Is it the case that outsourcing companies do not offer a pension plan to employees?
self checkouts arguably have a place (my Aldi lunchtime experience has improved immeasurably now that I can pay in a few seconds and not have to queue up), the supermarkets won't threaten legal action when their equipment fails, and the most important difference is that they still retain staffed checkouts for whose who need/want to use them.
I gather the railway pension is rather generous, compared to the modern workplace pension schemes that are anything but (they're not defined benefit).
This is a photo of the London Overground map showing ticket sales in 2022. Very low numbers across the board. Diamond Geezer has looked in detail at the figures, but the fourth-busiest LO ticket office (Enfield Town) only sells an average of 28 tickets per day. Somewhere like Hackney Wick will only sell a ticket on two in every five days. Most travellers would not miss them, especially as staffing levels are generally pretty good, even at odd hours.
That does not answer the question that I raised in my posting which was specific to outsourcing companies.
I don't think they'd hire someone to watch the staff. It's already under funded so most likely come and check once a week.Staff found staying in their cars when they should be working can fully expect to be dismissed, I would imagine!
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Fair play to you sir!
This; an honest appraisal from someone who actually does the job. And no doubt you can appreciate that the long term career prospects of the situation you describe are not great? I think this sort of honesty needs to be part of the process. There are quite simply better things that a lot of tix office staff could be doing.
Without a ticket office. Send the ticket to customer services and give a valid reason and it could take upto two weeks to get a refund.
Outsourcing companies will have their own pension schemes, good and bad, depending on their size and history.
I'd say it does, regardless or whether or not you want to argue the toss over "no pension" vs "no meaningful pension".
The benefit is fairly obvious; next time the customer knows how to use the machine!
All UK companies are required by law to offer a pension plan to employees.
TVMs will be going the same way as the ticket office. I'm sure their usage has fell through the floor over the last couple of years.
It was merely a comment that I am a regular rail commuter and have never had the requirement to use them. I don't profess to have any knowledge of how many people do use them. Having looked at some of the comments on the thread, some certainly resonate with me - particularly having a member of staff who is readily on hand to deal with issues plus the safety and security aspects - and I would generally support the status quo. I also reject some of the 'union blaming' nonsense espoused earlier in the thread - clearly dinosaur relics from the Thatcher era!
Self service tills are used alongside staffed tills and are superior as there are six tills for one queue making throughput way more efficient (one trundlebunny doesn't hold everyone else up), they take up far less space than the equivalent number of staffed tills, and they only need a couple of staff to provide assistance.
I would agree with this. A good example being yesterday I went to Pizza Hut for my daughters birthday, hugely reduced waiting staff (only 1 on plus a manager), order food via your phone using a QR code on the table which took us forever as there were 8 of us - we were all saying how much easier it would be if they could just come over and take our order the old fashioned way!
Mr Burnham's TfGM-owned Metrolink manages without ticket offices.
