First Bus has won praise from Scottish advocacy organisation Close the Gap in its latest report into gender-equality progress in the workplace.
The five-year analysis into employer’s gender pay gap reporting, which was published today, highlights the operator’s actions across recruitment, progression and promotion for women. It also looks at progress made against the four targets set out in its first pay gap report in 2018.
The “Positive shifts, persistent patterns” document states First Bus has doubled its female workforce since 2017. Contributing to this has been a trial of part-time bus driver roles (15-25 hrs per week) which has resulted in 50% of new hires being women, up from 2%.
A 2021 survey by the Office for National Statistics found only 11% of the UK’s coach and bus drivers were women — although this was up from 8.6% in the same survey in 2018.
First Glasgow bus driver Danielle McLaren, who joined First Bus after working in retail for 13 years, says: “The hours can sometimes seem full-on for bus drivers and their families. At First Bus, when my family needed more of me, I could ask for support. That allowed me to design my shifts around them, giving me time to spend with my kids and partner, all with a great wage.”
First Bus was also noted for its “Step Up” development programme for women looking for their first line manager role. Under this, 180 women have participated and 27% have been promoted.
Gareth Hind, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion for First Bus UK, says: “We are delighted to have been recognised in this way by Close the Gap and it is great credit for a lot of hard work that has been done across First Bus in recent years to make such significant progress over a short period of time.
“This is only the start, and we are continuing to work closely with our teams to engage and create a truly inclusive environment across the UK within First Bus. Recently this can be seen in the introduction of our Balance Inclusion Network, which is one of six inclusion networks in our business designed to bring together people to listen, learn and act on how we can accelerate our journey towards a gender inclusive business.
“Across March and April this year, we launched our Reverse Mentoring Programme bringing together 20 male senior leaders to be mentored by 20 women from across First Bus allowing their lived experiences to be shared and to help our senior leaders understand the challenges they face.
“We also started our Female Intentional Allyship Programme which will see over 100 women in First Bus, from drivers through to leadership positions, be developed and mentored by our senior leadership in areas including imposter syndrome, confidence, impact, gravitas, interview skills and techniques, and much more.”
Anna Ritchie Allan, Executive Director of Close the Gap, adds: “Close the Gap is really pleased to share good practice when we see it happening. First Bus has developed measurable actions based on specific issues identified in its gender pay gap analysis.
“The company has reported on the same four commitments since first reporting in 2018, and has made clear progress, including almost doubling the number of women in the workforce and enabling more women to progress to senior roles. We know that this focus on long-term solutions instead of smaller-scale actions is critical to tackling the causes of the gender pay gap.”
