BIC signs on for unique recruitment and retention project

The BIC has announced, through APTIA, an exciting new venture as the bus industry takes unprecedented action to recruit and retain skilled workers

The Bus Industry Confederation (BIC) has announced that its industrial arm the Australian Public Transport Industrial Association (APTIA) has recently undertaken a unique project to recruit and retain workers in the bus industry.

At the recent APTIA council meeting, council members voted to support the appointment of Nikki Britt from Navigate Work and Souad Saeid and Dominic Walsh from the Hero Co to assist the industry to respond nationally to the critical shortage of bus drivers and to seek to improve the image of bus passenger transport so that patronage will grow and the industry may become a job of choice rather than a job of last resort.

“This project had its roots in the Bus Industry Confederation, over a year ago, when a comprehenisve survey of members was undertaken to identify the issues which had given rise to the downturn, as we came out of an unprecedented period of lockdown,” BIC National IR Manager and head of APTIA Ian MacDonald told ABC.

Some of the issues, identified in the survey were well known and included, were:

1.  The image of the bus and coach industry, which stemmed from a lack of public recognition of the essential nature of its services.
2. The lack of facilities for drivers, including female drivers, which has a very low participation rate.
3.  The psychosocial pressures placed upon drivers who are required to drive to unrealistic timetables with minimum breaks to ensure on-time running requirements and, of course, the constant threats of physical abuse that drivers are required to endure from an ever increasing violent and impatient society.
4. The health and wellbeing need of an aged demographic of drivers, being more than 55 years old on average.
5. The restraints placed upon those persons wishing to become drivers who are required to wait up to two years if they are arriving from overseas and, even if not, wait for months to get regulatory checks and accreditation from the various State Authorities, and
6. The unfair burdens placed upon elderly pensioners in a pension system which seems to discourage participation in the workforce rather than encourage it.

APTIA says Nikki Britt’s task will be to document all of these issues so that BIC can then embark upon a nationwide camapaign to state and territory governments and the federal government to seek to improve the working environment of its drivers.

To do this, APTIA seeks to enlist the support of the transport unions and is initiating dialogue with both the TWU and RTBU to become part of a joint campaign.

The aim of the project to create a marketing campaign similar to Metro Trains’s Dumb Ways to Die safety campaign.

“This is exactly the role which Dominic and Souad will play, to turn our bus drivers into the heroes that they are,” McDonald says.

“Bus drivers, who endure an ever-increasing impatient public, who were required during the worst pandemic in 100 years to transport essential workers to their destinations, including transporting infected passengers to their quarantine hotels and who continue to transport our precious cargo of school students to and from school.”

Dominic Walsh is the managing partner of the Hero Co, which is a highly successful Australian independent marketing organisation which believes in turning brands into heroes.

Souad Saeid is the Managing Director of the Sydney Office of the Hero Co.

The company’s successes are identified on their LinkedIn page as follows:

“From Toyota, Coca Cola, Centrum, Bakers Delight and Dulux, to eBay, Maybelline, Menulog, Metro Trains and Government. Our Borderless Creativity has seen HERO become Australia’s most awarded independent for both creativity and effectiveness, including #1 Australian independent at the 2021 Effie and 2022 APC Effie Awards; #1 independent on the Campaign Brief Hot List; and at Mumbrella, B&T and AdNews Agency of the Year,” Hero Co says.

At the recent BIC Summit in Canberra, Walsh and Saeid were introduced to the industry delegates and blew most away when they played the ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ ditty, which has been so successful in reducing serious accidents on the Melbourne rail network.

At the recent APTIA council meeting, the council resolved to strike a special levy upon its members to ensure that all major industry players have buy in into this exciting undertaking.