A People Processes Review to Enhance New Recruit Safety and Performance
Background
A major bus operating company approached the OPC to review their current recruitment, training, and mentoring processes following an increase in safety incidents, particularly involving new drivers. They wanted to understand how these areas could be enhanced to reduce incidents and improve safety and performance among new recruits. The OPC’s objective was to thoroughly evaluate the client’s key people processes by gathering data on recruitment, training, and mentoring practices across the organisation and its various operating companies, in order to identify opportunities for improvements.
Step 1
The OPC team, including Psychologists from the OPC used a range of different methods to collect data about existing processes, which included:
- Observations: The team visited multiple regional garages to:
- Observe live training and mentoring sessions.
- Undertake interviews with trainees, trainers, examiners, and garage managers.
- Observe classroom training with experienced bus drivers, and;
- Watch new trainees in the garage and driving under instruction.
- A Documentation Review: The OPC examined existing documents to understand the training and mentoring structures, along with incident reports provided by the client to gather information on the nature of safety incidents involving new drivers.
- Workshops: Twelve half-day workshops were conducted to:
- Gather feedback and experiences on the current processes from various regions.
- Groups included trainees, trainers, mentees, mentors, and managers from across regions.
Step 2
The OPC project team conducted a thorough content analysis to identify common themes across the people processes. The goal was to identify strengths, areas for development and key focus points within each process and provide recommendations to enhance these systems, with the aim of improving safety outcomes.
"It’s a bit of a false economy as we are bringing in the quantity but not the quality of applications."
Recruiting Manager
By combining multiple data collection methods, OPC psychologists gained deep insights into the client’s current people processes. This comprehensive understanding allowed them to highlight key areas of development, which could help improve both safety and performance.
Outcome and recommendations
The OPC team identified several strengths within the client’s processes, along with five key areas for improvement across their recruitment, training and mentoring processes that could be addressed. For each of these five generic recommendation areas, the team outlined further detail, important considerations, some specific actions, and the potential impact and benefits of each across the people processes.
For example, standardising key processes, such as driver recruitment or training, was proposed. This could involve implementing best practices from other transport sectors, such as using pre-selection screening tools, incorporating psychometric assessments, and refining the onboarding process.
"Everyone was friendly, and I was shown around the Garage. This was very positive and made a big difference to my initial experience."
Candidate feedback
If you think we can help you identify improvements in your people processes to enhance safety and performance, then contact our friendly team.