Our People
Sound employee relationships are fundamental to the success of the North American business. We want to attract and retain our workforce by offering a quality and safe working environment and aim to be the preferred employer in the US bus and vehicle services industry.
Our People Management Framework
Each North American operating company has a Vice President responsible for human resource management. The management framework varies slightly from company to company, but all have structured lines of communication from field operating units via central or regional offices to the head office in Cincinnati. They report to the UK via the operating company Presidents. FirstGroup America's Human Resource Information System holds data such as staff turnover, employment and safety statistics.
Listening to Our People
Consistent and participative exchange with our employees is essential to achieving good relationships. We promote an 'open door' policy and hold regular employee and open forum meetings. These meetings provide opportunities for employees to raise issues and discuss them with managers. Regular safety meetings are held at all our locations and are also used to communicate broader issues.
With a workforce spread across over 400 locations, we continue to evolve more effective methods (such as newsletters and web mail services) for communicating core issues.
First Vehicle Services conducts ongoing employee opinion surveys. The feedback allows us to gauge employee satisfaction on a number of key issues and continues to demonstrate high levels of satisfaction as shown below.
- 84% are satisfied with their job.
- 79% are satisfied with level of involvement in customer service.
- 81% are satisfied with the company.
- 78% are satisfied with quality standards.
- 76% are satisfied with quality of customer service.
- 77% are satisfied with supervision they receive.
Formal employee opinion surveys are not conducted in our other North American operating companies but there are plans to introduce selected surveys in the coming year.