Why do we stay at one job longer than others? I've been here at School Bus Fleet Magazine for almost 13 years. The longest I stayed at any previous job was five years or so. Early in my career, I left some jobs after only a year.
Sometimes you leave a job for a better opportunity elsewhere. More often, you stay at a job, even at the risk of missing a better opportunity elsewhere, because you like the people you work with. The folks in Washington, D.C., like to say that "all politics are local"; I tend to think that almost all jobs are about relationships, not the actual work.
I bring this up because I'm beginning to see a tide of newspaper stories on the Internet about school bus driver shortages.
It's easy to generalize about why it's so hard to find and keep good bus drivers. We all know about the relatively low pay, the split shifts, the rambunctious students, the lack of respect from the public. I think, however, we're asking the wrong question. Rather than, "Why is it so hard to find and keep good drivers?," we should be asking, "Why do so many drivers stay at the job for so long?"
That's actually easy to answer. It's the relationships. I guess that some bus drivers simply like to pilot the vehicle, but that's probably only a small part of the reason they stay on the job.
More likely, these long-term drivers enjoy the people they work with and/or the people they transport. So, how do you create an environment where people enjoy each other's company? That's the secret, isn't it? And I don't have an answer for that.
Good chemistry among people seems to happen spontaneously. Unfortunately, so does bad chemistry, although often that can be tracked to a lousy supervisor or a group of toxic employees.
I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject. I think school transportation operations need to have good chemistry to overcome some of their built-in challenges. If we can put together enough ideas, I'll put together an article for the magazine and give you your due credit!
Until next time.
Steve
