Shearings has been operating for over 100 years. We are famous for our coach holidays both in the UK and Europe, however we have, over the past years, grown an enviable reputation as a short break operator, a cruising specialist and hotelier. By owning and operating 50 hotels in the UK, supported by a fleet of 265 modern coaches, we are able to provide our customers with unique and exclusive product, ensuring magical holiday memories. We have 64% repeat business and one in four of our customers travel with us more than once a year. Our brands include Shearings Holidays, National Holidays, Caledonian Travel, Coast & Country Hotels and Bay Hotels and together the group welcomes over 1 million customers a year on our holidays and tours.
“In 2005 Shearings merged with The Wallace Arnold Group creating a very large fleet of coaches with over 350 vehicles and the supporting engineering manpower and maintenance infrastructure.
Shearings is primarily a holiday provider and our coach fleet is responsible for transporting and caring for our customers en route to their holiday destination throughout the UK and Europe. This requires for an unsurpassed level of reliability and dependability and that our vehicles will operate with the absolute minimum of technical issues out in the field. To achieve this objective it was decided to appoint a Group Chief Engineer from outside the business to move our vehicle reliability and maintenance to “the next level”.
We approached Wynne Consulting as we were looking for a market specialist to undertake a focused headhunt. They quickly identified that the Bus & Coach sector was the primary target market, and following an in-depth search they delivered a shortlist of candidates with the requisite skills and experience. We successfully hired our preferred candidate and I am pleased to say that during the 6 years he has been with us he has improved our vehicle operation significantly.
Although it was a very difficult search due to the limited number of potential candidates in the UK with large fleet maintenance experience, Wynne Consulting were able to identify, approach and present to us the right calibre of candidates quickly. It would not have been possible to find the right candidate on the “open job market” so without a pro-active search we would not have found the right person for our business.”
