Tyrers Coaches opened its new Driver Academy this time last year. Already, it has seen phenomenal success, with an impressive number of new recruits trained and on the road
As it reaches its first birthday this month, Tyrers Coaches’ Driver Academy is already shortlisted for the routeone Operator Training Award.
It’s already seen 14 new drivers successfully pass their PCV tests – an impressive addition to the UK’s very limited pool of coach drivers.
And it’s already booked up for the rest of this year with eager candidates wanting to become coach drivers, with a waiting list for the future.
It has put Tyrers into the enviable position of never having to advertise for drivers anywhere except for social media.
Setting it up
The Driver Academy is the brainchild of Tyrers’ Training and Operations Support Manager James Robb, who helped identify a need for it, trained as an instructor himself and wrote the tailored training programme.
“Across the industry, there has always been a problem not just recruiting drivers, but keeping them as well,” he says.
“Part of the reason we set the training school up is that it allows us to recruit people from completely different industries, with customer service backgrounds.
“Strangely enough, a lot of them seem to come from NHS and care backgrounds.”
Setting it up incurred fairly low costs – the main resource required was James’ time. The branded training vehicle was about to be retired from the fleet anyway, and Tyrers’ large second depot in Farnworth has plenty of space for a classroom, complete with a workstation for practising the theory test, plus yard space for manoeuvres.
Then it’s just fuel for the vehicle, and instructors’ and trainees’ wages. The costs are easily recouped if the newly-qualified drivers stay with the business – and so far, all but one of them have.
And, the training school is not just for new trainees. Tyrers uses it to provide remedial and development training for its existing drivers, and in the next few months it intends to pull its Driver CPC training in-house, too.
“Among coach operators, in-house training is not something you see a lot of, whereas the big bus operators have been doing it for decades,” says James. “It seemed to us to be an obvious solution to a growing problem. We had nothing to lose, really – if it didn’t work, at least we’d given it a go.
“But we hit the ground running last year, and it’s been non-stop ever since. The drivers who have joined us have gone from strength to strength.”
Personality picked
Tyrers’ first advert on social media for trainee drivers last year attracted 60 applicants. That number was whittled down to just three, all of whom passed and are still driving for Tyrers.
“Wayne Bates was the first to pass,” says James. “And he brings a smile to my face every morning when I see him, because he’s still always excited for the day ahead.
“We intentionally try to pick people with staying power – people who are obviously passionate about wanting to do the role, and we can look at their previous job history, and see that they’ve not moved around every three months.
“We can afford to pick and choose, so we pick people we know will enjoy it and it will suit their personality.
“It’s quite an in-depth recruitment process, so we get a glimpse into their personality – and over my career I’ve got quite skilled at reading people. We seem to be able to find people who fit well in the team and have the right attitude to deliver the product to our customers.
“It’s not just about how well you can drive – we can teach you to drive. If someone is a bit sloppy or quick in their first driving assessment, as long as they have the right attitude, we can teach them.”
The latest trainee to pass was Garry White, an ex-ambulance driver [routeone/15 Minutes With/7 August]. It took him a few goes of the test to pass, but he was worth the extra investment.
“Garry is a technically brilliant driver, and he knows more than I do about the vehicles we’ve got,” says James.
“The key thing with someone like Garry is that they’ve got the drive and enthusiasm. With what he puts into it, it can’t just be a case of ‘you’ve failed, off you go’. We make sure he gets through. If someone’s got the aptitude to do it, we’ll give them as many chances as they need.”
The programme
The training programme itself lasts eight weeks, and is carried out in two-month cycles, with three drivers on each intake – the low number keeps it personal, and allows one-to-one training.
It starts with a phone interview, then a face-to-face interview and initial driving assessment. If that goes well, the applicant is offered the job subject to passing the theory test.
An induction comes next, followed by the hands-on training, and Driver CPC.
At the end of the first week, the training vehicle gets switched – the trainee is put into a double-decker or a coach, which helps to stop the driver getting complacent. “It also helps spacial awareness,” says James. “And we don’t have a fleet of matching vehicles. They’ve got to be able to drive whatever vehicle they’re allocated to.”
He adds: “The aim is to get them to a standard where we can put them in any one of our 100-plus vehicles, drop them anywhere, and they’ll do the job to the same standard as any other driver.”
Finally, they are put through the driving test – and, if they pass, they are celebrated on Tyrers’ social media feeds, and backslapped by all the other drivers.
Team Tyrers
As well as James, Tyrers now has a second instructor: Dean Reed, who has been trained up from being a driver. James points out that the training school provides an extra avenue for drivers to progress within the company, which also aids driver retention.
Trainees who have newly passed their test are paired with a mentor for a couple of weeks afterwards – a coach driver in the business – which again adds value to the job as a career. “A lot of drivers are keen to get involved with the mentoring,” says James. “We don’t have a dedicated team of mentors – we’ll pick any of our drivers out of the team, someone who we think will match well with the trainee, and ask them if they’d like to do it.”
It also helps to develop relationships between colleagues, and contributes to the team spirit at Tyrers. The operator has ‘Team Tyrers’ emblazoned on its vehicles and uniforms, and the staff speak warmly of its friendly, open culture.
“There’s a very obvious culture of team spirit, and team support,” says James. “New trainees always comment on how welcome they’ve felt as soon as they turn up. We always involve them in our social media from the beginning, and make the wider team feel involved in the process too. Longer-serving drivers will help with any questions the new ones have.
“But that’s always been the case at Tyrers – when I joined the business, I felt really welcome too.”
The future
Tyrers has already outsourced its training centre to a couple of third parties, which brings in a useful extra revenue stream, and there is scope to roll that out further in the future.
One of those third parties is another coach operator; the other is an airport parking company. Rolling the training out to them has involved building a training programme to their needs, which are very different to Tyrers’.
“We’ve had a lot of interest from other operators who want to use our services, but we’re prioritising our own training needs first,” says James. “But we’ve got a lot of flexibility. We can write a training programme to cover whatever length of time, and whatever content is needed in the course. We’ve got more flexibility than most commercial providers.
“We’re about teaching drivers to do the whole job effectively, not just passing the test.”
A year on, the Driver Academy has been a fantastic success. Tyrers has 14 new drivers as a result, with plenty more in the pipeline, plus scope to make the training centre into a useful revenue stream in its own right.
“It’s gone a lot better than I thought it would,” says James. “I thought it’d be steep learning curve, but it’s gone phenomenally well.”
