training wins top award
In October 2007 the UK Bus driver induction programme won the National Training Award. The induction programme includes a coaching and mentoring element and a programme for drivers to achieve their S/NVQ level 2 in Road Passenger Transport. The award recognised the contribution the programme has made to driver retention with fewer drivers leaving in the first year of service.
With the national driver shortfall the diversification of our recruitment processes is an important business issue. Although our focus is on recruiting first and foremost from the local marketplace we support this with an active overseas recruitment programme. This has been necessary to ensure we can retain the necessary complement of drivers to reliably run our services.
Overseas recruitment
A core element of our overseas recruitment programme has been the establishment of an industry leading vocational language school, driving school and recruitment centre in Poland. All recruits undergo a detailed training process developing their language skills and preparing them for employment in the UK. All recruits from the European Community are employed on the same benefits and terms and conditions as their UK counterparts. Integration Officers support new recruits and carefully monitor the process, continually seeking feedback on how we can improve the programme. Due to continued driver shortfall we are now establishing an additional recruitment centre in the Czech Republic to train up bus drivers and assess language skills prior to employment in the UK. Through the overseas recruitment programme we have recruited over 1500 drivers, engineers and cleaners. The average retention rate is 85%.
JobCentre Plus
We continue to develop our relationship with Jobcentre Plus through whom we can access a far wider range of potential job seekers than might otherwise be the case. This year we were the first public transport company to sign the Local Employment Partnership at both divisional and regional levels. Through these partnerships we will be engaging in many different initiatives to help people into work, ranging from job trials, pre employment training and New Deal recruits.