SPECIAL REPORT
What Keeps Bus Drivers Loyal?
Student transporters share staffing and retention strategies to keep employees in the fold during COVID-19. Written by Debbie Curtis
W
hen school doors shut in March amid the growing spread of COVID-19, employee retention was likely on every transporta- tion manager’s mind. Losing drivers and
other staff could be a district’s worst nightmare, espe- cially with the current driver (and mechanic) shortage already prompting managers to get creative in recruiting applicants. School bus drivers are valuable employees, especially experienced ones whose familiar faces behind the wheel provide students and their parents with a priceless sense of security. Motivating employees to stay in a potentially germ-ridden environment such as a school bus might be as simple as enacting Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, as it applies to the workplace. Employees want safe work- ing conditions, adequate compensation and job security. With many new guidelines and sanitization products
16 School Transportation News • NOVEMBER 2020
geared toward keeping the bus environment healthier, and good drivers secure in the knowledge that they can easily find a new job, the nitty-gritty of having enough drivers on staff might boil down to paying them to stay. Kris Hafezizadeh, the executive director of transporta-
tion for Austin Independent School District in Texas, is happy that his district is a leader in pay and benefits. The transportation department didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in the number of retirements or loss of employ- ees during the break. “Human resources did a pay analysis of how much
drivers were making around the area,” he said. “We’ve raised our starting wages from $15.75 to $17 per hour. In September, our drivers received a check with the new starting pay calculated in, plus retroactive wages. How- ever, when you raise the driver’s pay, then you also have to worry about how the other district employees com-
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