Finding school bus drivers that are great at their job is a big challenge for many schools today. Around ninety percent of school transport fleets are reporting of driver shortages as found in the School Bus Fleet Magazine from their 2017 annual survey of school district fleets.
Strategies that are being implemented for driver retention are always a hot topic within every industry conference.
So, how do can you keep fantastic employees when you have budget constraints?
In this School Travel Manager blog, we are going to discuss the few low cost ways for school bus driver appreciation.
1. Show Your Appreciation Through Social Media
If your school or transport fleet have a Facebook Group, Twitter, Youtube or any other social platform then you should start to use these to your advantage.
You can include daily updates for your audience whether you should include short stories, photos, highlights, routes etc, these are just a few ideas to get you going.
Not only they will be recognized by you as a business but this can be shared to a whole other audience.
2. Create A Prize/Trophy/Achievement
Do you have a weekly or monthly competition or some sort of fun trophy? Then get your drivers involved in competitions or some sort of achievement program.
This is not only great for team building but it is another way to get everyone involved.
Maybe you could share this through your social platforms as we have mentioned above?
3. Get Writing
As an idea, you could contact the schools that you supply your school transport services to and work with the teachers to get the students to write notes or letters to the drivers.
Having a personalised note to the driver is a great way to show your appreciation for them. Especially when it has come straight from the students.
4. Driver Raffle/Draw
Rather than the usual “suggestion” or “feedback” boxes, you should create one for the drivers but as an appreciation box.
Whether this is weekly, monthly or quarterly, you should get the students and the teachers to get involved. At the end of each period there can be a brief meeting to draw the winners and announce the positive comments.
5. Gifts
Everyone loves a surprise! So why not surprise your drivers with some gifts. Whether they are a box of chocolates, a coffee mug or something funny. A small gift goes a long way for appreciation.
So here are a few ideas to show your driver’s’ some appreciation.
How do you show appreciation for your school bus drivers?
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