A desire to work with people led Dan Bassett into the bus industry and on the path to an award-winning career. Naomi MacKay went to meet him
At the tender age of 30, Dan Bassett is Head of Operations at Reading Buses. Not only that, but he already has an award for his work under his belt.
But how did an Ancient History graduate from Reading University end up involved in the transport industry? “To be honest it was by chance,” Dan explains.
“A lot of people enter this industry either by being a driver or having a pre-existing interest in transport. That wasn’t the case for me. I’m interested in the people, working with people and how to get the best out of them – doing it on a large scale, having an input into driving improvements and influencing what happens in the company.” [wlm_nonmember][…]
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Dan left University in Reading, with his degree certificate and a plan to start looking through graduate schemes once he was back home to Essex. Among others, he applied for one at Arriva and one at supermarket chain Aldi. He was offered both.
“The Aldi scheme paid considerably more but working in that kind of environment as a general manager you are restricted. Your role is to go round to the shops and make sure what the local managers are doing is right. You don’t necessarily have the chance to influence the processes and shape what the stores you are responsible for do, apart from pushing people to be the best they can be.”
After applying to Arriva, Dan was interviewed by Heath Williams, Managing Director of Arriva Southern Counties. “I learnt more about the company – there were more levers to pull, things you could do to make things better within the depot you were responsible for and in some cases the region as a whole. You could influence what happens and had opportunities to shape services and your operation.”
Dan’s degree in ancient history offered limited career choices with a direct link to the subject: “You can teach ancient history or work in a museum. All I knew was that I wanted to work with people and improve a company.”
He opted for the Arriva scheme and set about making the most of the opportunity. “You might do six months in one place, four months in another. It’s for you to manage your own time and manage your managers to end up where you want to be.
“But it gives you the ability to go to various areas. People have to open the door to you or sometimes you have to push it open – but I was always given the opportunity to learn.”
On the front line
The scheme took him around the company’s locations, from Maidstone, Gillingham and Sheerness to Tunbridge Wells and Northfleet. You don’t have to take a driving test as part of the graduate scheme, but Dan took his in Southend and drove in service for about six months out of Maidstone depot. “It is important that nobody could tell me I couldn’t do the job myself,” he explained.
“It would make it very challenging to manage an individual if I didn’t have a solid understanding of their job.
“I found driving a bit daunting to start with, although I passed my test first time. I remember my first day on my own – I was driving a number 82 bus in peak time. I looked in the centre mirror and I could see the bus was full; I thought ‘I’m in charge of all of these people – getting them to work safely, on time, charging them the right fare, making sure they’ve had a comfortable and enjoyable ride and will use the service again.’
“It’s a massive responsibility. Drivers – and their managers – need to understand just how important a job it is – the front line nature is critical.”
After completing a stint in the engineering department in the Gillingham depot, Dan ended up on a placement in a subsidiary company, Network Colchester, managing a depot there. The joy of the placement was that it took him back to his home town.
“The depot wasn’t performing well, and it needed a manager,” Dan continued. “I suppose the company thought I couldn’t make it any worse!” Dan was thrown into the deep end, 80 miles from the head office. “I had to find my own feet and learn the job quickly,” he added.
Of course, there were always people on the end of the phone and thanks to support from the team at head office and the local team, Dan managed to bring the depot’s performance level up and improve profitability.
“It was a good learning experience – there was a good team of people who wanted to make the company better – and none of them minded doing extra work to make that happen.
“We professionalised the systems and I had to learn them as we went along. It served me really well. Not only did I have to learn the financial business side – but also from a systems and operational side – we had to learn, review, revise. We also had to drive improvements in health and safety and overall compliance. It was beneficial – but daunting at the same time.
“It helped that I knew the area really well, I’d travelled on the bus routes when I was at school – I even recognised some of the drivers! I’d gone to school with some of their children, I knew the area, I knew some of the people and it helped with commercial routing decisions.”
Always speak last
Dan was 24 and in his first management position; the youngest person in the depot was only three years younger than him and only one of the drivers was under 30. It could have led to resentment among the older members of staff, but Dan’s natural people-management skills – and the fact he came into work in nothing flashier than an X-reg Vauxhall – helped win them over.
“People respond when you know what you’re taking about and understand you want to make positive changes and use their experiences to make these changes,” he said.
“Someone once told me to always speak last. If you approach a situation and explain the issue and immediately tell people your preferred solution, you kill off everyone else’s opinions and thoughts. I always try to let everyone express their views, consider them, question them and speak last. It demonstrates you appreciate people and you get the benefit of their opinions that may be more suitable than yours.
“They knew I was there to improve things. I had a really good and supportive general manager and the drivers had been driving buses for a long time. They were company people and wanted to help to do things to make it better.”
Next, he went to Northfleet and the Fastrack Bus Rapid Transit System with around 80 or 90 buses. “My experience at Colchester was about improving a depot that wasn’t performing well. Northfleet was about making something that was already good even better.
It was a different sort of management, with a lean team: myself, a senior inspector, three other inspectors and a dedicated Fastrack inspector.”
This was a different operation in an unfamiliar area, though he knew the company better. There was still the opportunity to change and shape things. During the 20 months or so with Fastrack, he learned about process, looking at data and learning how to tweak things and how to get people who were performing well to perform even better.
Thriving under pressure
After five years with Arriva, a job for an operations manager at Reading Buses came up. He knew of the company thanks to his time at Reading University: “I knew they were well-known in the industry for being a bit different and industry-leading, and I knew of the CEO and some of the management team there. I wanted to broaden my skillset and work and learn in another type of organisation.
“My job was similar but more expansive than that in Arriva – it was a much bigger operation with 360-70 drivers – and it was known as a company that likes to improve, is very customer focused and very people focused.”
His first day at the depot in June 2015 was an eye-opener. “I sat down, and we were talking about things that needed doing,” he recalled.
“The line was ‘we need you to mobilise route 90 that needs to start in five weeks and we need to think about restructuring and reworking the duties of the control room team’ – that was in the first hour!”
It may have been another drop into the deep end, but that is where Dan thrives. He began to learn how a municipal operation works and understand more about pushing technology. A year later he was promoted to Head of Operations, and is now solely responsible for the operations team. His boss is the chief executive and he sits on the leadership team, where they set the direction, pitch and tone of the company. But, he says: “My bread and butter is the 480 drivers, the 21 managers and supervisors that help me run the operation across three sites. All of them do an excellent job and I am privileged to work with such a dedicated team of people.”
It was in this role that Dan received the Young Manager of the Year Award for under 30s at the UK Bus Awards 2017.
“Reading Buses has enabled us to do – excuse the term – ‘sexier’ things! I’ve been given a platform to do things as I want to do them. I’m not so constrained by existing policies and procedures, to drive improvements. I think that’s helped us push on in the way that we have.
“I think I said when I won the award that, as cheesy as it sounds, my name is on it but it’s for everyone who works here – drivers, managers, supervisors – and everyone who has had a hand in my career previously.
“We do lots of rail replacement – special events for Reading Half Marathon, for Reading Festival. Through that and word of mouth we were asked to do the buses for Pennfest. We do buses for the football club, it’s very diverse. I would say it’s the best decision for myself and for my career that I ever made.”
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