Peter Jackson sat down with UK Bus Awards Unsung Hero winner and HR Admin Manager Sheila Swift to learn more about her career and the impact she has made at NCT
CBW: How did you get into the industry to begin with?
Sheila Swift: I’d just done a refresher course for my shorthand and typing skills at college because I’d had a little lad, and then started doing a maternity cover job at John Player. While I was there in 1981, I saw a shorthand typist role advertised at NCT – or City of Nottingham Transport as it was then – and I applied for it. I had to come in and do various tests – even shorthand and typing tests – and I was lucky enough to get the job. I sort of fell into it… it was the first ‘real’ job I’d had because after I’d left college, I’d only been at work about 10 months when I fell pregnant. Then I had three years out to stay at home, then did my temping jobs. So, this was essentially my first real job, and I’ve been here ever since!
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Since then I’ve done various roles here. I started as a shorthand typist, then I did filing for a while. My argument was that I could do a filing clerk’s job but they couldn’t do my job, because I’d got shorthand and typing skills. We had a bit of a wrangle there with the city council at the time, but they regraded my job then.
Then in 1991 I moved to being directors’ secretary, so I was looking after the five directors at the company. But when Mark came on board, he was very much hands-on and wanted to do everything himself; I ended up feeling like I’d got nothing to do because he was doing it all! At the time, our personnel officer was really poorly, so I started helping out in HR and made a bit of a sideways move. I’ve been in HR for over a decade now full-time.
CBW: So what are your day-to-day responsibilities in your current role?
SS: I do all of the day-to-day stuff – people leaving and new starters, for example – and I look after recruitment alongside our Assistant Training and Development Manager Matt Stewart Baker. I couldn’t do it without him. It’s also things like making sure people are following policies; I took on GDPR when that all came in. I make sure that we’re compliant and conduct investigations if there are any breaches. I also take care of changing pay; if somebody’s moving from one job to another, me and HR Admin Assistant Chris Hall sort them out between us.
CBW: What’s kept you interested in the job for so long?
SS: It’s because things are changing all the time. If you look at the bus industry, technology really has moved on since I started. If I’m really honest, when I first started I thought I’d probably stick it for six months and then I’d be looking for something else, but we tend to keep people here. I think a big part of that is because of how things are moving on. When I first started here, we didn’t have computers – we had a manual typewriter. Then we really felt chuffed when we got electronic typewriters that you could pre-programme for the first sentence of a letter or something. We didn’t have our first computer until 1991, and then we had to share it between four secretaries! When Mark came onboard, I think his first question was ‘where’s my computer?’ None of the senior managers had computers at that time, but that soon changed.
That same level of progression has happened across the industry. At first it was all cash fares, then we moved to cards and now we’re looking at trying to get contactless in; we’ve got gas buses instead of diesel… it really has moved on over the years. There’s not been one big highlight – it’s been a combination of things.
But I really like the variety. Even though I do the same job day in day out, no two days are the same. I like to be put under pressure as well; when I’ve got stuff piling up and I know I’ve got to get on with it I tend to work better.
I get bored very easily, so the fact that I’ve been here this long says a lot! If I ever got bored I started having a clear out, and I used to say that if you were stood still long enough you’d be in a black bag!
I think you’d be hard pushed to find a job like this somewhere else. You might be able to get a bit more money somewhere else, but this is a really good job to be in and a really good company to work for. I really can’t say that enough. We try our best to help our staff out when they need it – I can’t complain at the help I’ve had over the years when I’ve needed it.
I couldn’t do what I do without the people I work with; without the two girls that work with me, and without Matt’s help with recruitment, there’s no way I would be able to get the amount of work done that I do. It’s very much a team effort.
You expect your staff to do certain things, but it’s about remembering to say thank you when they do. If you ask them to turn something around quickly and they achieve it, it’s so important to thank them. It’s easy enough to remember when they’ve done something wrong, but it’s nice also to recognise their achievements.
CBW: Looking after your staff is clearly very important at NCT.
SS: Absolutely. In the past you’d be expected to come to work, get on with it, and it wouldn’t matter what happened in your life – nobody was interested. I think we’ve turned things around here; we’ve got policies in place to try and help people, we try and help out with things like flexible working and child-friendly policies. We do a lot to try and be proactive with our staff because, when you’ve spent the money training them, you would rather have them working for you than going somewhere else. We can’t always accommodate people of course, but we do our best.
Mental health is now a big subject, so we’re starting to put things in place so that our staff have somebody they can go and talk to if they’re struggling – not necessarily their manager. We’re looking at implementing something like mental health first aiders to start with – a few people throughout the business who you can go and talk to.
Sometimes people will come and open up to me, and ask to talk to me off the record. Of course, it depends what they end up telling me; there are some things I can help with and sometimes somebody else has to be aware there’s an issue. We’ve been doing that kind of thing for a long time, but I think now it’s about putting in place dedicated policies and processes for it. Right from the start, we tell people that if they need to talk they can go straight to their manager or someone in the HR team.
CBW: Let’s talk about your UK Bus Awards win – did you have any idea leading up to it?
SS: No idea whatsoever. We’ve been doing internal awards for drivers for quite some time – we’d have a seasonal driver and driver of the year – and then they started opening the awards up to the rest of the company. Last year was the first time the awards were rolled out to different categories, and I was put forward for Unsung Hero in our internal awards. I won that, which then meant I got the opportunity to be nominated for the UK Bus Awards. But I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen from that point. Here I am now having won, seeing pictures of myself on the back of buses! Every time I turn around there’s a bus with my picture on it!
CBW: Was it a shock to be nominated for the internal awards?
SS: Well yeah, because I would never have thought of putting myself forward for it. I was surprised that I’d been nominated but pleased as well, because I think in some way it goes to recognise the amount of work you do and the knowledge you have of the company. I’ve certainly got more knowledge of the company than some of the senior managers because I’ve been here longer than them!
2019 was certainly a fantastic year for us, wasn’t it? UK Bus Awards winner five times, and I think we won most of the categories we were nominated for this year.
CBW: What was the experience like on the day, pretty surreal I imagine?
SS: Well it was, because I didn’t realise I’d won. The awards followed a set format: they announced the bronze position, then the silver, then the gold. I think there were five gentlemen and myself nominated for that category, and I didn’t think I’d win because it was International Men’s Day that day! When they invited the other five nominees on stage, Rob Hicklin said, “Sheila you’ve won.” I said to him that they’d not done bronze and silver yet, but he told me, “There’s five people up there Sheila and there’s only six in the category!” Then it dawned on me, and I felt a bit stupid really! I didn’t realise I’d won.
It was really nice. Even people I didn’t know said congratulations. When you go out and do your tour to get your photos done, I had people I’d never even met before saying ‘well done,’ which was really nice.
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