colleagues
we invest in our people, diversity, and career growth
Here at Transdev, we’re proud to be known as a people-centred business. For us, it’s about much more than just words – we go further to make sure every employee has opportunities to grow on their personal career journey, and we celebrate diversity in all its forms throughout our teams.
The Transdev Spirit sums up our way of working together within and across all our teams in three simple ways:
- We talk
- We listen
- We make it happen
An independent judging panel at the 2022 UK Bus Awards – the Oscars of the nation’s bus industry – selected The Transdev Spirit for a coveted Gold prize in the closely-contested Culture Change category.
The ways we communicate between and within our teams are constantly evolving to reflect changing business needs. Our in-house quarterly magazine, ‘Talk’, is distributed in both print and digital formats to all our colleagues: each issue is packed from cover to cover with engaging people stories throughout our organisation.
We’ve also revitalised ‘Talk Shop’, our programme of visits by our senior leadership team to all of our operating centres. We listen and engage in a relaxed style to encourage everyone to share their thoughts and ideas – and we have dedicated email addresses for our colleagues to raise whatever they need to with us.
Our award-winning personal development programmes are all about encouraging everyone to develop their skills with us, creating a powerful win-win situation: our people enjoy real-world career progression, while our business benefits from building a wider skills base.
Our industry-leading learning facility, The Academy, conducts around 8,000 hours of driver training each year, delivered by our own in-house team of instructors. We’re also continually upskilling our engineering teams through training programmes delivered both in-house and by external providers, with learning focused on the latest technologies including hybrid and battery-electric powered vehicles.
In 2024, Owen Baxter in Harrogate and Blackburn-based Matthew Glass became the first to complete our new three-year Engineering Apprenticeship Programme, and qualify as a Level 3 Mechanical and Electrical Engineer.
As we continue our transition to zero-emission electric buses, demand for time-served engineers is at an all-time high – making it the ideal time for Owen and Matt to qualify.
Owen says: “Gaining the ability to look at something that doesn’t work, find the cause, and then fix it, is what attracted me to this. The feeling of achievement when you return a bus to the road takes some beating.”
Matthew is equally proud to be a fully-fledged engineer. He says: “The best part of the three-year apprenticeship has been seeing the improvement in my ability to trace a fault and repair it. The first time I looked under a bus, it just looked like a big lump of metal, but over three years I’ve gained a lot of confidence in my ability in the workshop.”
Launched in November 2023, SkillUp is our pioneering initiative to tackle the UK’s shortage of expert engineers by attracting newcomers and career switchers into our workshops.
By expanding our skills offer beyond school or college leavers, we’re encouraging those already in other roles – including bus drivers – to retrain as a qualified engineer.
Our new engineers are leading our drive towards electric power by gaining specialist knowledge needed to maintain the latest battery-powered buses – while SkillUp is also offering our semi-skilled people who already have workshop experience a chance to complete a fast-track one year course to boost their knowledge and skills.
York-based Andrew Fleming, a former teacher turned bus driver, is among those who’ve made a successful switch to an engineering career with support through SkillUp. Andrew has gained a Level 3 NVQ in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, turning his spare time interest in repairing classic motorcycles and cars into a bright new future in our workshops.
Andrew Fleming - from Driver to Engineer
Meanwhile, our StepUp career development programme is all about creating opportunities for our people with potential to move into areas beyond their comfort zone.
We invite applications from within our teams to join StepUp each year – and as well as boosting practical skills at work, those who complete StepUp enhance their skills with a formal qualification, as well as gaining a fresh perspective through experience to help them flourish in future management roles.
As well as our smart approach to learning and development, we know how important it is for our customer-facing people to present a smart appearance when we welcome you on board our buses and at our bus stations.
After three years of in-depth wearer trials – the biggest in our history – we now have a stylish yet practical dedicated uniform, designed with our colleagues in mind. For us, being smart is about our pride in serving you.
Our Pride of the North values are at the core of all we do … placing our customers first, every time.
Our training for everyone in our teams, from newcomers to the most experienced people, focuses on giving every customer the best possible experience, from the moment they choose to travel with us to the second they reach their destination.
We also talk with – and listen carefully to – our customers, with clearly signposted opportunities to feed back on their journey with us, and route-specific customer surveys which inform our planned improvements.
Those who consistently deliver the highest standards of customer care are celebrated each year at our annual Amazing Awards – a prestigious event which turns the spotlight on our highest performing individuals and teams.
Our Amazing Awards are presented across nine categories, including Customer Choice – its winner is selected directly by our customers through a poll to nominate their favourite drivers, along with the reasons for their selection.
Meanwhile, those who have given decades of dedicated service to our customers take centre stage at our Celebration of Service Awards.
It’s a sparkling celebratory evening which is keenly awaited each year, and is our way of saying a heartfelt thank you for all our most experienced people have done and continue to do for our customers, whether on the road, in our workshops or behind the scenes.
Across our organisation, we benefit every day from their professionalism and experience. Knowledge built on decades of outstanding customer service provides a positive example for our newer team members to follow, while creating a secure foundation on which we seek to build future shared success.
Rewarding our people appropriately for their hard work is important to us as a responsible employer. That’s why we’re proud to be officially accredited as a Living Wage Employer.
Of course, we already pay at or above the Real Living Wage – as a responsible employer, we want to go further than minimum pay levels set by the Government.
By being an accredited Living Wage Employer, we are demonstrating to everyone – whether part of our teams or not – that we support our people with a decent standard of living, and that we want to set a positive example to others as a means to tackle in-work poverty.
As a business accredited by the independent Living Wage Foundation, we appear on its website and searchable map, so that our customers, colleagues, students and supporters can see that we pay a Real Living Wage that meets the cost of living, as measured against the cost of a basket of household goods and services that we all need to buy.
We take pride in displaying the Living Wage Employer Mark on our recruitment information, demonstrating our commitment to the Real Living Wage as one of 16,000 employers across the UK to be officially recognised in this way.
As with any business, good health among our teams is the foundation for shared success. Our Health and Wellbeing Guide is available instantly through our Transdev Exchange employee app, to encourage and inspire our people to plan their pathway to better long-term health.
It’s our view that mental health should be treated equally to physical fitness, so our managers and trainers need to be fully equipped to spot potential mental health issues early and provide care and support.
Everyone in our Transdev team has access to an independent and confidential telephone advice line, offering help at any time, day or night. We also make sure that the face-to-face support we provide is appropriate and responsive to individual needs.
And mental health isn’t just important within our teams. While leaving the car at home and walking to the bus stop is a great way to build the benefits of exercise into daily life, it’s also vital that our drivers are able to notice early signs and symptoms of mental health issues in our customers.
We support managers across the company in gaining a Level 3 Mental Health First Aid qualification – with training delivered in partnership with St John Ambulance and supported by the world’s oldest public health body, the Royal Society for Public Health.
Yorkshire Cancer Research is our charity partner, and together we’ve helped in various ways to raise awareness of the world-leading research and services funded by them to help prevent, diagnose and treat cancer in our region.
To help raise awareness – and much-needed funds – for the charity, an intrepid Transdev team walked the four-mile course of our popular Route 1 between Harrogate and Knaresborough.
Our partnership is inspiring joint communications across our organisation to increase awareness of key messaging on cancer diagnosis and prevention. We’re also working on further joint initiatives to support our chosen charity in the years ahead.