Arriva Employee Reviews
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Enjoyable
PCV Bus Driver (Former Employee) - Gillingham - 20 November 2023
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The most useful review selected by IndeedWhat is the best part of working at the company?Planning ahead, knowing when your off weeks ahead What is the most stressful part about working at the company?Driving, coping with arrogant road uesrs What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Friendly,Can have laugh and a joke together What is a typical day like for you at the company?Can be stressful or can be good
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bus driving and evrons kined
Bus Operator (Current Employee) - England - 10 November 2023
neads new bus fleet pite por neds betr pay relly frendly enviroment and evreon lovs driving you get to se bus entusiast pite often and its just morr good than bad
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Insights into Arriva
Areas for improvement
- Energising work tasks
- Sense of belonging
- Support from manager
Do not under any circumstances work here
Bus Driver (Former Employee) - Redcar, North Yorkshire - 7 November 2023
Firstly you are treated just as a number. The customers are always right even without seeing evidence. The buses will constantly breakdown should not be on the road, engineers have all but given up hope. Customers treat you with utter contempt, speak to you like something on there shoe. Impossible timings the management have cut timing so you are driving around highly stressed with barely any time to catch your breath. Road users will do anything to beat the bus cut you up etc. Rotas are shocking one day you will be in until 11.30pm the next day ull be in at 7.30am. Its a mixed rota so you will be doing mornings, middles, lates all in the same week and if your unforuntate youll have a nice 10 days straight of working without a day causing extreme fatigue. seriously avoid arriva if you have a family as you will never see them. You will end up going home stressed when people are constantly shouting at you for missing buses or late running or the weather. its truely not worth it.
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Okay for starting a driving career
Bus Driver (Current Employee) - North East - 3 November 2023
It's an alright job if you can hack the shift times, being a spare driver, you can be in at 5am one morning, and start at 5pm the next. It's good for starting a professional driving career. Lots of overtime available too as they seem to be always short of drivers.
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Easy job, poorly ran
Driver (Current Employee) - Northumberland - 26 October 2023
Can be an easy jib, but the salaried management don't structure rotas and runs in reflection to how busy and how late you run and at times aren't bothered about driving hours. Hopefully company takeover quashes all the negative areas and gets the job good again
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Awful
Bus driver (Former Employee) - Blyth, Northumberland - 22 October 2023
Staff are in clicks with each other and if you do something someone doesn't like rumours and bitterness is awful. Management have been no bother but I wouldn't go back due to how awful the other bus drivers are.
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Extremely good
Bus Driver (Former Employee) - Ash Grove Hackney - 16 October 2023
What is the best part of working at the company?Working independently good relationships with management and colleagues good customer service What is the most stressful part about working at the company?When you have broken down vehicles and you cannot continue on your journey What is the work environment and culture like at the company?Was calm peaceful very friendly respectful well behave men and wemen What is a typical day like for you at the company?Normal the usual every day just do the job to the best of my ability so that the company can be happy
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Great place to work hard
Bus Driver (Current Employee) - Wakefield, West Yorkshire - 9 October 2023
Great team to work withAlways busy/understaffShift patterns to suit your lifestyle Plenty of o/tPassengers sometimes harshWould benefit from newer buses and maintenance
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Generally Poor
Bus Driver (Current Employee) - Teesside, North Yorkshire - 9 October 2023
1) Buses - maintained to the bare minimum, easily 95% of the fleet ALWAYS have a warning light on, mainly the emissions light. You may aswell not have a defect card because the same faults will get signed off day after day. Broken buttons have been replaced with other buttons, so they don’t actually do what they say they do! Most of the buses are extremely down on power, it makes situations such as pulling onto a roundabout or slip road stressful as they take an age to pull off (downright dangerous), on routes with hills some of the buses can barely crack 5mph. Breakdowns are also a regular occurence. Upper management are deluded, thinking a ‘software upgrade’ was the reason they were so slow, guess what, the ‘upgrade’ did nothing!! The buses are not cleaned, they are simply swept to remove rubbish. You leave the cab feeling very grimey, it’s regularly making me ill. 2) Routes - Near impossible to stay on time, if you are serving more than 25% of your stops on route, then you will end up late, pretty obvious the times were not calculated on real time service, but probably using google maps!! Traffic or volume of passengers/consideration for slower passengers is not taken into account - this in turn means when you’re inevitably late it’s YOU getting it in the neck from disgruntled customers. Management - Your duty managers/leading drivers are generally quite helpful and will help you out with whatever issues you may have, upper management is extremely beaurocratic, it’s all about rules and policies etc, to them you are merely a number, and certain managers will not acknowledge -
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Not for everyone
Bus Driver (Current Employee) - Stockton-on-Tees, Durham - 8 October 2023
I started working at arriva a few months ago and the training to get a pcv license was great. When you pass your test and get taken to depot you get to see what the jobs really like and it's not easy. Hours are long and can be very stressful at times dealing with customers and other road users. Management are good and welcoming and you have good banter with the other drivers. It's a skilled job and that's why I enjoy driving the buses. If you like the thought of driving big buses and not work shy I'd say go for it and don't be scared about what if you don't pass your test. The instructors in driving school are brilliant 👏
Pros
Good money, skilled job, nice uniform
Cons
Long hours
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Jobs at Arriva
Not good
Driver (Current Employee) - Stockton-on-Tees, Durham - 22 September 2023
Avoid like the plague management do. Not care about you you are a number wages okish buses rubbish always breaking down engineers don't care customers treat you worse than something on your shoe
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Straight forward
PCV Driver (Former Employee) - Harlow, Essex - 22 September 2023
Shift patterns rarely make sense.Once had to change my body clock 12 hours one way and 12 hours back in the same week.Otherwise just another bus depot.
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Just good for paying bills
PCV Bus Driver (Current Employee) - Derby - 16 September 2023
The only good thing is pay. Work life balance you can not get with the shift parttern. Management is key for the success of business but it doesnt seem the case here
Pros
Money
Cons
Everything
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Underpaid
Psv engineer (Current Employee) - London, Greater London - 15 September 2023
High pressure heavy work not enough pay clock in and clock out doing day shift is even less pay than day and evening factoring in travel and cleaning up as very dirty and smell of bus coming home
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Great banter with work mates
Bus Driver (Former Employee) - Stevenage, Hertfordshire - 10 September 2023
Arriva need to sort the depot out, keep changing managers, they get rid of the good ones and keep the muppets . There is no work life balance as shift patterns are terrible
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Good
Electrician (Former Employee) - London, Greater London - 5 September 2023
I'm fortunate enough to have a very solid and hard working team behind me. For example, my operations manager and many of the other managers work a driving shift or more each week on top of their office work. This gives them a real life perspective of the issues surrounding being a Bus Driver. The people I work with, the actual drivers, are the favourite aspect of the job and I get to speak with them each day. This has resulted in many long term friendships and we often meet on days off for social evenings. If someone has a hard day and needs to unload their issues, there's always a supportive ear. If you need time off for family time or holiday, they will always do whatever they can to accommodate. The real proof of this is how long many of the drivers have worked here and its no stretch to find people that have been there for 20 years or more. Overall, this is a prime job with the opportunity
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Great place to work like a giant family but underpaid for the professional job you work
Duty Manager / Bus Driver (Current Employee) - Southend-on-Sea, Essex - 31 August 2023
Pay cant be helped much as its all chosen and fought for by the unions in the garages. (Even when you aren't a member of the union) However the actual job is great and Arriva is an incredible place to work
Pros
Cat D licence
Cons
Pay
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Good local management, bad overall management
Driver (Former Employee) - Shrewsbury - 24 August 2023
Management from OM downwards good. No direction from higher up. Worked there from end of 2019-2021. Buses not a great quality and seem better days. Good atmosphere with other drivers
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Great environment
Bus Driver (Former Employee) - Thornton Heath - 21 August 2023
Good communication from management and friendly staff. Easy to get your days off cannot complain. Only down side is the passengers and stress, not much you can do about that.
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Poor management
PCV Bus Driver (Current Employee) - Derby - 19 August 2023
Poor management no home lifestyle buses are poor work pattern is poor work with a load of snowflakes union in company’s back pocket promised pay rise wait 3/4 months to get it
Pros
Free cofee
Cons
Poor managment
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Ask a question about working or interviewing at Arriva. Our community is ready to answer.Ask a QuestionOverall rating
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Ratings by category
2.7 out of 5 stars for Work/Life Balance
3.0 out of 5 stars for Salary/Benefits
3.0 out of 5 stars for Job security/advancement
2.6 out of 5 stars for Management
2.8 out of 5 stars for Culture
Questions about Arriva
- How often do you get a pay rise at Arriva?29 people answered
- What is a typical day like for you at the company?14 people answered
- How are the working hours at Arriva?13 people answered
- What is the promotion process like at Arriva?12 people answered
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- How does someone get hired at Arriva North East? What are the steps along the way?9 people answered
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