The equivalent for guards would need mystery customer kind of stuff and be difficult to do across the board - are they friendly and welcoming, are their PA calls informative, are they helpful when customers are confused/struggling. I'm sure we've all experienced guards who have done that bit more to make sure we got what was best for us and not what was easiest.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Transpennine Industrial Relations
- Thread starter geoffk
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
dk1
Veteran Member
They get mystery shopped all the time on my patch.
Already happens as part of service quality assessments under the new NRC
The only thing that doesn’t happen (large scale) is rewards for staff if they do go above and beyond
If it was like quite a few other industries the guard would be forcing a card into your hand and trying to guilt trip you into going onto the customer survey website to leave positive comments. The Sky chap even suggested which rating out of ten I should choose (to be fair he was top customer service).
If you use e-ticketing do the rail companies bombard you with emails "You used our service today, please tell us how it was for you"?
Bit annoying but still better than paying people a bonus for doing their basic job.
I don't know about bombard, but if I book a ticket online with the company I'm travelling with, it's very common to receive one of these 'how was your journey?' survey links by email the day after.
I've not had one personally when I've booked with a third party, or when I've been travelling with operators other than the one I booked with. Generally they're not based on the delivery method of your tickets either, just where you booked.
This has moved on a fair bit now from the basic principle that for tocs providing an incentive payment for digital validation is actually driving value for money because it raises the average number of digital tickets validated thus reducing potential fraud and leading to more data collected about customers .
There are of course many other areas that guards can do above and beyond for example being proactive spotting and reporting faults promptly to control rather than just sticking them in the repair book and letting the maintenance depot find out about them afterwards can save the company money , I guess you could have bonus payments for those that ring control the most to report faults .
Service quality assesors will highlight some of these areas if they experience them when out and about . Customers writing in with praise albeit rare is also another way of measuring when folk have gone above and beyond . Other staff do also from time to time highlight cases of their colleagues going above and beyond .
There are of course many other areas that guards can do above and beyond for example being proactive spotting and reporting faults promptly to control rather than just sticking them in the repair book and letting the maintenance depot find out about them afterwards can save the company money , I guess you could have bonus payments for those that ring control the most to report faults .
We have a gift voucher scheme, anyone can nominate someone to receive a £25 gift voucher code for going the extra mile. I've had them for as varied things with helping some new starters struggling with road learning to covering trains at short notice to dealing with sick passengers.
Exactly. This irritates me completely about some of the more militant union members who play the us and them game - if you get the appropriate level of training and it makes your life easier, then no payments should be required. With the situation rail finds itself in, you can't help but feel the unions are actually going to do their members a disservice.
From what I understand, bonuses are a thing of the past now. DfT control for you.
DorkingMain
Member
The unions (sometimes understandably) have the attitude that management will take a mile, if given an inch. For example - if you accept that ticket scanning is a core responsibility, there's a real possibility it leads to issues around:
- The number of tickets you're expected to scan (quotas, league tables, and such)
- Scanning the tickets correctly - a lot of these scanning apps have different methods of scanning, tickets have to be accepted or marked accordingly. I also heard from a friend at one TOC that there's now an expectation they have to constantly update the scan log if they use their work phones to scan tickets.
- The data on the ticket checking guards are doing being used for other purposes (e.g. to keep an eye on how lenient they're being to people with incorrect advances, other such things that people could be potentially pulled up on)
- Additional time spent signing out and setting up the equipment.
- Time not being properly given for training - instead being sent pdf files in emails, or being given a booklet and expected to read / learn the technology in your own time.
The idea "we want money per scan or we riot" feels like a bit of a red herring - I think the issue here is a change to the way things are done without any sort of consultation or discussion about issues like those above. I think there's various reasons why it isn't just "What you were doing before, but digital" - none of the issues above apply to glancing at an orange paper ticket.
To be fair to say it’s done without consultation isn’t true. It was consulted and discussed during productivity talks.
mike57
Established Member
Not looking good again at Scarborough this morning, 2 incoming services on the trot cancelled from York this morning, meaning a gap from 7am until 10am, and no doubt leaving a gap from 8.30am to 11.30am for services towards York. It seems as if as soon as they reintroduce trains west of York the timetable suffers a meltdown, I know there have been a number of different causes over the years but the end result is the same. Go back to the Scarborough - York shuttle.
Edit: Just checked TPE website and next train is now showing as 12.34 after the 08.34, that really isnt acceptable, and no mention of alternative transport. Coastliner or leave it by the looks of things
Edit: Just checked TPE website and next train is now showing as 12.34 after the 08.34, that really isnt acceptable, and no mention of alternative transport. Coastliner or leave it by the looks of things
Last edited:
Isn't that exactly what the data should be used for - checking whether the job is being done correctly?
You’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head with your entire post.
I will once again just like to make it clear that ticket scanning is only part of the Conductor ballot, and once again this will not have any effect on services until February 2022, if at all.
The current issues are surrounding RDW. Drivers have been asked not to carry out any RDW (of which the previous payment agreement had ended) until the TPE re-look at introducing XSP turns (Spare from home) rather than increasing services and therefore the number of drivers sat in messrooms which goes completely against the current ‘work from home if you can’ messaging.
I have to say tearing up a RDW agreement to get spare from home back seems like a very heavy handed way of going about things. It’s only ever going to be a temporary measure and, if XC is anything like where I am, spare turns where you actually end up sitting spare are as rare as rocking horse doings because of covid related absences.
But the action was going to be taking place even before the Government's latest advice of work from home if you can.
Can someone explain please how "spare from home" works? Surely being "spare" means you are available for work if called on at short notice.
Spare - You sit in the depot for a full shift awaiting a call from the controller to give you a train to work. If they don’t call you, you simply go home.
Spare at home - Instead of coming into the depot, you instead stay at home awaiting a call from the controller to give you a train to work, you have an hours notice minimum. If they don’t call you, you simply stay at home.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
It was, but both unions and H&S officers requested a further meeting regarding the extension of XSP as the guidance changed. This was refused, and yet the majority of Bridgewater House are continuing to work from home (where they can).
You are technically available for work, but in practice means you need to be advised the day before if you’re needed, due to the commute in (some people live two hours plus from their depots). You can’t be used at a few minutes notice as would usually be the case.
Is there a serious suggestion that services shouldn't be increased because this would mean more drivers sat in messrooms? So services should remain at a reduced level until the unions say otherwise?
Yes, work from home if you can. The whole point of having spares sat in the depot is that you can respond quickly to disruption, illness etc.
If you've got to allow an hour for the driver to come in, they may as well be on leave. It's utterly useless.
There is no way that you can properly work from home, if your work is "being spare". In the last 2 years there have been countless situations where services have been needlessly cancelled or delayed - purely because traincrew are spare from home, rather than spare in the depot.
Extra messroom spaces have been provided and protective measures are in place. If there are concerns about individual locations not being 'Covid secure' then these should of course be raised. But to say it's "too dangerous" everywhere simply doesn't wash.
The current situation gives the impression that some drivers rather like
It doesn't. That's the problem.
Yep. Not great optics at the moment it has to be said…
O L Leigh
Established Member
Yes they have, but only by the expedient of thinning out the number of people using them; ergo spare at home. This doesn’t apply if you’re standby however, which is where the short notice cover comes from.
== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: ==
Perhaps not. But where other employers are being required to take steps to safeguard their workforces, it seems not unreasonable for the railway to take steps as appropriate to the situation. If this means reducing the number of warm bodies cluttering up messrooms then so be it.
Last edited:
Perhaps I was unclear. What I was referring to was the provision of additional messroom facilities - for example portacabins or areas of stations (or nearby offices/buildings) not normally used as messrooms. This has come at considerable expense in some cases.
So even if you had the same number of spares as before Covid you would still have a lower 'density'. And that is on top of the other measures taken.
As you say, it is about what is reasonable. Notably impairing the ability of the employer to reliably provide its services is not, in my mind, a reasonable measure to take. Instead, other measures should be considered to mitigate risk.
To take an extreme example, you could say that it would be safest for the Ambulance Services to allow their paramedics to stay at home - otherwise they experience a significant risk of being exposed to Covid. But of course that would be rightly derided.
Not at all. But there is minimal point increasing service when you have no staff to cover them, the current level of cancellations isn’t far off May 2018 timetable change
It worked for two years nearly now.
If you honestly believe it’s a good idea to risk traincrew health by having high levels of staff sat doing nothing all day in messrooms, potentially infecting one another and then having an entire link of drivers or conductors isolating then there’s nothing more to argue here.
XSP protects staff from unnecessary infection and isolating which causes more issues in the long run.
I don’t believe that at all, there has been minimal disruption, if any over the last two years from traincrew working from home. The largest disruption has been from staff testing positive whilst on duty or the ‘pingdemic’, not spare from home working.
It’s at this point I’d like to point out that not every spare memeber of staff was spare from home. You only need require one or two drivers on service protection, not a messroom full of them.
I disagree with that bold statement. I’m some areas mess room provision has been increased, my own depot was at capacity before Covid and is frequently above capacity at certain times of the day. There is not raised capacity at every location
O L Leigh
Established Member
Where has that happened? No location that I visit, including those run by other TOCs have had additional capacity provided.
Has service been “notably impaired”? That you can see how it might be does not mean that it has. As I mentioned earlier, standby drivers are rostered and required to attend to provide short-notice cover.
It would appear very much that this isn't true, from the perspective of the number of train services and train crew diagrams, and the desired level of resilience.
I don't think anyone can deny that the current TransPennine Express service is 'notably impaired' by a shortage of train crew.
O L Leigh
Established Member
…which has nothing to do with spares at home.
That is a separate issue. I'm sure the increases would have been postponed if the resultant disruption had been anticipated far enough in advance.
It's kept the unions happy but it's not really 'worked' in any true sense of the word. Before Covid, traincrew weren't sitting in the depot for fun.
Any job where you need to come to work risks infection. That's life. But if adequate control measures are in place, there is no reason why being spare in the depot need be unduly dangerous.
Yes, and so would never coming to work at all...
I must be imagining the figures I've heard in that case.
The level of positive tests amongst traincrew has been lower than might be expected given the nature of the roles in question. The 'pingdemic' has certainly had an effect but this was significantly ameliorated when the 'close contact' exemption for double vaccinated people was introduced.
However, the fact that spare from home has not had as significant an effect as these factors doesn't make it cost-free.
It's not much use having only one or two drivers once they're used up...
As I said, if there are concerns about individual locations then those should absolutely be investigated - and perhaps the most appropriate outcome is that there are different policies for different depots. But that doesn't justify rejecting a return to being spare from the depot across the company.
-standing ovation-
- Status