And lots who have been WFH for a little too long are now being dragged back into the office. Quite rightly so given the lack of productivity and widespread economic inactivity amidst the workforce in this country.
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Anyone noticed anecdotally another uptick in passenger numbers
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And lots who have been WFH for a little too long are now being dragged back into the office. Quite rightly so given the lack of productivity and widespread economic inactivity amidst the workforce in this country.
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Snow1964
Established Member
Although it has to be said the railway has got itself into some sort of paralysis. Although we know some routes are now busier than pre covid (although some are down on pre covid), not been much sign of tackling the busy parts.
Even if you take the only got back to these levels in last few months approach, and railway planning is at glacial pace, there is not much that appears to be done to sort the areas that are growing or booming. It's true a few train fleets (ordered 2019 or earlier) are still to enter service (some 196, 197, 720, 730, and nearly all or all of 701, 805, 807, 810 etc), will help a few areas, but not some of the new growing leisure areas as they were targeted at old normal, not new normal.
More importantly if you consider the parts that are apparently growing (just about every long local or regional service not serving London or served by XC) then can see that there isn't really anything happening, most are stuck with aging 158s or too short 170s and no sign of longer or newer trains. Where there is talk of new trains might be 5-10 years away, not 5-10 months to absorb extra passengers
And who exactly do you think dictates “railway planning”? None other than the same DfT that, up until recently, was in open warfare with the railway workforce.
See also the NHS.
bramling
Veteran Member
Agreed, about time too, too many people have been treating WFH as an opportunity to take the mickey. Just one of many elements of the Covid response that has left us with long-term structural problems.
The industry (and by that I mean the “wider” industry which includes the DFT and its masters) hasn’t helped itself on this one. Round here we haven’t had the pre-Covid peak service reinstated, and all over local Facebook people are moaning that they are “forced” to WFH because the train capacity isn’t there.
It may well be seen in the future that stripping out the peak rail capacity (mainly through reductions in fleets, but also through allowing staff numbers to drop such that there aren’t enough drivers to run 2019 timetables) was another element of the wider Covid response which was a big mistake, and ultimately harmed the UK’s economy.
I personally think that we have a lot of long term structural problems aside from covid and WFH (too much wealth being siphoned off from the country in the name of the "free" market).
But your point about stripping out too many peak services rings true - and scrapping the stock.
The Government (of the time) chose to deplete capacity, rather than look forward to future needs.
It isn't clear who is actually losing out from an economic stand point there.
The railway is saving money from not having to lease rolling stock which only does a few peak journeys. The workers get to work from home as much as they desire. The employer doesn't have to lease as much office space. The employer has a role in ensuring that its workforce are as productive on a remote basis as they are in an office.
Some employers are taking staff back into the office. Many aren't. The ability to choose what is right for an individual remains a differentiator in recruitment.
Please stop with the insults
I don’t reckon any businesses were factoring in a Covid level of shock!
AIUI GA signed on for too many trains for the ‘new normal’, SWR would have too many if the 701s had actually come into service, and are paying for the 458s they shouldn’t now need.
Insults? Not sure what you mean there. You do appear to have a somewhat simplistic understanding of how businesses make decisions. “The railway” is far from a normal business and its revenues come from both subsidy and ticket sales. As a whole it isn’t primarily run to generate a profit in its own right (although clearly parts of it do). This has all been pointed out to you many times.
The trains ordered (by the DfT, not the TOCs) are for a thirty or forty year lifespan and the “new normal” isn’t fixed. Numbers are growing strongly and for the vast majority of their lives these trains will carry far more passengers than were carried pre Covid.
None of that changes the fact that fixating on pre Covid financial models years after it happened is ridiculous. Again, should we be saying “but for 9/11 the railway should be carrying more people” nearly 25 years after the event? No, we need to be carrying people according to demand now and driving growth that way.
It varies by industry by the trend is for people to go back. Commuting is growing strongly, which I realise is a rather inconvenient fact for some. The ability to choose what is right for the individual only goes so far. Ultimately the employer pays the wages, and he who pays the piper…
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I can‘t think of any service specification decision in the last 4 years that hasn’t been made on the basis of finance alone. (With the exceptions of the opening of Okehampton, Leven and Northumberland lines, albeit the decisions on service spec for those were essentially made pre Covid).
Well we know the last government’s approach has been cost of everything value of nothing when it comes to public services. Hence knee jerk withdrawal of fleets during Covid “because nobody is using the trains” etc. and now reports of chronic overcrowding on many parts of the network. Then the refusal to settle the industrial dispute for years, despite the revenue loss exceeding the cost of the offer etc.
Hopefully we’re moving into a better era.
bramling
Veteran Member
Presumably on the latter point many are finding that this is a problem. Certainly I’m seeing examples of poor productivity all the time - people going for days out when the weather is nice whilst pretending to be at work, many people now expect Mondays and/or Fridays off, distractions at home like carrying out domestic tasks, family, etc, and also that there’s now little to stop people not controlling their alcohol consumption during work hours.
The cumulative economic cost of all this will be in a different league to leasing a few extra trains.
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And that has been the nub of the problem.
Peter Sarf
Established Member
From what I see there is plenty of scope for people to work at a lower pace from home. I know of two people who wedge a piece of card in the computer keyboard as that suffices to show keyboard activity - they can then pop out to the shops etc for an hour. On the other hand hand I know someone who is seriously overworking from home - too busy to go out at weekends and irritable if disturbed in the evening - they have (had) a normal non shift office job. So employers must be keen to get staff back in 5 days per week UNLESS the perceived losses are less than the cost of office space for those people.
The pressure is that most people will only use the train to go to work if they have to. Many have forgotten how to put up with the cost and ordeal of commuting. They know of a better life.
I for one, having worked on site through Covid19, have seen the unwillingness of many office staff towards having their life swallowed up by travelling and sitting being watched. The atmosphere was noticeable. I then retired !.
Another pressure is I doubt the railways or staff want to operate at the edge of capability as before Covid19.
Reluctance is all around.
I suspect that we can already see that the costs of lockdown are ongoing still over four years later !.
Personally I would like commuters to gain a three or four day working week - with longer hours so it adds up to the same. But I see no attempt being made to encourage (enforce) some kind of shift system. Instead office staff have been allowed to extend their weekends !.
The question is do we really want to go back to the mad rush hour model we had before Covid19. More flexible hours and fewer longer working days would make life easier for everyone except those who want the extreme peaks we had before. Should we be harping after recovery to the mad commuter railway of yore ?.
The pressure is that most people will only use the train to go to work if they have to. Many have forgotten how to put up with the cost and ordeal of commuting. They know of a better life.
I for one, having worked on site through Covid19, have seen the unwillingness of many office staff towards having their life swallowed up by travelling and sitting being watched. The atmosphere was noticeable. I then retired !.
Another pressure is I doubt the railways or staff want to operate at the edge of capability as before Covid19.
Reluctance is all around.
I suspect that we can already see that the costs of lockdown are ongoing still over four years later !.
Personally I would like commuters to gain a three or four day working week - with longer hours so it adds up to the same. But I see no attempt being made to encourage (enforce) some kind of shift system. Instead office staff have been allowed to extend their weekends !.
The question is do we really want to go back to the mad rush hour model we had before Covid19. More flexible hours and fewer longer working days would make life easier for everyone except those who want the extreme peaks we had before. Should we be harping after recovery to the mad commuter railway of yore ?.
bramling
Veteran Member
The answer to the last part may well be yes, as 9-5 working does seem to be efficient in terms of getting things done whilst still allowing for a reasonable work-life balance.
philosopher
Established Member
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Personally, for me I find that the 9 to 5 model does allow me to do stuff, such as going to the gym, meeting friends or attending classes in the evening, whereas working 9 to 7, 4 days a week would mean I would have too little time to do such activities in the evening. For that reason I would prefer to stick to the current work week arrangements.
That said, working four longer days would be beneficial for those who want to use to use their weekends for weekend breaks. I can definitely think of some people whom may quite like such an arrangement.
What is a normal business?the railway is run for a profit level, loss just being a negative profit. The loss is covered by the subsidy which is just the taxpayer as customer ‘buying’ something (a level of service deemed to be desirable for society/the economy). Your final line is yet another unnecessary personal comment.
Those financial models drove procurement which hasn’t even finished yet, so is relevant.
What does this mean, can you give an example please - business cases have all sorts of non-cash values in them?
I’ve addressed all of these points above but, just as with our other recent exchanges, you have not engaged with my replies.
Methinks there is no point in discussing further.
Yes indeed. Again, based on contacts of mine in various industries, there’s a desire to get people back to supervise them more closely as they simply can’t be trusted to work effectively otherwise.
It doesn’t make pretty reading, and perhaps points to a wider issue with a general lack of work ethic amongst the UK population. That dovetails with how, by all accounts, we have low productivity compared to other countries, and have a higher % of the population which is economically inactive.
Sad Sprinter
Established Member
Yes, lets spend more time with toxic office culture and psychologically flawed managers instead of balancing working with our actual lives.
Well let’s not impose a false binary; “toxic office culture” might well be an issue in some work places, but not in all. And hasn’t mental health worsened since working from home has increased? Other countries seem to combine higher productivity with better work life balance.
Working from home isn’t a solution to toxic office culture, neither does it address low productivity.
Sad Sprinter
Established Member
Yes that is true. It seems in this country we work long hours and produce little.
In any sensible business, if people are not performing you put them on disciplinary procedures and manage them out. How is it in any way productive to require people to attend a work place just because they can't be trusted to work without supervision?
Low productivity is a function of people working in service industries and not being physically able to have their effort 'scaled up' by nature of the type of work they are doing.
It isn’t always as simple as that. If you read about the phenomenon of “quiet quitting” it can mean people continuing to perform acceptably, and well enough to avoid being “managed out”, but still less well than when they’re in a more collegiate office environment.
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bramling
Veteran Member
You mean working which gives us the wherewithal to enjoy our lives? I guess elements of the population were too busy thinking about their great Covid bunk to consider that the workforce provides us with the goods and services that we all need, want and/or enjoy.
Hence part of the reason why everything is now more expensive, and contrary to how many people seem to understand it, falling inflation doesn’t mean prices fall, just that they’re *rising* less fast.
bramling
Veteran Member
That only holds true if, as an employer, you can get rid of a poor performer and replace them with someone better.
Notwithstanding the fact that it’s harder to dismiss someone for mediocre, as opposed to poor, performance, with the shortage of quality labour at the moment it may well be the case that either a replacement can’t be found, or the replacement is just as ineffective.
And if the workplace is something like a public-sector one, then getting rid of people for poor performance is somewhat harder.
Absolutely. It’s extraordinary how many struggle to understand that at a conceptual level. Admittedly in my case an A level in economics means I have some insight into the basics (and only the basics
), but it’s hardly a difficult concept for most reasonably switched on people to grasp - or so you’d think.
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I’m sure there’s a lot of truth in that, but it doesn’t really explain why we do worse than comparator countries, unless we conclude that a. We have a lazier workforce than average (if so, why!?), and/or b. we have failed to properly balance our economy between service industries and other sectors for the past few decades.
Neither is exactly great, and I suspect both are true to some degree, and neither bode well for our future…
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Sad Sprinter
Established Member
That's clearly not what I meant. I'd rather be working from home where I can balance household/family tasks and recapture some independence from office life, instead of working for 7 hours in an office with the actual workload factor of less than that.
bramling
Veteran Member
I suspect this is exactly the reason why WFH is falling out of favour with employers, who have the reasonable expectation that if they hire someone then the employee will be conscientious and organise their life such that that *aren’t* being constantly distracted by domestic stuff.
Indeed, there’s plenty of roles - train driving being an example of one - where this goes a step further and personal communication devices are explicitly prohibited whilst certain tasks are being undertaken, precisely because they’re a distraction and a disturbance.
I hire a gardener to carry out 4 hours of work one day a week. Like most people I’m reasonable enough to accept that there may be the odd thing that will crop up, but if I found my gardener was routinely “balancing household/family tasks” during the hours I have contracted him to work, then I’ll be seeking a replacement pronto.
12LDA28C
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How very unreasonable of you. Didn't you know that people are entitled to carry out all manner of non-work-related tasks during the working day these days? It's their right to go and visit family, go shopping, do housework and watch some daytime telly whilst being paid by their employer. It's the 'new normal', apparently.
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