London Midland staff shortages

[All Line Rover]

Unbelievably, London Midland's staff shortages are still ongoing. Tonight there are cancellations on the Trent Valley, south WCML (London to Northampton), Birmingham to Liverpool, Birmingham to Shrewsbury, Bletchley to Bedford (Marston Vale) and Coventry to Nuneaton routes. Little of London Midland's core network is unaffected.

How is it that after all these years London Midland has still been unable to recruit a sufficient number of staff members?

 

[MrCommute]

Do these problems occur toward the end of the franchise? I travel daily on the WCML and the past two weeks have been the worst I've known it for "shortage of train crew".

 

[All Line Rover]

Their recruitment website was down for many weeks recently, which says a great deal about their desire to rectify their staff shortages!

 

[DarloRich]

Unbelievably, London Midland's staff shortages are still ongoing. Tonight there are cancellations on the Trent Valley, south WCML (London to Northampton), Birmingham to Liverpool, Birmingham to Shrewsbury, Bletchley to Bedford (Marston Vale) and Coventry to Nuneaton routes. Little of London Midland's core network is unaffected.

How is it that after all these years London Midland has still been unable to recruit a sufficient number of staff members?

Unbelievable Jeff! Oh hang on, its half term...................................

( anyway they could have a 200% complement and the Vale would still be cancelled!)

 

[daikilo]

Their recruitment website was down for many weeks recently, which says a great deal about their desire to rectify their staff shortages!

Why bother to recruit as they anyway lose the franchise, unless they have been told they will be fined if they do not do so. It should however be in the new franchisee's interest to start recruiting imediately.

 

[HLE]

They have to have a set number of drivers and guards who are productive before they hand the franchise back.

Anyway it’s half term.....and staff want to spend time with their families rather than working their rest days.

 

[All Line Rover]

Unbelievable Jeff! Oh hang on, its half term.

They should put up posters at New Street: "Be warned that your commute this coming week might be disrupted. But what else would you expect? It's half term!"

Unbelievably for you, perhaps, Virgin (West Coast) have not been experiencing any cancellations attributable to staff shortages. Despite half term.

 

[DarloRich]

They should put up posters at New Street: "Be warned that your commute this coming week might be disrupted. But what else would you expect? It's half term!"

Unbelievably for you, perhaps, Virgin (West Coast) have not been experiencing any cancellations attributable to staff shortages. Despite half term.

Perhaps they are just better at people management or have better arrangements in place to support family friendly working! Perhaps they just have more staff! The real world of employment is like that.

if you are running at minimum compliment and people take leave, then others wont work extra what do you think is the result? I suspect ( but don't know) LM are running very close to minimum compliment at many depots and getting by on good will and over time.

If you have little slack in your roster there will be issues at this sort of time of year. Surely that is obvious. My office is really empty this week due to people taking time off to look after their kids. Why should LM guards be any different? Do their children have different childcare needs?

 

[theblackwatch]

Can't blame the staff here - I suspect most people with a young family (whatever their profession), or other circumstances such as a partner who is employed in the teaching profession, would turn down overtime during the school holidays if they didn't need to do it.

 

[Mag_seven]

Strip LM of its franchise! Oh hold on......

 

[yorkie]

Is anyone blaming the staff? I hope not. The company is at fault, but then they're widely known to suffer from poor management.

 

[IanXC]

I'd push it back to the government actually, minimum productive establishment level is also bounded by a maximum. Given the disconnect between training time and notice time it is very difficult to manage that figure, especially when you're liable to be fined at the end of the franchise if you have got it wrong!

 

[Bletchleyite]

How is it that after all these years London Midland has still been unable to recruit a sufficient number of staff members?

Because they still totally willingly rely on overtime to operate the basic service, and obviously not many are going to volunteer in half-term week.

It really should be written into all new franchise agreements that the TOC must cover the entire planned service plus a contingency based on historical sickness data in the standard working week of staff, with overtime for emergencies only as it should be. Some staff won't like it, but it's not like the DafT have been bothered about chucking the rather more controversal concept of DOO in.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Anyway it’s half term.....and staff want to spend time with their families rather than working their rest days.

Precisely why rest-day working should not be used for anything other than covering for genuine emergencies and unexpectedly high sickness levels (not those entirely predictable by the same "bug going round" every year). It's a rest day. Everyone needs to rest on it to be safe and productive.

 

[whhistle]

Why bother to recruit as they anyway lose the franchise, unless they have been told they will be fined if they do not do so.

Because it'll be the same people working it all when the new people take over?

The problem with London Midland is competition for railway workers.
Chiltern, Virgin, Cross Country, even Arriva Trains Wales and if rumour has it, East Midlands Trains all run out of Birmingham New Street. People get themselves trained with London Midland, then transfer to other, usually better paying/better conditions TOCs. I wonder whether Northern have the same problems in the North.

However, there are restrictions on recruitment.
This stops London Midland recruiting people on 10 year contracts paying £100,000 a year that the new company then has to honour.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Chiltern, Virgin, Cross Country, even Arriva Trains Wales and if rumour has it, East Midlands Trains all run out of Birmingham New Street. People get themselves trained with London Midland, then transfer to other, usually better paying/better conditions TOCs. I wonder whether Northern have the same problems in the North.

Is there some reason they can't use training bonds? Say if you leave within 5 years you repay the full cost of training (which on the railway is a very substantial sum)?

Of course the other TOCs can pay that off for them, but if they do that's not a problem as it was paid for.

 

[Kite159]

Is there some reason they can't use training bonds? Say if you leave within 5 years you repay the full cost of training (which on the railway is a very substantial sum)?

Of course the other TOCs can pay that off for them, but if they do that's not a problem as it was paid for.

Far too sensible

 

[Julia]

And, quite predictably, when some significant delay gets into the system (as did today), the entire service collapses as the remaining staff run out of hours in the wrong places.

 

[chris_in_salop]

Unbelievable Jeff! Oh hang on, its half term...................................

So?

 

[Mag_seven]

Historically didn't BR rely a lot on rest day working and overtime. It seem to me that a lot of "bad" BR practices have never actually disappeared?

 

[DarloRich]

So?

Read the rest of the thread to see why that might be an issue

 

[Alan McMillan]

They should put up posters at New Street: "Be warned that your commute this coming week might be disrupted. But what else would you expect? It's half term!"

Unbelievably for you, perhaps, Virgin (West Coast) have not been experiencing any cancellations attributable to staff shortages. Despite half term.

A few cancellations today on Virgin WC due to staff shortages

 

[All Line Rover]

Staff shortages following yesterday's suicide at Bletchley. London Midland's staff shortages are not attributable to any disruption on the rail network.

 

[DarloRich]

Staff shortages following yesterday's suicide at Bletchley. London Midland's staff shortages are not attributable to any disruption on the rail network.

I think what that meant was a shortage of staff in the right place rathestaffn a shortage of staff generally. But surely you know that?

 

[Carlisle]

Perhaps they are just better at people management or have better arrangements in place to support family friendly working! Perhaps they just have more staff! The real world of employment is like that.

if you are running at minimum compliment and people take leave, then others wont work extra what do you think is the result? I suspect ( but don't know) LM are running very close to minimum compliment at many depots and getting by on good will and over time.

If you have little slack in your roster there will be issues at this sort of time of year. Surely that is obvious. My office is really empty this week due to people taking time off to look after their kids. Why should LM guards be any different? Do their children have different childcare needs?

Unlike commuter TOCs, I don’t think VTWC really have many additional or different services during the morning or evening peaks so is their regular service pattern throughout the day a lot simpler to roster staff for than some other TOCs ?

 

[Starmill]

Read the rest of the thread to see why that might be an issue

Except that it has been established that the impact is minimal...

Anyway, while sick leave or other exceptional circumstances might have an effect, it's not as if annual leave is a reason for being short-staffed.

It's a rest day. Everyone needs to rest on it to be safe and productive.

It's difficult to imagine people are being allowed to work in a way that means they are not doing the job safely and productively, regardless of how much overtime they do. 'rest day' is just an HR term.

 

[DarloRich]

Except that it has been established that the impact is minimal...

I better tell the people I know at the local LM depot that having a good number of their colleagues off is having a minimal impact on their service provision then!

LM are I suspect (but don't know) running at as close to minimum compliment as possible and on as much overtime/ goodwill as possible. That means when periods like school holidays come round they will be low on numbers willing to "go the extra mile" leading to uncovered slots on the roster. They are short of people but have chosen, in my view, to put themselves in that position. That, of course, is different to pre arranged annual leave that should be managed within the available resource. Anyone who has managed a team will understand this balance.

Although it is quite possible that annual leave is also high at this time of year. God forbid guards or drivers might want to spend some time with their kids. They might simply be having a week off to cover childcare. After all you cant leave kids unsupervised. I am sure the parents/carers on the board will understand that.

LM do also suffer from "poaching" due to wage levels although, apparently, that has reduced somewhat recently.

 

[Starmill]

God forbid guards or drivers might want to spend some time with their kids. They might simply be having a week off to cover childcare. After all you cant leave kids unsupervised. I am sure the parents/carers on the board will understand that.

None of this is even slightly relevant to the issue at hand. As usual you have simply picked up on something emotive and exaggerated and used it to justify... whatever it is the point that you are making. I give up trying to make reasonable, logical points when this nonsense is the only response.

 

[DarloRich]

None of this is even slightly relevant to the issue at hand. As usual you have simply picked up on something emotive and exaggerated and used it to justify... whatever it is the point that you are making. I give up trying to make reasonable, logical points when this nonsense is the only response.

Your statement was that half term was having minimal impact on staff availability. I pointed out that my friends, LM employees, indicated it was having an impact and my reasoning why that might be the case. Sorry you cant understand that.

 

[philthetube]

Unlike commuter TOCs, I don’t think VTWC really have many additional or different services during the morning or evening peaks so is their regular service pattern throughout the day a lot simpler to roster staff for than some other TOCs ?

I cannot see any relevance in this, if a roster needs 20 staff to work and only 19 are available things go wrong, it does not make any difference if the peaks are involved or net.