April 2007

Fife business invests £10,000 and collaborates with Fife community support groups to launch employee bus service

A subsidised bus service has been launched by local business MGt to make employee’s commute easier from outlying areas. MGt invested an initial £10,000 into the service to support employees who have difficulty travelling to work and to widen the recruitment pool for candidates further afield. The direct routes will cut journey time by one third for those who previously had to change buses several times.

The route will service MGt’s office at Iona House and is already proving popular, with more than 50 employees using it. Departure times fit around three shift patterns, and those staff taking the bus can fix their rotas around them.

With the scheme still in its early stages, MGt adopted the bus service following advice from its ‘employee forum’, consisting of staff representatives from different departments who regularly meet to discuss how to enhance the business.

As well as benefiting existing staff, the bus service will form part of MGt’s recruitment drive to support recent significant growth. The bus will cover remote and otherwise un-serviced areas near Glenrothes, Cowdenbeath Lochgelly, Ballingry and Levenmouth, expanding MGt’s recruitment pool.

MGt invested in the initial start-up of the operation, with further contributions from Fife’s Community Planning Partnership, Scottish Enterprise Fife and Job Centre Plus. Staff at MGt pay a small fare to cover the running costs and any surplus is ploughed back into expanding the service, with the possibility of running a shuttle bus and extending the current routes.

To launch the service, MGt worked with not-for-profit organisation Trans-Fife, which aims to remove accessibility and mobility barriers across the local community. When not in use by MGt staff, Trans-Fife will use the bus for its community projects.

“Providing our employees with an easy commute to work has such an obvious affect on work-life balance. Now it is easier to get to MGt, we hope it will be a real pull for staff from outside our usual recruitment catchment area,” said Alistair Booth, Staff Retention and Development Manager at MGt. “The bus service has proven such a success that we are looking into expanding it to more MGt sites in the near future.”

“MGt is really focused on working with the community, this collaboration has meant that we can draw on others’ experience to run the service, as well as contributing to strengthening transport links for others in the community,” Alistair Booth concluded