Go North East wins gold at UK Bus Awards

The region’s largest bus operator, Go North East, brought back the gold from the prestigious UK Bus Awards on Tuesday 15 November, being recognised for its marketing and communication efforts, and specifically its ‘Jobs with Real Purpose’ recruitment campaign.

All sectors have been hit by the national labour shortage, and sadly Go North East are not exempt from this either.

In a bid to combat this issue, Go North East launched its ‘jobs with real purpose’ campaign, which focused on attracting people to join us to ‘drive’ into a greener future, by helping to connect communities, bust congestion, and improve air quality.

The campaign has used a wide range of channels, and has even featured on TV, with BBC’s Richard Moss getting behind the wheel to test drive a bus himself.

Go North East recently announced a major recruitment drive is underway as it looks to recruit 100 new bus drivers over the coming weeks, as a result of new service patterns, contract wins and staff turnover.

Go North East also scooped silver for the ‘Culture Change’, ‘Buses and the Community’ and ‘Buses for Pleasure’ awards – impressing the judges with the phenomenal amount of money raised for charity during the COVID-19 pandemic through its impressive ‘One Team GNE’ colleague initiative.

Stephen King, Commercial Director at Go North East, said: “It’s great to accept these awards and for our team to be recognised for the hard work that they do day in, day out, to serve our communities.

Our ‘Jobs with Real Purpose’ campaign has continued to fill up our driving school, with over 60 applications some weeks, and short-notice on-the-day cancellations have now vastly reduced in number.

There’s never been a better time to join our award-winning team and be part of a company that helps to connect communities, bus congestion, and improve air quality. We have recently increased our pay rates for new and existing bus drivers; with new drivers earning £11 per hour following a short training period, rising to £12.83 per hour after a year in the job. Existing bus driver licence holders joining the company will earn £12.83 per hour straight away.”