The literature on effective employee management is clear – ‘happy’ employees show up, ‘unhappy’ employees stay home more. (And eventually quit).
Operator absenteeism remains a huge problem hounding public transit agencies. The causes are manifold and keeping their drivers engaged and connected day in and out is a critical priority for agencies.How to address disincentivizing workforce issues and help employees thrive has become the ‘hack we need’ of sorts for delivering safe, reliable transit service and keeping operators behind the wheel.
Agencies have deployed many strategies to manage absences and reduce their operational costs and service impact: Incentive plans with bonuses for employees who never miss a scheduled shift for a rolling quarter or for a year. Pay outs for unused vacation time. Better extraboard planning and predictive profiling of applicants less likely to be absent. Wellness programs promoting mental health. Mentoring for new bus operators to help them adjust to agency processes.
This is also clear - creative problem-solving is a must. Cash awards might be the go-to move, especially when out-of-pocket living expenses have shot up, but doing more is now table stakes. You’ll need to sleuth out more ways of addressing both the physical and mental challenges operators face daily. (Watch the webinar – Ideas to Address Workforce Challenges – Collaborate log in required).
A safe driving environment is top of mind for frontline transit workers. With increased violence on transit, operators often feel vulnerable. Providing devices that help them feel protected, such as operational radios, covert call buttons, in-vehicle cameras, not to mention installing those collapsible or sliding safety barriers, can reduce stress and ease anxiety for your drivers while on the job.
Simply meeting basic human needs with bathroom and meal breaks helps. These decrease on-the-job injuries to the back, elbow, shoulder, and neck from sitting for long periods of time. As the workforce ages, these breaks become even more important.
Even providing a small, basic amenity like a cup holder can improve well-being. Most of us can walk down the hall at work to get a drink of water, transit operators cannot. Access to a quick sip might seem a small thing, but it’s a big win.
In fact, just having portable food, coffee, and small conveniences around during inconvenient split shifts will likely be appreciated by operators.
Providing a shared space where they can comfortably park themselves during those three-hour-long splits signals responsiveness to daily operator exigencies. Many drivers endure long commutes to and from work and cannot spend those drawn-out lunch breaks at home. If the agency cannot yet provide a housing program nearby, having a ‘halfway house’ with a kitchenette to prepare food, where operators can stretch out and relax, where they can even stay overnight, might be the next best thing.
Slate.com summarized it well in an article way back in 2011 – driving a bus is stressful, if not “the most stressful job on the planet” – “Streets are crowded. Passengers are cranky. And there’s always the chance you might get punched.”
Harmful stress is attributed to the high demands of the job while having low levels of control, or autonomy, and weak social support, according to the 1998 study in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology that Slate cited. The combined pressures of driving safely, keeping to schedule, and accommodating (or at times, policing unruly) passengers can exact a mental toll on operators.
More recent studies have corroborated these findings. A 2016 French study found that drivers’ health and well-being at work have “deteriorated” even as equipment has improved and working time, reduced. “New forms of work intensification have emerged linked to budgetary constraints, urban policies, quality control, geolocation, and verbal and physical assaults.”
A 2017 US study, meanwhile, showed that “high-demanding work schedules, as a result of technological advances, were related to diminished breaks, fatigue, and unhealthy diets.”
Another 2017 study of bus drivers in Southern California featured driver testimonials of the stressful demands of maintaining a high level of alertness to avoid accidents.
So how can agencies address these mental challenges to keep operators healthier and reduce absences?
Acknowledging that operators can experience unresolved trauma from threats of assaults (or witnessing an assault) is a first step. Unresolved trauma exhibits in emotions such as helplessness, rage, overwhelming anxiety, and grief and depression. Educating managers and operators on the effects of trauma is healing, according to a Mass Transit article. Operators see themselves as survivors and can collectively build a culture of support. However, to grow, this culture must be nurtured by leadership.
On the operational side, job rotation offers flexibility that improves work-life balance and finds ways around non-negotiable needs such as childcare. Offering better work schedules, especially for less senior employees, eases stress and anxiety, and builds worker resilience.
Strategies like rotating days off (works best with rostering), limiting vacation prime weeks or days, rotating bid groups, offering more hold-down work a week or more ahead, and splitting boards into AM/PM to help people manage sleep better, give more opportunities for better work schedules and days off. Including ad hoc days in vacation bids increases the chances of employees getting awarded time off when they need to go to a scheduled appointment. All these measures alleviate the stress of having inflexible schedules for newer employees
Mentoring programs also build a culture of support, easing anxieties and enabling new or younger employees to feel supported in their job and supported by people who understand what they are going through.
These are just some of the ideas that agencies are implementing to enhance employee welfare and help manage absenteeism. On the tactical level, your technology can provide you with the tools to better manage absences - quickly create absences, implement absence quotas, track occurrences, pull up reports, and other valuable support. Combined with ways to daily uplift your employees, automating aspects of absence management helps you to continue delivering the seamless, safe, and reliable service your riders expect.
Want to learn various ways to track and manage absences in Trapeze Workforce Management? Watch the webinar to find out.
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