Having agency to use Agency

Witney operator OMC Global offers the best driver pay in Oxfordshire.

Drivers have guaranteed hours, great driver perks, a comfy driver rest room with free coffee and Netflix, and enjoy varied work, modern coaches and a great staff culture.

As you can imagine, driver turnover is low.

And yet even this operator finds itself relying on agency drivers.

Luckily for OMC Global, the agency it works with is C9 Recruitment, renowned for its professional approach, dedication to compliance and high standards.

Strong driver culture

It’s difficult to keep drivers in this part of the world, where lots of high-quality coach operators are fighting for a relatively small pool of high-quality drivers.

OMC Global, which started operating as Oxford Minibus Company in 2013 and has swiftly grown to a fine fleet of 33 coaches, recognises the need to maintain a great culture in order to keep drivers, led from the top by entrepreneur Jas Singh and his son Romi Singh (who heads up Savari, OMC’s fantastic in-house software suite, which is used by all the drivers on OMC-owned tablets, and deserves an article to itself).

That culture starts with good pay – a base rate of £20 per hour, plus bonuses – and continues through the way drivers are treated.

A comfy, modern drivers’ room is fitted out with vending machines, free tea and coffee, Netflix on a big TV, and will soon have a dartboard too (a pool table was also considered, but the space is just a little too small – though there is the possibility of an extension in future). It’s not just these luxuries, though: it’s the business’s attitude towards drivers that makes all the difference.

That includes holding coach picture competitions, pizza days, chilli challenges; making a fuss of them on LinkedIn; and rewarding their hard work with a cash prize for Driver of the Month.

Crucially, agency drivers are involved in all this. They have full access to the driver facilities, all the competitions, and they’re eligible for Driver of the Month too.

Shuja Zaheer, MD of OMC Global, says: “We try to maintain a good culture. We pull agency drivers into the fold, and we treat everyone exactly the same.”

Keeping management off the road

Like most good coach operators, the leadership team at OMC Global all have up-to-date driving licences and CPC. And none of them are above jumping behind the wheel of a coach if the need arises.

However, the team are very mindful of how much this practice actually costs them in real terms.

On the face of it, a salaried manager taking a weekend out to drive a coach tour to Europe doesn’t affect the bottom line. But Shuja and the team think differently: if Shuja is driving the coach tour, there’s no one overseeing the smooth running of the business, so it’s operating at a disadvantage. “It’s not a good use of manager time; it’s not an efficient way to run the business,” he says.

If Aman Kumar, the Operations Manager, is driving a coach tour, he’s not in the office overseeing operational logistics or overseeing tracking on vehicles, nor working with the sales department to ensure every client’s needs are fulfilled. Their absence from the office comes at a cost.

Most operators reading this will recognise that the more time they spend behind the wheel, the less time they have for developing the business. OMC Global has big plans for growth – they want to be operating 50 coaches within the next three years – and this is one of the factors that makes employing agency drivers a no-brainer for them.

Previous bad experience with agencies

Agencies and agency drivers have a fairly poor image in the coach and bus industry: they’re perceived as unreliable, non-compliant, non-presentable, and incompetent – and there are often good reasons for those perceptions.

OMC Global has certainly had bad experience with agencies.

They have used lots of agencies in the past, “and we were risking our contracts every time,” says Shuja. The final straw came in the last years before the pandemic, when the business lost a very high-profile, lucrative corporate contract for an annual event in Oxford – because the driver slept in and missed it. “When we rang him he just said ‘oh sorry, I only just woke up’,” says Shuja.

It was certainly a wake-up call for OMC Global, which stopped using agency drivers for any contract work at that point, ensuring they drove on private hires only.

That left the business at a disadvantage, with less flexibility on how it could utilise drivers, and still risking the work and goodwill from its valued private hire clients.

The compliance question

Fortunately, during the pandemic OMC Global met C9 Recruitment – and a long, trusting relationship began.

“C9 works the way we work,” says Shuja. “They send us professional drivers, who are always on time, and we trust them to take on contract work.”

Aman adds that they have a close relationship with their account manager within C9 Recruitment Ashwin Vaishampayan, which makes a big difference to their relationship with the agency. “Other agencies have offered no feedback,” he says. “They’ve come in and done the job, and then they’re gone, they don’t want to know us. Whereas Ash gives us feedback, and takes ours. Operators need someone to talk to, to say ‘George is amazing!’ and ask for more drivers like George.”

C9 Recruitment is now the only agency OMC Global uses.

The biggest difference between C9 Recruitment and other agencies is their attitude to compliance – or as Daniel Lunn, Commercial Director, says: “Compliance is our USP.”

Before being booked for a job, every driver is fully checked: their experience, licence expiration dates, tacho records, CPC, enhanced DBS check and up to date DVLA check. These records are all sent to the operator in a driver’s pack.

C9’s rigorous compliance also includes making sure every driver is paid and taxed correctly via PAYE: there’s no grey-area subcontracting or freelancing here.

Driver checks and familiarisation

How can C9 Recruitment get drivers when even a high-quality operator like OMC Global struggles? The main reason is that the lifestyle appeals, says Daniel: in some cases, drivers have the option to work for various operators, and to some degree can choose when they are available to work, this suits lots of drivers rather than being committed for full time hours with one operator. That means there’s usually a good pool of local drivers to call on for a job. In addition, we employ a variety of different marketing strategies to source and secure candidates, we don’t just rely on job boards, this activity comes at no additional cost to the client.

The problems most agencies have are with ensuring every driver is compliant, and also that every driver is familiar and ready to do the job.

After all, agency work is often short notice: an emergency has come up, so the operator contacts an agency for a driver to do the job tomorrow. There’s no time for the driver to have an induction; to become familiar with the vehicle, the route and the yard; to check the uniform policy, etc. There’s also no time to do an up-to-date check with the DVLA if they experience issues generating a code online, or check the driver’s references, or get to know them.

At C9 Recruitment, drivers only work with an operator after an induction, driver assessment and familiarisation visit. Operators are therefore encouraged to request for drivers as far in advance as possible: if a new operator calls out of the blue and asks for a driver tomorrow, they’ll be disappointed. “We want to change that mindset,” says Daniel.

However, once a relationship is established like it is with OMC, more short-notice requests can be made because some of C9’s drivers will have worked with them before. That makes the strong relationship with C9 even more valuable to OMC Global.

Empowerment to grow

Romi Singh was the one who established a relationship with C9 Recruitment’s CEO Sam Wharfe. He was struck by the agency’s professionalism and level of compliance, and the drivers impressed every time. Shuja says: “There’s no reason not to use a driver agency if all the processes and legislation are followed. The C9 drivers follow our policies, wear our uniform and do walk-round checks to our specification.”

The relationship really took off with a major contract for private school work, shortly after the pandemic.

Having already used C9 Recruitment a few times, Jas felt confident taking on the work and arranging finance for eight new vehicles – highly-spec’d EVM coaches, mostly Sprinters – even though he knew they didn’t have the drivers. The massive investment was made knowing they could rely on C9 Recruitment to find the drivers they needed. And the trust continues: OMC Global has never yet had anything less than a 100% positive experience with C9 drivers.

This empowerment to grow is a major factor in their relationship. With a plan to own 50 coaches within the next three years, and with Jas and Romi both having stepped back from the business in recent months, Shuja and the top team value the confidence it gives them in taking on new routes. Monisha Chauhan, Business Development Manager, in particular hates to turn a job down. “I’m in sales, and my goal is to secure as many bookings as possible,” she says.

OMC Global is currently in the process of booking drivers for its busy May-July season: The more notice C9 Recruitment are given, the more likely it is that they can return OMC’s favourite drivers. This is another major positive of using a good, compliant, reliable agency: you can bring drivers in for your busy period, and then let them go again when it’s quiet, without burning any bridges; they’ll come back to you again when you need them.

“Yes, using an agency is expensive,” says Shuja. “But it’s like a convenience store – you pay £2 for a bottle of Coke that would cost you £1 in a supermarket, because the convenience factor makes it worth more. When an agency works, like C9 Recruitment does, it’s convenient and efficient. It’s worth a lot to us.”

Contact C9 Recruitment

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Email: commercial@C9-recruitment.com

Tel: 020 8152 4574