Blog post:

11 DAS reports for driver retention

Pete Adney | March 22, 2016

Tags: Duty allocations | Commercial operator |

As we recently explained, it costs around £3,500 to train a new bus driver – and almost half of them leave within 12 weeks. Those are staggering – and frightening – statistics.

Clearly driver retention is a huge issue with many contributory elements. But at the same time, there are simple changes we can all make that will have an impact in this area.

What are these changes and how do we find them? Your DAS system reports are an invaluable resource here – and below I have identified 11 powerful reports to get you started.

1. Extra Work Report

For a given week and or day, this lists all the additional works, such as late finishes and fast activity inputs, which have been added to a worksheet. It helps the driver by capturing and reporting all variations to their work and pay in real time, ensuring processes are fair and transparent.

2. RTA Rules Exception Report

This report protects drivers by warnings when an allocator allocates work to a driver that will infringe the RTA (Law, and VOSA) rules for the depot.

3. Ignored RTA Warnings Report

This report details every instance of an allocator ignoring an RTA warning when undertaking worksheet transactions. It helps drivers to feel safe, knowing that the depot manager is watching out for them by monitoring the allocators.

4. Rest Day/Day Off Exception Report

This report enables users to ascertain which employees have been allocated too many or too few rest days/days off. This means no maximum working days or driving rules are exceeded, giving drivers the time they need to rest, making their working lives easier and more comfortable.

5. Rest Day/Day Off Report

Lists the employees who are on rest days/days off, together with their contact telephone numbers, their worksheet line number, their availability (given their contracted hours on employee master file), as well as overtime points accumulated. This makes it easy to give overtime to drivers where appropriate, as some drivers want as much overtime as possible.

6. Employee Messages Report

This reports all messages to employees for a given depot and date range. It helps the driver by providing evidence of what was said, ensuring all communications are effectively managed and transparent: it’s never a case of a driver’s word against that of an allocator.

7. Custom Duty Card

Custom duty cards show detailed information about the actual pieces of work that a specific driver has been allocated. Details of each board and route under each of the driver’s duties are displayed, along with the time at each point on each route, and the vehicle used. This improves communication processes and also increases transparency in the work place.

8. Employee Points Report

This report records the following: over time points; quality incentive contract (QIC) points; and worked rest day points. This helps ensure managers fairly distribute overtime and days off work to their drivers.

9. Licence Expiry Report

This report list those employees whose license (CRB or driver photo license) dates are to expire within a selected time period. This supports drivers by looking after their vocational licences and qualifications automatically – so they don’t have to worry.

10. Vehicle Allocation Sheet

Lets the drivers know which bus they will be driving, and makes sure they are trained to operate it and drive the route. This helps reduce stress.

11. Vehicle Parking Report

Details where drivers’ buses for the day’s work is parked – making working lives much easier.