Reading Buses has announced its final ‘Stars of the Month’ for the past year.
The final three bring to a close Reading Buses ‘Stars of the Month’ awards for 2017.
All recipients of the awards were invited to a special ceremony to mark ‘Star of the Year 2017’ on Saturday (3 February).
Graeme Cheese, 51, from Woodley and a trainer in the company’s Academy team, driver Clark Jones, 51, from Lower Earley and driver Rob Sweetzer, 52, from Tilehurst have all been crowned as Stars.
Graeme, who works in Reading Buses Academy department at Great Knollys Street and has been with the company for nine years, won for compiling route notes and maps for the new Green Line 702 route.
Reading Buses say Graeme diligently pieced together information for the new drivers, some of whom had never driven the route before, to ensure that this new route could launch without a hitch. Graeme’s manager also commented that he was always hard-working and popular with the trainees.
Driver Rob was nominated by an impressed customer who saw how he helped another, confused customer. He saw that a customer was lost and confused and so ascertained what the issue was, ensured the passenger was on board and then transferred him to another bus going in the correct direction. As his nominator put it ’top marks and great service.’
Clark had a similar recommendation to Rob being nominated by a group of customers who were new to the buses. They didn’t know what they needed to do, so Clark patiently explained where they needed to go and how to get there – even drawing them a map to make things easy for them.
As the customer put it: “He gave us a fantastic first impression of Reading Buses and we think he's a huge credit to your company.”
Reading Buses HR Director Caroline Anscombe congratulated the trio on being ‘great ambassadors’ for Reading Buses. “It is always appreciated when we hear how our employees are so helpful.
“Graeme went above and beyond to ensure that colleagues had everything at their disposal for the launch of a new route – which we took over with not much notice.
“Rob and Clark helped customers and represented the values of the company fantastically – exhibiting the ‘doing the right thing,’ ‘being caring’ and ‘unrelenting customer focus’ effectiveness that we prize so highly. It is well done to all three.”