What’s The Difference Between a Staff Engagement Bus And A Training Bus?

Do you need a staff engagement vehicle or is it training bus hire that will serve your needs better? Here’s how they differ – and how they’re similar.

You want to talk to your staff. Perhaps there’s some new training to deliver. Perhaps it’s more about engaging them in planned changes to the business or getting them excited about a new project. You could do it all online, but as plenty of evidence shows – including this piece from Education Week[1] – “online classes aren’t as effective as in-person”. Although the piece focuses on school students, you could apply its findings to everyone, especially the core point that, if you tend to struggle with learning, you’ll struggle more if you do it online.

In-person engagement and training are more effective. It’s just that, when your people are spread far and wide, bringing them together can be a major investment. That’s why organisations choose our engagement and training vehicles – so they can take tailored, in-person messages direct to the people who need to hear them.

But what’s the difference between our staff training and engagement campaign buses?

What is a training bus?

A training bus is a mobile space on which you can deliver the latest training to your people. Our vehicles have delivered IT and product training (like this double decker Metrobus which was converted to deliver product training for staff at DIY specialist Woodie’s).

They’ve been used as medical training buses (like this MAN single decker event bus, which was converted for an Edwards Lifesciences training tour) and for veterinarian training.

They’ve helped develop knowledge and skills across sales, customer service and operational departments, and they offer lots of advantages over alternative training options.

Fully customisable space: Customise a single or double decker bus to deliver exactly the training you need. We’ve created ‘traditional’ classroom environments (although there’s really nothing traditional about training on a bus); IT-driven workspaces and training rooms with large screen displays; discussion spaces, and hands-on training spaces with multiple workstations – ideal for practical surgical training.

Once we’ve customised the training vehicle to your requirements, your people enjoy a consistent training experience that’s much more difficult (and costly) to achieve when setting up multi-site training centres.

Cost-effective training: Because the bus can set up in your car park, there’s no need to hire rooms or commandeer valuable space in your office/store/hospital.

Simplified rollout: When you run a traditional training exercise nationwide, you’ll need to set up a training suite at each location on the route. That takes time and money and increases the risk of glitches (usually IT ones) creeping in. With a corporate training bus, you set up once. Then, once the bus reaches each new venue, prep is complete in minutes.

What is a staff engagement vehicle?

A staff engagement bus is all about taking your corporate messages to your people, wherever they are. Rather than specific, job-related training messages, staff engagement campaigns are about sharing strategy, seeking opinion or building buy-in.

Builders’ merchant Selco, for example, used an engagement campaign bus to bring the benefits of its new staff rewards package to life, but you could just as easily use engagement vehicle hire to support your messaging surrounding acquisitions and merger, business expansion plans, the rollout of new HR or staff appraisal systems, or to support recruitment, induction and onboarding events.    

What’s the difference between a training vehicle and a staff engagement bus?

In many ways, that’s for you to decide. Because our buses are endlessly customisable, we don’t set hard and fast restrictions as what qualifies as an engagement bus and what constitutes a training vehicle – you can blur the lines as much as you like.

In general, however, the difference is about volume and the type of information shared. A training bus will usually be set up to deliver detailed, role-specific information like IT skills, sales techniques or surgical training (as was the case with Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon tour). While you can train dozens of staff at any one time (depending on setup), more in-depth training will usually involve smaller numbers for longer periods.

Staff engagement buses typically welcome many more people onboard during a single day, and offer broader, organisational information. Perhaps the engagement sessions will take the form of presentations. Perhaps there’ll be a discussion room and space for workers to have their say. Perhaps the bus will be a walk-through space with presentation areas showcasing the plans for the business.    

In what ways are staff engagement vehicles and training buses the same?

Whether you hire a staff training vehicle or engagement bus, you’ll find large parts of the experience are very similar.

Memorable learning: It’s not just the experience of getting out of the regular work environment that makes a difference. The bus is such an unconventional venue that it makes your messages more memorable.

Brand power: Take your training or engagement on the road in a branded bus, and every mile of the journey you’ll be advertising your brand.

Easy campaign planning: Because your training or engagement campaign is set up at the outset, your delivery team can focus on making the experience memorable, rather than having to book rooms, manage transport logistics and set-up and dismantle. All we need is space on the carpark.

Our expertise: If you haven’t tried engagement or training campaign bus rental before, you might wonder how you’ll ever pull it all together. Leave that to us. With decades of experience, we’ll take you from initial ideas to bus conversion to tour planning and execution, simply.

Staff Training Bus Rental from Roadshow Promotions

Talk to us about your next staff training or engagement campaign now

Our mission is to help our clients do more than catch the eye. We help them connect and engage. Through our promotional marketing tours, we help national organisations and global brands get ‘out there’ and make an impact. Have a look at our bus tour cost calculator. And if you’re not quite sure what you need, or how to make it happen, just ask. Call 01253 923800 or contact us.

[1] https://www.edweek.org/technology/opinion-how-effective-is-online-learning-what-the-research-does-and-doesnt-tell-us/2020/03