STRADA Transit Operator Recruitment Tool
You've clicked here for information about putting the right person in the driver's seat!
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CUTA is an association of people much like yourself: Transit professionals who make a difference in their communities every day. Who do your customers interact with? Your frontline staff of course! They are the face of your business; they create the customer experience. How important is it to ensure that you have the best people in those jobs, especially in the role of bus operator?
To answer that question we could consider the costs associated with:
- negative customer interactions;
- poor media coverage/public perception of your service and;
- the time that is required to manage employees that are constantly late, absent or are careless with your very expensive vehicles.
STRADA helps you to identify the right person to put in the driver's seat by using a system of cross-checked competencies. The cornerstone of the system is the assessment survey, a 30 minute web-based test. Once the test is completed a custom report is produced for each candidate. HR staff can determine which candidates to bring in for an interview and who to avoid. The report also provides additional interview questions specifically customized for that candidate. The questions dig deep into the candidate's innate personality traits to determine whether they possess the key competencies which will enable them excel in the role of bus operator.
The STRADA toolkit steps will highlight those candidates that provide excellent customer service, have low absenteeism rates and will stay with you and develop their career in your organization; reducing turnover and performance issues.
STRADA is your GPS system for finding the best candidates!
STRADA - The Road to Hire Success
The toolkit follows many "roads" when taking you to the best candidates. The major "areas" that you will pass through are called indexes:
Vehicle Monitoring and Driving Index
A measure of the traits associated with successful operational performance (accident avoidance, lack of disciplinary marks) in this job. Associated personality traits include safety, risk tolerance, caution, etc.
Customer Service & Professionalism Index
A measure of the traits associated with service performance (lack of customer complaints, favorable supervisor ratings on service dimensions) in this job. Associated personality traits include frustration tolerance, acceptance of diversity, self-control, accommodation of others, etc.
Personal Management Index
A measure of traits associated with timely, consistent attendance at work. Associated personality traits include taking responsibility, work ethic, self-control, dependability, etc.
Problem Solving Index
A measure of the candidate's ability to effectively evaluate work related situations and determine a best course of action. Associated personality traits include preference for structure, being conscientious, considering others needs in decision making, etc.
Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection and Adverse Impact Analysis
We are all concerned about legal defensibility in our hiring practices. During the creation of the toolkit, legal counsel advised the Committee to protect users from legal challenges. Our expert partner in the development of the psychometric test also abides by the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection (US Federal Law) and exceeds the requirements and standard practices of the American Psychological Association.
A bit about how adverse impact was tested for during the validation process:
"Adverse impact occurs when an employment practice or process works to the disadvantage of members of age, race, gender, or ethnic group. In offering guidance for determining adverse impact, the Uniform Guidelines offers the four-fifths rule: A select rate for any race, ethnic or gender subgroup which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty percent) for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded as adverse impact…"
To examine the issue of adverse impact for the STRADA Bus Operators assessment, selection impact ratios for each of the Performance Indexes were estimated using the sample of incumbent response data from 15 different transit systems. Those systems included:
Brampton, ON Burlington, ON Calgary, AB Edmonton, AB
Guelph, ON Hamilton, ON Lethbridge, AB Ottawa, ON
Red Deer, AB Sarnia, ON St. Johns, NL Toronto (GO Transit), ON
Vancouver, BC Winnipeg, MB York Region, ON
The largest system in our study group has 4,500+ employees, the smallest has 51. In total they represent a wide variety of geographic regions from coast to coast.
The STRADA Toolkit was initiated by the industry, for the industry and built by the industry. STRADA is a reliable, integrated hiring solution designed to increase the probability of selecting the best candidates for the position of bus operator, to reduce staff time in the recruitment process and to reduce costs associated with recruitment as well as budget lost through training unsuccessful candidates.
The STRADA Toolkit consists of the following elements:
1. A 6 step Recruitment Process from Recruitment Messaging to Hiring Protocol.
2. A Validated Assessment Survey & Reports Customized for Bus Operators - interview probes are provided for each area of potential concern identified from the personality assessment.
3. A Toolkit of Checklists, Forms and Resources to ensure your screening is fast and consistent.
4. A 2-day Implementation Workshop with participant materials and presentation tools to prepare your staff to use the STRADA Process.
5. A Competency Framework for Bus Operators.
6. A Distribution Process to order STRADA tests quickly and easily.
7. A secure, private client site to administer your testing and results. Clients can produce their own internal usage statements for auditing purposes if they have multiple service locations within their transit system.
8. Post-Implementation Support to assist your technical users through the administration of the test itself.
9. An Ongoing Implementation Feedback Process to monitor your STRADA experience and continuously improve the product.
10. Ongoing test updating by our expert partner…so you never have to worry about the test going out of date, becoming invalid or having to purchase a new release!
For more information, please contact: Business Development at 416 365-9800 ext. 127.
