MANAGEMENT RECRUITMENT IN THE TRANSIT INDUSTRY

Recruitment of talented transit managers has been identified as a critical problem for the industry. A description is offered of the scope of the problem as reported by transit agencies. It is sought to determine whether the problem is more acute for particular types of transit agencies or is more accurately viewed as an industrywide problem not linked to factors such as agency size or organizational structure. An overview of the recruitment problem as reported by a sample of 207 transit agencies is presented first. The analysis includes identification of those management areas for which recruitment is a particular problem, a listing of the possible reasons for recruitment difficulties, and a summary of steps taken to resolve recruiting problems. Next addressed is whether the problem of attracting new managerial talent to the industry is related to particular characteristics of some agencies or is more generally an industrywide problem. The agency characteristics included in this analysis are size, degree of change, organizational complexity, and institutional setting. The findings of the study establish that no particular type of agency is more likely to experience recruitment problems. This contradicts the expectation that larger, organizationally complex agencies would be more attractive. Thus, recruitment difficulties either are products of local, particularistic factors irrespective of size and complexity or reflect a problem for transit as an industry.