Recruiting Transit Industry Talent

Chicago, Ill.

Omar Brown

Vice President of Human Resources, Chicago Transit Authority 

In a given year the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) hires approximately 1,200 new employees into roles throughout the authority from bus operators and mechanics to supply chain professionals, attorneys, operations managers and engineers. Depending on the role and level of the position, we receive anywhere from 40-plus resumes to 400-plus resumes for a single vacancy.

The Chicago Transit Authority employs more than 11,000 employees, 90 percent of which are union employees. Our employees fall under five major lines of business; maintenance, infrastructure, administration, operations and technology.

CTA takes recruitment and selection of talent seriously; our goal is to be a leader in talent management for large-scale government and transportation industries. In the past year the CTA has utilized several strategies to identify talent, including restructuring our talent management department, participating in national conferences, and utilizing online tools.

From a structure standpoint, we felt it was important to differentiate the teams’ focus — having one team devoted to our union talent and a second team dedicated to our non-union staff.

Talent associates recruit both entry level and skilled individuals to join our union workforce as bus operators, mechanics, carpenters, flagmen through a targeted web presence and career events with community groups and local colleges. This team of individuals understands the complex union rules and requirements for positions represented by 17 different unions. They are equipped with the tools and training to efficiently move thousands of applicants through our process every quarter. Our process requires applicants to successfully pass a behavioral interview, written, practical and physical test. By partnering closely with hiring departments and regularly visiting our field locations, this team is able to provide a realistic job preview for applicants to ensure the right individuals are being matched with right positions.

Our exempt team is comprised of talent specialists who passionately engage to recruit active and passive leaders from other top agencies and corporations with the skills, knowledge, and abilities that translate to success at CTA. Our specialists are segmented by disciplines to ensure they understand our internal clients thoroughly and are able to speak industry-specific language with our candidates. As strong supporters of our military, we have a commitment to hiring qualified veterans not only because it is the right thing to do, but also because we believe veterans have ingrained leadership talents and solid intuition that can easily be transferred into roles at the CTA. We believe no one knows a veteran like a veteran, so we recently hired an exempt recruiter who is also a military veteran. This helps in our efforts to target veterans who are transitioning and looking for meaningful careers.

A fresh approach to recruiting has been attending national conferences such as the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) to engage with industry professionals. This not only raises the profile of our organization, but allows us to attract top performers.

Keeping pace with current recruitment trends is essential to the business of HR. We’ve made a concerted effort to increase our presence on social media. Using tools such as LinkedIn, we’ve been able to identify and contact passive candidates. These sites help CTA create a passive pipeline accomplished individuals with the skills we need. This helps with efficiencies and enhances confidence among our hiring departments.

CTA’s commitment has been to create a world-class talent management department that consistently identifies, recruits and attracts top-performers.

Sliver Spring, Md.

Jack Clark

Executive Director, Transportation Learning Center

Recruitment challenges for transit fit into a larger framework of the need for more effective workforce development systems, particularly for the frontline workforce. Transit has an older workforce than any other transportation sector, with 63 percent older than 45. The workforce challenge is heightened by transit growth, with rail transit ridership in particular up more than 80 percent since 1996, and by the ever growing demands of new technology. Over the next ten years the transit industry will need to recruit,  hire and train the equivalent of 126 percent of today’s total employment to meet the demands of industry growth, retirements and employees switching jobs. Of that projected demand for recruiting,  hiring and training approximately 500,000 employees, 90 percent of the total will be in frontline operations and maintenance occupations that do not require a four-year degree but do require extensive training after hiring.

With past federal incentive structures and policies aimed almost exclusively at physical rather than human capital, the industry has radically underinvested in developing workforce skills and capabilities. As documented by the Transportation Learning Center (the Center) and others, the industry has been investing very little in workforce training - less than 0.88 percent of total payroll total and less than 0.5 percent of total agency budgets. The bulk of past program and budget priorities at the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), to the extent they addressed transit workforce issues, concentrated on managers and technical white collar employees rather than the needs of the frontline workforce – the operations and maintenance employees who make up 80 percent of transit employment. The resulting disparate frontline workforce development efforts in the industry have been generally insufficient, inconsistent and unnecessarily expensive, further reinforcing the tendency toward underinvestment in frontline workforce. In addition to shortcomings in agency training for transit employees, the pipeline of future applicants coming into transit – like other industries that rely on a technically capable blue collar workforce – has been systematically too small, as American school systems are producing a limited supply of future technicians. School systems across the decades have, until recent initiatives, cut career development education programs for the 70 percent of young people who are not headed toward a four-year college degree. High US dropout rates for non-college bound youth who are not engaged in quality career-oriented education burden the communities served by transit and weaken industries like transit that require a strong supply of technically qualified young people.

Facing this multi-dimensional skills crisis for its frontline technical workforce and looking to offer career opportunities to targeted groups in transit’s communities, America’s transit industry needs cost-effective, high quality and consistent models that can be readily customized for local implementation across the industry. An inclusive group of stakeholders from transit agencies, transit labor, community-based workforce development organizations and secondary and post-secondary educational and training institutions have been brought together with TLC in this important project to develop and pilot standards-based and competencies--based pre-employment curriculum to create a pathways for an incoming frontline transit workforce.

Over the past decade the US transit industry has begun to develop foundational components of a national standards-driven, stakeholder-based system for frontline workforce development. Working with the Center, transit management and labor, engaged through unique innovative partnerships involving stakeholders from national organizations and over 40 transit systems – and with critical support from FTA, US Department of Labor (DOL), and the Transit Cooperative Research Programs (TCRP) – have developed and adopted national training standards for six core frontline occupations: maintenance technicians for transit bus, rail car, signals, traction power and elevator-escalator as well as bus operators. To leverage training standards into useable workforce development programs, national and regional partnerships have been building the basic components for a standards-based system of frontline workforce development, including frameworks for apprenticeship, mentoring, sharing existing courseware and collaboratively developing new courseware where it is needed.

This emerging system of training and qualification  addresses the needs of employers, current workers and potential new hires from the community. Industry-defined standards for training offer clear definitions of what people need to know. Management and labor can address current skills gaps so that incumbent workers have the skills needed for today and tomorrow. By building in mentoring so that classroom instruction is carried over into on the job learning, transit creates a new infrastructure for continuous learning. The training standards provide a common frame of reference for transit and career and technical education providers in high schools and community colleges. Formal apprenticeships recognize the role of skilled journey workers and master technicians in passing on skills and knowledge. The apprenticeship framework provides a clear road map for lesser skilled incumbent workers and for new hires to achieve mastery in the work environment.

Mount Olive, N.C.

Jeffrey Wharton

President, IMPulse NC LLC 

Recruiting top talent and succession planning are critical goals for IMPulse NC LLC.

Effective recruitment practices are essential in a labor market where employees are hard to find.  Likewise, the nature, size, location and experience of an organization dictate which recruitment strategy will be most effective. 

Our company is focused on individuals with extensive transit knowledge, experience in innovation, new technologies and the ability to adapt and change to meet industry needs.  We require professionals who can begin contributing to our organization immediately.  Such individuals must be team players with excellent people skills, proper education and motivated towards both the success of the company and their own personal well-being and career advancement.

We find that succession planning and recruiting knowledgeable, experienced professionals in the transit electrification industry is very challenging.   It is near impossible to find a young, entry level candidate with any form of education or experience in our industry.  In the past we have found such individuals from other countries, such as England, China, India and France.  Recruiting experienced foreign talent can involve visas and navigating through the immigration process, which is no fun and expensive.

IMPulse currently works with a nationwide professional executive recruiter, dedicated to identifying, evaluating and delivering the highest caliber of professionals in the industry.  Fortunately for us, they have a proven process in finding qualified candidates and matching them to positions that fit the required skill set we demand; and they guarantee each new hire. 

In addition, we are supported through a county industry alliance and a college system that enables us to find local talent for some very technical manufacturing and engineering support positions.  We have been successful in filling positions with individuals learning a second career through the community college technical trade program.   After which we spend the better part of one to two years to train said individuals to understand the basics of our industry.

In working with the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and its Business Member Board of Governors Business Development Committee, we have seen progress towards engaging U.S. colleges in providing specific course curriculum that addresses some of these technical niche transit needs.  APTA also offers a bi-annual Youth Summit that attracts high school students interested in transit careers.  These types of programs can facilitate a firm’s recruitment program towards filling critical positions.

In the end, without the best people, it is hard to have a great business.  Without a great and rewarding business, it is hard to find the best people.

Lake St. Louis, Mo.

Kerri Schewe

Vice President of Administration

MTM Inc. and Ride Right LLC 

MTM and Ride Right strive to recruit talented staff that can truly make a difference in the transportation industry. We constantly look for individuals with a curious entrepreneurial spirit who make us see things differently and change the way the transportation world operates.

To help recruit young, fresh talent, beginning this year we are implementing an internship program with colleges and universities that offer transit-specific degree programs or have student-run transportation systems, like the University of California-Davis, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and UMass. We anticipate that this program will help us find potential employees with a fresh perspective and a passion for the transit industry. Other recruiting methods that have proven successful for us include posting job listings on sites like Transit Talent, Indeed, Monster, etc.; hosting various job fairs throughout the year at all of our office locations; and networking with colleagues throughout the industry. In particular, LinkedIn has been an excellent source for bringing in high level, experienced talent. Outside of these formal recruiting efforts, we have found that our excellent internal culture allows us to attract top candidates organically. Many qualified candidates seek us out for the benefits and workplace atmosphere we offer, allowing us to avoid investing large amounts of time and money on recruiting activities.

One of MTM’s and Ride Right’s priorities is to have a diverse workforce of engaged staff. In particular, we pride ourselves on the fact that collectively, 60 percent of our leadership team is female — vastly exceeding the transportation industry average of 17.4 percent. Historically, women have been underrepresented in transportation leadership roles, and we are proud to be changing that statistic by empowering entry-level female employees and helping them transition to high level management positions.

In our efforts to bring a new perspective to the evolving transportation field, we don’t only worry about recruiting talent—we focus on investing in top-notch individuals once they are on board. We want our employees to succeed, grow with us, and be promoted from within. When we hire a new employee, we truly make an investment in their future. We offer various programs to nurture our staff’s skills and engage them for future growth, including:

• Mentoring opportunities with active, enthusiastic mentors to identify strong candidates for future leadership roles.
• An Emerging Leaders Program to offer developmental training opportunities and well-prepare candidates in advance for management positions.
• Career path planning with supervisors to help staff recognize their strengths and build skills through goal-setting and training.

To retain our talent, we offer benefits that encourage staff to stay with MTM and Ride Right, including a focus on work/life balance; flexible schedules where appropriate, such as telecommuting opportunities; and health and wellness programs. Additionally, we have found that offering higher pay scales to lower level employees helps to promote long-term retention and growth in the organization.

Recruiting and retaining talented staff is key in grooming successful leaders who can evolve the transportation industry. MTM and Ride Right are proud to have a team from the top down that holds an excellent work ethic and believes in the work that we do to remove community barriers.

Seattle, Wash.

Susan Eddy

Senior Human Resources Specialist

King County Metro Transit

We have a big deficit of women in the trades, and mechanics in particular. At King County Metro Transit, we have 260 mechanics, not one of them female.

We can’t just hire more women, because there are very few qualified ones—either looking for jobs today, or in the training pipeline. Both here in the Pacific Northwest and nationwide, female enrollment at trade schools is quite low. At two schools near Seattle, the numbers are well below 10 percent.

This may be partly due to outdated ideas. People still think of the mechanic trade as dirty, heavy, and unskilled, with poor compensation. But our transit mechanics are more “computer nerd” than “grease monkey,” and start at $31.11 per hour, with great benefits.

We’re working to bridge the gender gap with a three-part strategy: to attract, recruit, and retain skilled and talented women. Here are just a few examples of what we’re doing in each of these areas.

Attract

Since girls aren’t training for trade jobs, we need to reach them before they start thinking seriously about their futures, and give them an accurate idea of what working in the trades is like.

Seattle hosts a Women in Trades career fair for high school students. We’ve always gone, but now we’re focusing on actively trying to prime the pipeline with potential future workers. This year we made a list of the five hardest positions in the trades to fill, and talked to people in those positions.

Then we developed an online quiz, “What kind of King County employee are you?” The questions were part serious and part fun, and at the end, you got a summary of your interests and a career suggestion with a short description. We used a QR code at the fair, which students could scan with their smartphones and go right to the quiz. Along with their career suggestion, the quiz invited them to pick up personalized information at our table—and share their results on social media.

Recruit

We have feeder positions where we can hire promising people who don’t yet have the training, skills, or experience for one of our target trade jobs. Equipment service workers and utility service workers can work toward becoming mechanics. We also have two apprentice mechanic positions—one focused on internal candidates, and the other for external candidates who are recent graduates, including people who have done internships with us. The more people we have come through our doors, the better—we’ve gotten a look at them as employees, and they’ve gotten a look at us as an employer.

Retain

Unless our environment is welcoming to women, they won’t stay and flourish. So in expectation of their arrival, we’re teaching Metro employees to value diversity in the workplace. After training, we have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment. The best way to control those who don’t get it is with peer-to-peer pressure, which our trainer called “activating the pack” to make the workplace we want a reality. And our supervisors are taught, “what you allow, you endorse.”

Developing tomorrow’s workers is a long game, and we hope other agencies will join us in the effort to prime the pipeline. It doesn’t produce instant results, but I’m confident it will pay off for all of us.

Chicago, Ill.

Brenda Hamilton Smith

Chief Human Resources Officer

Metra

Put the jokes about government jobs aside when it comes to Metra, the largest commuter railroad in the country based on miles of track and the second largest ridership with 300,000 rides each weekday. The rail agency is a public sector institution that looks and runs more and more like a publicly-traded corporation.

To keep the trains running on time and modernize its system for the future, Metra is committed to a robust and fundamental practice of hiring the best through recruitment, internship, outreach and retention opportunities. Metra utilizes an Outreach Partners Network with nearly 100 community resources to ensure viable outreach is established with potential job candidates. This outreach also helps ensure that consistent communication is maintained with minority, veteran, people with disabilities and women-owned organizations.

Recruitment and Internship

A team of recruiters showcase Metra’s career opportunities at job fairs and are regular participants in career fairs and open house events on college campuses, always seeking to have dialogue with soon to be graduates. Recruiters are especially on the lookout for fresh talent in engineering and information technology.

Metra’s internship program provides a win-win situation for students and the rail agency. Students are afforded the opportunity to acquire work experience, develop their skills and explore career opportunities in the transportation industry. The internship program gives students a front seat opportunity to see Metra’s operations and the rail industry, be mentored by experts and catch a vision for a career in the transportation industry.

“A big reason for outreach to a younger population is to battle attrition,” Metra Executive Director/CEO Don Orseno said. “The railroad industry is an aging workforce. We want to open the doors to a railroad career for students. It has been a good one for me.”

Metra centers its internship program around three key principles: Novice Leadership by giving participants increasing levels of responsibility based on project-driven experience; Service Learning, helping students develop new skills as they work in a demanding yet rewarding environment; and Real Impact, as participants work closely with project mentors.

Retention

Metra officials also embrace other key elements of creating a top-notch work force such as worker retention programs, providing support for new hires, and conducting ongoing education and training for employees. One recent program roll-out is Management Pro4, a training program for supervisors and managers with varying levels of experience. In addition, Facilitating Classroom Training teaches employees how to present information to their peer group.

Metra has also recently completed a comprehensive salary review process to make sure it is paying its employees a fair and competitive salary. “We don’t want to recruit good people then lose them over compensation,” Orseno said.

Enhanced Community Outreach

Going forward, Metra plans to expand its internship program with outreach to even more colleges and universities as well as general recruitment and training programs to establish even stronger relationships with communities Metra serves. There will be special emphasis on providing help to those needing assistance entering the workforce, and aggressive outreach to minority, veteran or people with disabilities populations.

“We want people to know that there are good jobs here, that we’re hiring,” Metra’s Chief Human Resources Officer Brenda Smith said. “But we're not going to assume everyone has all of the right skills. If you need assistance, we will do everything we can to prepare you to work for Metra.”

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tom Harris

Vice President of Human Resources

First Transit

We have concluded that the old “post and pray” method of attracting a diverse group of current and generation talent is not the best way to approach staffing.  Nor is it the most effective way to introduce prospective candidates to the profession.

Our best recruiting efforts are achieved not by posting ads in local newspapers or through resources such as CareerBuilder, Monster or LinkedIn. Rather, we see the greatest results and have attracted the best talent, particularly from a more diverse candidate pool, when we engage prospective candidates in the following ways:

• Partnering with long, traditional and storied organizations such as the Urban League.
• Creating partnerships with economic empowerment agencies within the communities we service.
• Participating in and sponsoring veteran career fairs.
• Educating prospective candidates about the industry in general and the company in particular, by purchasing booths at festivals within the communities in which we provide services.
• Seeking partnerships with universities that have transportation curricula.
• Attending career fairs at historically black colleges/universities (HBCUs) in an effort to introduce large segments of diverse talent that may not otherwise have considered transportation as a career choice.

These practices have enabled First Transit to attract and retain the more than 16,000 dedicated employees we have currently. And we feel confident they will also enable us to continually attract great people to our teams.

Brookville, Penn.

Erin McKillip

Director of Human Resources

Brookville Equipment Corp.

As an original equipment manufacturer seeking talent from a diverse set of experiences and skills, it is imperative that Brookville Equipment Corp. maintains a proactive and comprehensive recruitment strategy. We utilize our company website, job fairs, online job boards, and social media to announce new positions and pursue new recruits. Additionally, we rely on our employee network to hire through referrals, and many of those recruits turn into long-time employees.

Currently, we are casting a much larger net in the digital realm and evolving how we use those digital resources to recruit new employees. This is primarily because these platforms are where candidates are searching, communicating, and spending their time. In fact, 90 percent of our applicants now apply online in some form. Even local recruits are more prone to apply online versus walking through the door and requesting paper applications. All demographics seem to have become more familiar with the concept of applying through the website, online job boards and aggregators, or even emailing their resumes.

Having some online presence, however, is not enough. It is imperative for us to do our homework and discover where different professional groups reside online and where they look for new opportunities if we truly want to execute an exhaustive search that brings in the right candidate for an open position.

Brookville seeks talent from a broad range of skill sets - from engineering to maintenance, accounting to production. We primarily hire welders, electricians, painters, and general laborers for our production staff – and we are fortunate to have an incredibly deep talent pool in our region for those skill sets. The same can be said for administrative positions, including finance and accounting, sales and marketing, and human resources. In many cases, simply posting a job for these types of positions can bring in dozens of qualified applicants in days.

Like many equipment manufacturers, our most critical recruitment challenge is filling technical roles with highly experienced employees, and for this reason, it is where the most of our recruitment efforts are focused. To combat this challenge, we look for new ways to attract talent to our region and company. We network with other professionals to find avenues for job advertising and recruitment opportunities. Another effective strategy has been using tools like LinkedIn and other digital resources to identify applicants that have the skills we are seeking, but aren’t necessarily actively seeking a new position.

Brookville has continued to evolve its products since being founded in 1918, and as we continue to move into the future, it is important for us to focus on what innovations and products will lead to furthering this long history of success. A byproduct of this initiative is that our employees get to grow with us and are constantly taking on new and exciting challenges and developing new skills. Communicating that opportunity alone can be critical to a successful recruitment effort for us. 

Daniel Amspacher

Director of Recruitment and Talent Management, Human Resources Administration

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

Recruitment is a continual process, not a reactive one

Transit agencies must continually look for talent, even when they don’t have immediate openings.   If you wait until an opening occurs, you risk losing great talent, particularly in high volume employment positions.  Building pools of interviewed and accepted applicants is the best way to stay ahead of the game.  In addition, it’s important to be proactive assessing the skills and technical abilities that are available, both internally within your workforce and externally in your region.  Taking the time to assess graduation rates at technical schools and high schools, and knowing your population of potential employees will prepare you to launch recruitment campaigns -- local, regional, and national – that are focused to reach the audiences you want to attract.

Have a clear, concise recruitment message; be able to sell your organization through consistent talking points

Having a clear, concise recruitment message is very important to attract the right employees.  It’s also critical to engage the members of your organization in the process by making them aware of current hiring efforts and providing them with information so that every contact with an applicant is consistent in portraying the opportunities and benefits to joining your agency.

Care about the quality of the applicants you are hiring, don’t play a “numbers” game

Another critical component of any workforce planning is attracting the most qualified applicants.  Review the position you are filling and have key strategy questions to find the ideal candidate.  Use this model as your target goal for every hiring.  There may be times in which you are not able to fill every position in your organization and that is fine.  Never fall into a “warm body” syndrome, it will erode the soul of your workforce. In the long run it may be more beneficial to leave a position unfilled, for a longer period of time, rather than fill it as a “check the box” exercise.

Have a legally defensible, fair and transparent process in recruitment and hiring

Always be consistent in your organization’s actions regarding advertising, screening applicants, interviewing, and hiring.  Always have a fair and transparent process that seeks to create a diverse and dynamic workforce.

Chevy Chase, Md.

Gregg Moser

Principal, Krauthamer & Associates Inc. 

Finding talent in today’s market can be a challenge. As a retained executive search firm, we have worked with transportation and non-transportation companies across the world to recruit talent ranging from managers to CEO’s and across all functions within the organization. We look beyond the job description and take a customized approach to understand what the client’s challenges and needs are as well as what opportunities exist in the organization. We take this feedback and develop a recruiting strategy that hones in on individuals in other organizations who have those unique skills and attributes.

We have established a network of professionals and database of over 60,000 individuals that we network with to identify candidates who we believe will be successful in our client’s organization. We directly target the market with personalized outreach to identify and recruit those passive candidates who are competent, but not necessarily looking for their next career. During our interviews, we do not want to just understand their technical capabilities and experience, but what motivates them as an individual and why they believe they are successful. At the same time, we spend a considerable amount of time conducting references of past and current employees and employers to better understand how the candidate interacts in a professional setting on a day-to-day basis.

We recognize that it is imperative in all our recruitments that we maintain continuous communication with our clients to keep them apprised of the recruitment process and what we are finding in the market. We recognize that some positions are more challenging to fill because of the technical requirements. These include specifically maintenance and engineering positions in which highly skilled talent is sought. These professionals are in extremely high demand and are able to be selective in their career opportunities. Additionally, other constraints such as salary and relocation add to the complexity of the recruiting process.  We work with our clients to understand their level of flexibility and then discuss these constraints with candidates at the onset to ensure that these are not barriers in successfully onboarding a potential candidate.

In all, ensuring that a recruitment is successful requires a carefully and methodically planned search process. 

St. Cloud, Minn.

Arlene Wirth, Director of Human Resources,

St. Cloud Metro Bus

Like other transit systems, St. Cloud Metro Bus is always looking for good talent. We utilize a variety of resources to promote our job openings and have found “word of mouth” to deliver the most candidates. We capitalize on its power by being present at community events and building and maintaining meaningful relationships with other organizations. These outreach efforts also have helped us to build a more diverse workforce that better represents the community we serve.

Minnesota as a whole isn’t as ethnically diverse as some areas of the country. That said, the state and the St. Cloud region has seen measureable growth across all race and origin categories over the past decade.

Metro Bus strives to reflect these changes in our workforce and has made significant progress. Today, minorities comprise15 percent of our employees, up from 8 percent only two years ago. To put our numbers in perspective, the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) population by race and origin from the 2010 U.S. Census Bureau Data is as follows:

• White: 84.6 percent
• Black, African American: 7.8 percent
• Asian: 3.7 percent
• Hispanic, Latino: 2.4 percent
• Native American: 0.7 percent
• Reporting two or more races: 2.5 percent

Metro Bus is an attractive employer with some recruitment challenges. While we offer a competitive wage and paid training, new employees often start in part-time or casual positions with limited benefits. When they move into a full time position, they are rewarded with a 100 percent employer-paid benefit package. The key is casting a net wide enough to attract a diverse mix of candidates.

We utilize free resources as much as possible to promote our job openings. We advertise on job boards at local universities, the chamber of commerce, and the local workforce center, as well as industry-specific and other online resources. We also work closely with local organizations to recruit from the ranks of displaced workers. With state and local unemployment rates about 2 percent lower than the national average, a relationship with these organizations is beneficial. Recognizing the value of “word of mouth,” we’ve increased our presence in the community and participate in more multi-cultural events. This, coupled with having diversity reflected in the face of our top leader, has made a substantial impact on our ability to recruit. And, as we have hired more people representing minorities, it has made it easier for us to attract a more diverse workforce.

Reaching out and being present has made a positive impact on our agency’s ability to recruit quality staff. While we have made significant strides, we are not done. We must continue to be diligent in making Metro Bus a welcoming place for people of all backgrounds. Hiring a workforce that represents the community we serve is just part of the equation.