Paul Stratford is Recruitment and Training Manager at First West of England while Lukasz Linka is Relief Driver Trainer and Journey Maker Champion. As a prelude to CBW’s Superfeature on First West of England next week, Andy Izatt talks to them about how First goes about training its drivers
If you have a car licence and would like to drive a bus for a living, First West of England aims to have you qualified within 15 working days. The training school at its Lawrence Hill, Bristol’s head office is a finely tuned operation, but while it understands the importance of efficiency, it also prides itself in looking after the people it recruits to give them the best chance to succeed in their new career.
“We recently held a community engagement open day in Lawrence Hill where 100 visitors drove a bus,” explained First West of England Recruitment and Training Manager, Paul Stratford. “We’re holding recruitment days regularly. We want to meet as many people as we can to get the message across that there are numerous benefits in working for a company of this size. It’s not just about being paid to drive a bus. There are discounts in high street shops and reduced rail tickets on the local network available, to name a few. Uniforms are provided and there’s a pension at the end of it. There aren’t many jobs that can be for life, but we aim to offer that.
“Due to continued growth during the 2016-17 financial year, we introduced 300 new drivers. Of those, 207 were provisional category D licence holders. Whilst there are advantages to recruiting people who already have a licence to drive the bus, the benefit of provisional licence holders is that we can train them to the highest standard – one who first and foremost sees the job as a community service and customer focused role. So, we’re able to teach them our way of doing things from day one. So far, this year we have had 265 new starters of which 186 have been provisional licence holders.[wlm_nonmember][…]
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“The people we recruit are from all sorts of backgrounds. We have had former bank managers and school teachers, but those that can draw on some kind of retail background are particularly good because they already have that customer service understanding. I remember one recruit who worked his way up to be a manger at KFC. He’s an excellent driver.
“As well as training, new recruits, my team also carries out some support work with drivers who fall below the level we expect and we also deliver the Driver CPC. In a company this size, employing 1,800 people of whom the majority are drivers, we need to be running CPC courses every week. As is the case across the industry, there is a lot who will need to renew in 2018-19 so we’re going to be particularly busy during that period.
“To be offered a driving job at First, an applicant must have ideally held a car licence for a minimum of two years and be a minimum of 18 years old. As part of their assessment after taking a safety test, we’ll take them out in a minibus just to see if they can take to driving instruction. We let them drive and then the assessor will go through any areas that might need some work. What we want to see is whether potential recruits are open to driving instruction. Basically whether they are prepared to listen and potentially change their driving style. We don’t expect perfection, but we do need to find out if they can take instruction.
“That’s followed by a competency test to make sure they have got basic maths and an understanding of English. They’re given an in-service incident statement to write to make sure they understand the basics of what would be required.
“They will then have a face-to-face interview with a manager and if that all goes ok, we’ll then put them through a medical. This sounds like a long process but we actually aim to do all of this on the same day to keep the momentum of the process going.
“Applying for a licence takes a little bit of time as we are heavily reliant on the DVLA’s ability to turn the application around and it can be up to four weeks from interview before we can get new starters into the business. We have a robust process in place to keep candidates warm during this period so they feel they are part of our business before they arrive. Once we have their licence back from DVLA, we can give them a start date.
“Inductions take place at Lawrence Hill every Monday and normally involve 10 to 12 people at a time. On day one they’ll meet our Managing Director, James Freeman. James insists on this as he firmly believes that it’s important for new recruits to hear first-hand, his vision for First West of England and his expectations of his drivers. Day one is also when we start paying recruits. There are a lot of companies that don’t do that but at First, we want to show our people we are committed to providing them with every opportunity for a new career.
“On day two of their induction, they will have their first experience of one of our training buses. There’s 10 based at Lawrence Hill –12m Volvo B10BLEs and B7RLEs so they can get used to the out-swing. We have a course set out for the purpose in the yard so it’s a controlled environment. Blind spots are something that we focus on early and we won’t let them out on the road until they have a good understanding of the vehicle. On the afternoon of day two we introduce them to the Smith System.”
Understanding Smith’s
Lukasz Linka is Relief Driver Trainer and Journey Maker Champion and explained how the Smith System works. “It’s a seven-hour course that is Driver CPC accredited and is designed to improve the driving performance of all drivers – making their driving smooth and safe,” he explained. “The first part is classroom based and gives us an insight into what’s going on in our minds, asking how we can use that to improve our driving performance.
“Five keys are explored, the first being to aim high in steering. That means looking ahead as far as is physically possible to give at least 15 seconds of eye lead time. Secondly, get the big picture. Gain as much information from the road as possible focusing particularly on relevant objects. That includes scanning mirrors every five to eight seconds and monitoring your following distance so that you’re maintaining at least a four second gap between yourself and the vehicle in front.
“Key three is the importance of keeping your eyes moving. People are equipped with central and peripheral vision. Avoid staring at any one object for more than two seconds because that’s when your peripheral vision narrows down and you may not be picking up on as many objects from the road as you should be. Key four is about always making sure that you have an escape route. When there’s a large vehicle in front, leave yourself a bigger gap to give yourself better visibility of what is going on.
“Key five is making sure that others see you. That means making proper use of the vehicle’s warning devices such as indicators and hazard warning lights. Only flash your headlights to make people aware of your presence. Maintain or seek eye contact with other road users and pedestrians because if you can have an indication that they’re aware of your presence, you know they know that you’re there and you can proceed normally.”
Said Paul: “On day three, trainees will go out on the road with their instructor for the first time. They came into our business to be bus drivers so that’s what we want them doing as soon as possible. The ratio on the bus is usually two to one trainer of which there are 15 here.
“Our objective is that trainees will be ready for their tests by day 13. One day prior to that will be taken up with their theory and hazard test, also undertaken at Lawrence Hill because we have designated facilities. They will do what we call a driving pre-test with a senior instructor. That’s when they go out under exam conditions to see where they are in terms of their driving ability. If they pass, we might present them for test earlier.
“Pass rate on the initial pre-test is probably about 75%. For those that fail, the senior instructor can feed back to the trainer where the weaknesses are so remedial action can be taken before a second pre-test takes place a day or two later. There is a good team here and if the situation is at all repairable, we know we can fix it quite quickly.
“Because we’re dealing with such high volumes of people, we can’t afford really to allow the training process to go over week three. Also, what we don’t want is to hold back those who are ready for test. We have our own in-house, DVSA-delegated examiner who is employed by First and, if need be, there are others within the Group we can call on.”
Buddy support
“Once they’ve obtained their full licence, a new recruit will continue his or her training at their allotted depot,” Paul continued. “The first three weeks of that are crucial because people have gone from the protected environment of the training school into live service so that’s why we place them with a Buddy Driver. Hopefully they will build a relationship with that person that will last throughout their career. It should be someone they can always turn to for advice.
“Buddy Drivers are experienced members of the team who have stepped up to the role, but we still give them three full day’s training. For example, we go through walk round checks again to make sure they’re still up to speed with what’s required and there will be ticket machine refresher training as well. In addition, they attend Smith’s and Journey Makers.
“The buddy will help the new driver with vehicle type training and with learning some of the depot’s routes. We don’t train new starters on all our routes at once – that wouldn’t be fair.
The value of the buddies is that they encourage new drivers and make them feel part of the team. No one is signed off to go solo until both the buddy and the new starter are happy.”
Journey Makers
“For those recruited with a PCV licence, they still go through the same first induction day as those without so they too meet our Managing Director, James Freeman.
“On day two they will have a driving assessment with our DVLA delegated examiner. If they’re not up to our standard, a day or two with one of our trainers should bring them up to speed. Often they will be people who have been out of the industry for a number of years so it’s a question of getting a feel for big vehicles again. Then they’ll have ticket and vehicle type training.
“If they’ve been out of the industry, they won’t have a current Driver CPC. As I said, we’re running courses all of the time so we can accommodate that and we’re happy to recruit people on that basis. Since DVSA brought in the initial Driver CPC Module 2 and 4, that has made it easier for us and we’re delegated to carry out those tests.
“On day three PCV licence holders will attend our Journey Makers course which is Driver CPC accredited.”
Said Lukasz: “Journey Makers was introduced by First UK Bus in March this year and is designed to help our drivers to better support our customers. We worked with a company called Brand Biology to develop the course and the focus was very much on understanding the day-to-day challenges of being a bus driver and creating an interactive, engaging course that give our drivers helpful tips and tools to do their job better. A part of this includes looking at our brand values and exploring what those mean day-to-day, what behaviours they should drive.
“While Journey Makers has been designed primarily for our bus drivers, there are also Journey Makers courses available for other roles because it’s relevant to those working at all levels of the business.
“We start by exploring some of the day-to-day challenges of the job which might be a cause of frustration and then we look at ways of tackling those and remaining professional. That usually elicits a positive response.
“We then move on to exploring different personality types – how these might appear and what they might need. What we’re trying to do is get people to know themselves better and understand how their responses may be interpreted by others. While we know in our own minds what it is that we want to communicate, it might easily be misunderstood. What we want is for them to be curious – to be open to different ways of thinking – so that we start to build understanding that everyone is different and may have different needs.”
“The point we’re making is that not everyone thinks like you and responds like you so others may interpret behaviour differently to what you’re expecting. Therefore, participants need to understand that what they say and how they say it impacts differently depending on who they are talking to.
“The course emphasises that each of us has control over our own attitude. Whether participants are actually prepared to change how they communicate is up to them, but we can plant a seed. What we usually find is they’re really positive and genuinely feel that they have learnt something.
“Journey Makers is about enabling people get to know a bit more about themselves so that they can have better interactions with others – internally, with our customers and perhaps even in their personal lives too.
Said Paul: “I think around 35% of all our drivers have now been through Journey Makers and we’ve had excellent feedback from them. The aim is that all of our drivers will have attended the course by the middle of next year. We’re already seeing some early signs that the programme is having a positive impact on the service our drivers are delivering to our customers, which is encouraging.
“On day four, our new PCV recruits will go to their allocated depot where they too will be paired up with a Buddy Driver for three weeks. Despite having prior experience, it can still take time to learn new routes and we want everyone to be confident in what they’re doing before they go solo.”
Maintaining standards
“For our existing drivers, GreenRoad telematics is used by the depots to monitor standards,” said Paul. “Managers get weekly reports, but each driver also has a login so they can monitor their own performance. There’s actually quite a bit of competition between the best because they want to maintain their top scores. If they are checking regularly, it gives us reassurance because we know they care about what they’re doing and want to give our customers a comfortable journey. That’s what it’s all about.
“GreenRoad also helps to flag up those drivers we may need to do some more work with. Where necessary, we’ll first send a trainer out to do an overt check. The trainer will board the bus and have a quick chat with the driver concerned and explain why they’re going to ride on their bus. At the end of the journey there will be a brief private coaching session about what has been observed.
“Often that’s all that’s required because all they needed was a little support and a few pointers.
“There are occasions when we need to provide further training – if they’ve had an accident, for example – in which case we’ll usually put them through a Smith’s course because of its focus on spatial awareness. I think around 75% of our drivers have been through Smith’s now and there has been a reduction in collisions as a result.
“I think we still need to work harder to change perceptions of this industry so that we can attract people from non-transport backgrounds. When I joined First West of England after 12 years working for a local authority (see panel), I could see a dramatic improvement. It’s so much more professional now and I think really does offer great career opportunities for the right people.
“We can teach most people to drive a bus, but what we can’t teach them is to like people. They have got to have that in them, but if they do, we can do the rest.”[/wlm_ismember]
