Qualified Driver moving to another TOC whilst Post Qualified

[choochoochoo]

Unpopular opinion……. Have a small mishap (additional stop out of course) and blame it on the travelling time and fatigue. When asked how you can be supported mention the request of a move has been turned down and you’re really struggling! I’m sure you’d get noticed then

A smaller mishap that won’t stain your record that might work in the OP's favour.

Fail to cancel the AWS (but still put the brake on, if needed). Can blame that on fatigue.

 

[12LDA28C]

The TOC that now gets paid to train apprentice drivers?

Anyway, I said it means nothing to the hiring toc - and loyalty means absolutely nothing in this industry.

The TOC that spends £100,000 on training a driver and can claim £15-20,000 back off the Government? Yep, that's the one.

 

[Goingloco]

100% do you think a TOC would wait one moment if you / a driver was surplus to requirements........shoed into the long grass.

 

[12LDA28C]

100% do you think a TOC would wait one moment if you / a driver was surplus to requirements........shoed into the long grass.

Interesting. I can assure you it's certainly not that easy to get rid of a driver just because they are 'surplus to requirements'. The Union would have something to say about it for a start.

 

[Goingloco]

I agree and thankfully we have a robust Union behind us. But that doesn't mean that the TOC wouldn't want to or try to.

 

[43066]

A decent working environment is often not the problem. At locations where there are other drivers depots with other TOCs nearby, it's very common for people to apply for a job further away from home in order to gain their ETDL because the TOC nearer to their home is not recruiting. Then, as if by magic, once they qualify and get their licence, they want to move to their local TOC as a qualified driver. Some locations struggle to retain drivers precisely for that reason, nothing to do with working conditions, management styles, Ts & Cs or whatever.

But equally there are many TOCs, especially in London, which have competitor depots nearby and don’t have problems retaining and attracting staff. Several where I work choose to take a pay cut to join, so working environment counts for a lot.

There will always be some people who play the system, but the onus is on TOCs to accurately assess peoples’ motivations for joining throughout the recruitment process - they are spoilt for choice of applicants.

I wouldn't consider a clause in a contract as 'scaring people into staying' - it's in place to protect an investment. If you have a plan to get your key and immediately move on to another employer, that seems pretty unfair to the TOC/FOC that initially puts their faith (and cash) in you, no?

It’s generally going to difficult to move as a qualified driver with less than a couple of years’ driving experience, so I doubt there are many examples at all of people passing out and immediately leaving.

Ultimately putting a clause in requiring someone to pay tens of thousands of pounds back is always going to be highly problematic. If they don’t have it, is the TOC going to sue them for it and have them declared bankrupt? No sensible organisation is going to waste money doing this.

People leaving is just a cost of doing business.

Interesting. I can assure you it's certainly not that easy to get rid of a driver just because they are 'surplus to requirements'. The Union would have something to say about it for a start.

But some people pass out, can’t do the job and get sacked within a matter of months. Should they also have to repay the training costs? What about someone who loses their medical, or someone who mutually agrees to go back to their old railway role because driving isn’t for them? There are a number of reasons why people leave the grade.

 

[greatkingrat]

Ultimately all the TOCs are subsidized by the Government, so whether it is TOC A or TOC B that needs to train up a new driver doesn't really matter.

 

[12LDA28C]

Ultimately all the TOCs are subsidized by the Government, so whether it is TOC A or TOC B that needs to train up a new driver doesn't really matter.

It matters a lot to a TOC that is short of drivers and starts a recruitment campaign to fill the vacancies. They wouldn't be too keen to see those new recruits move on soon after gaining their key.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Mar 2023 ==

But equally there are many TOCs, especially in London, which have competitor depots nearby and don’t have problems retaining and attracting staff. Several where I work choose to take a pay cut to join, so working environment counts for a lot.

There will always be some people who play the system, but the onus is on TOCs to accurately assess peoples’ motivations for joining throughout the recruitment process - they are spoilt for choice of applicants.



It’s generally going to difficult to move as a qualified driver with less than a couple of years’ driving experience, so I doubt there are many examples at all of people passing out and immediately leaving.

Ultimately putting a clause in requiring someone to pay tens of thousands of pounds back is always going to be highly problematic. If they don’t have it, is the TOC going to sue them for it and have them declared bankrupt? No sensible organisation is going to waste money doing this.

People leaving is just a cost of doing business.



But some people pass out, can’t do the job and get sacked within a matter of months. Should they also have to repay the training costs? What about someone who loses their medical, or someone who mutually agrees to go back to their old railway role because driving isn’t for them? There are a number of reasons why people leave the grade.

In my experience, the percentage of drivers who pass out and then 'can't do the job' and get sacked is absolutely minuscule. Any deficiencies should have been identified during the training process and remedial action taken. And you'll find that in general, candidates as poor as this would not have been offered a job in the first place if the recruitment process is fit for purpose.

 

[LowLevel]

The TOC that spends £100,000 on training a driver and can claim £15-20,000 back off the Government? Yep, that's the one.

To be fair, I have never had a personal beef with my (previous franchise) employer and I work hard and do my job to the best of my ability.

However - that didn't stop them spending over 10 years trying to bully us out of our terms and conditions at every opportunity, up to and including telling new starters on probation to sign contract variations to work Sundays or find another job.

Overt loyalty nowadays is misguided. Be respectful of each other, sure - but don't forget where you stand in each other's worlds.

 

[PupCuff]

A smaller mishap that won’t stain your record that might work in the OP's favour.

Fail to cancel the AWS (but still put the brake on, if needed). Can blame that on fatigue.

Suggesting a PQ driver intentionally has an operating incident and fabricates a cause in effect out of spite for the company turning down a transfer request is, to put it politely, awful advice.

At best you'll have given yourself a safety of the line incident record which will - rightly or wrongly - make you less attractive to other TOCs, and at worst you'll get caught lying and having intentionally caused the incident. Staff have been sacked for doing that. Guess that would solve the commuting issue, mind...

 

[387star]

Moving depots even internally can be a nightmare pqa or not.







If you drive for Thameslink at Three Bridges and live in the Bognor area (as I think many do) you can't put an internal transfer request in for Barnham as it's Southern and treated separately despite drivers at both brands wearing the same basic uniform and working for GTR. Thameslink pay for taxis for drivers from Bognor etc to Three Bridges rather than make a transfer nice and easy! Apparently many prefer Thameslink due to the conditions but I'm sure some would fancy a move. Southern drivers in 2018 did get a chance to move internally to Thameslink depots.

 

[Dieseldriver]

The ‘advice’ being offered in this thread is quite honestly incredible

 

[Goingloco]

To be fair, I have never had a personal beef with my (previous franchise) employer and I work hard and do my job to the best of my ability.

However - that didn't stop them spending over 10 years trying to bully us out of our terms and conditions at every opportunity, up to and including telling new starters on probation to sign contract variations to work Sundays or find another job.

Overt loyalty nowadays is misguided. Be respectful of each other, sure - but don't forget where you stand in each other's worlds.

The voice of reason, perfectly put.

 

[RogerDodger]

So for me the depot I was recruited for didn't open (might give away where I am at) and I had no alternative but to take the offer to go to Y depot. I'm having to pay for my house at home, and another house for when I'm working. Told X Company my circumstances and financial difficulties given the situation the countries in and all I got was an 'oh well'. My request to move to Y depot was declined because of a new agreement that drivers can't move for 3 years (but didn't count for hardship moves), so ultimately was rejected, and not much from the union to assist on the matter.

Where I live, there are multiple TOC/FOCs, I just didn't want to waste my time and another recruitment teams time if taking PQ drivers wasn't an option. I personally would have thought they'd have jumped at it having just gone through rules etc, and having a clean license, but then comes the risk of inexperience.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Mar 2023 ==

I'll also add, I am currently surplus. There is no link position available for me and I'm being asked to share a line. I don't feel like I'm going to get enough driving hours under my belt. Rather just being there and sitting spare. The depot I asked to transfer too is absolutely screaming for drivers.

 

[12LDA28C]

So for me the depot I was recruited for didn't open (might give away where I am at) and I had no alternative but to take the offer to go to Y depot. I'm having to pay for my house at home, and another house for when I'm working. Told X Company my circumstances and financial difficulties given the situation the countries in and all I got was an 'oh well'. My request to move to Y depot was declined because of a new agreement that drivers can't move for 3 years (but didn't count for hardship moves), so ultimately was rejected, and not much from the union to assist on the matter.

I'm surprised the union couldn't help in that situation - it's not your fault the proposed depot didn't open and the rep(s) should have been more supportive of your case.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Mar 2023 ==

The depot I asked to transfer too is absolutely screaming for drivers.

It seems bizarre to me that if that is the case, your employer considers it better for you to be unproductive at Depot A when the Depot B you want to transfer to has a driver shortage. That makes no sense at all.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

Although unrelated as your contract doesn’t have it, my old company kept my last two months of salary as repayment for moving on to a new company within my PQA period.

 

[RogerDodger]

Although unrelated as your contract doesn’t have it, my old company kept my last two months of salary as repayment for moving on to a new company within my PQA period.

Yeah there's nothing in there about holding pay etc unless I take too much leave or don't work my notice.

To be honest, I'd happily sacrifice a month's wage if I got the opportunity to move on...

 

[12LDA28C]

Although unrelated as your contract doesn’t have it, my old company kept my last two months of salary as repayment for moving on to a new company within my PQA period.

Presumably you left close to the end of your PQA period, and if you'd left earlier it would have been more? Or was 2 months' salary the limit/maximum?

 

[lammergeier]

.

Where I live, there are multiple TOC/FOCs, I just didn't want to waste my time and another recruitment teams time if taking PQ drivers wasn't an option. .

It depends on the company. Some will, some won't. If you're comfortable sharing your options on here someone will be able to advise more fully. Understand if you don't want to mention them in case it highlights where you are and makes it easy for management to guess who you are.

 

[whoosh]

Apply elsewhere and see how you get on. Nothing to lose.

Do NOT purposefully have an incident and blame it on fatigue. Even something daft like oversleeping and being late on duty. I can understand why that was a suggestion, but don't think it will work.
Be a model employee, and when you do actually leave it'll be their loss.

All the very best of luck. It does happen sometimes that PQA drivers are taken on elsewhere, so just keep trying.

 

[Sly Old Fox]

Presumably you left close to the end of your PQA period, and if you'd left earlier it would have been more? Or was 2 months' salary the limit/maximum?

They would’ve taken more if I had more to give, I only had to give four weeks notice so that was just the last two paydays. I immediately went sick when I didn’t get paid in the first one, I didn’t want to work for nothing.

I was approximately six months away from the end of PQA period.

 

[43066]

It matters a lot to a TOC that is short of drivers and starts a recruitment campaign to fill the vacancies. They wouldn't be too keen to see those new recruits move on soon after gaining their key.

Then they should focus on why people are leaving and try to address the reasons why. Lots of people left my old TOC because it was a fairly toxic environment. By all accounts things haven’t changed, and they wonder why it’s a revolving door of people joining and (those who can) leaving.

In my experience, the percentage of drivers who pass
out and then 'can't do the job' and get sacked is absolutely minuscule. Any deficiencies should have been identified during the training process and remedial action taken. And you'll find that in general, candidates as poor as this would not have been offered a job in the first place if the recruitment process is fit for purpose.

I can think of several people this has happened to (either sacked or moved to other roles). The question wasn’t how many there are, but whether they should have to pay back the costs as well as those who leave?

Suggesting a PQ driver intentionally has an operating incident and fabricates a cause in effect out of spite for the company turning down a transfer request is, to put it politely, awful advice.

Absolutely. I assumed that was tongue in cheek!

They would’ve taken more if I had more to give, I only had to give four weeks notice so that was just the last two paydays. I immediately went sick when I didn’t get paid in the first one, I didn’t want to work for nothing.

I was approximately six months away from the end of PQA period.

I suspect they were on thin ice doing that, depending on exactly what kind of contract you’d signed, and were relying on people not challenging them. When you joined did they ask you to sign a separate document detailing repayment of training costs?

In any case your (completely understandable) reaction shows why it’s a bad policy. Who in their right mind is going to keep turning up to work for no pay? It would no doubt have cost them a lot more in rest day payments to cover your work than simply paying you your salary!

 

[12LDA28C]

Then they should focus on why people are leaving and try to address the reasons why. Lots of people left my old TOC because it was a fairly toxic environment. By all accounts things haven’t changed, and they wonder why it’s a revolving door of people joining and (those who can) leaving.

I'm assuming you've never had to deal with recruitment on the railway. If you had, you might be able to see the bigger picture.

No toxic environment at all at my TOC and yet, purely due to location of some drivers' depots (around 15-20 miles from another TOC depot, not the 2 miles or less between depots that you have in many cases in central London), and to a certain extent salary, we sometimes struggle to recruit and then retain drivers for the reasons I've already outlined.

If you know of 'several people' who have passed out as drivers then proved themselves to be totally unsuitable for the role then that suggests there is something wrong with the recruitment process, the training or the assessment process prior to qualifying. Clearly, unsuitable candidates should not reach qualified status.

 

[387star]

How does it work with Greater Anglia internal transfers as there are three sets of conditions? You'd change conditions transferring?

 

[43066]

I'm assuming you've never had to deal with recruitment on the railway. If you had, you might be able to see the bigger picture.

Not on the railway (have you?), but I have dealt with recruitment and line management in another industry, so I’m fully aware of the “bigger picture”, thanks. All businesses have to fight to retain staff and most modern, forward looking ones manage to do it without resorting to threatening contractual clauses of dubious enforceability, or giving people excessive notice periods (GTR). But of course we are talking about the railway.

No toxic environment at all at my TOC and yet, purely due to location of some drivers' depots (around 15-20 miles from another TOC depot, not the 2 miles or less between depots that you have in many cases in central London), and to a certain extent salary, we sometimes struggle to recruit and then retain drivers for the reasons I've already outlined.

Yet my particular depot has been interviewing drivers from TOCs less than a mile away that pay substantially more. Equally we have drivers who live much closer to other depots yet still commute. So clearly it isn’t all about money/location.

If you know of 'several people' who have passed out as drivers then proved themselves to be totally unsuitable for the role then that suggests there is something wrong with the recruitment process, the training or the assessment process prior to qualifying. Clearly, unsuitable candidates should not reach qualified status.

And yet clearly some still do, and yes, that is a failing of the recruitment process as much as it is of those individuals.

As I keep asking, should they also have to repay training fees, in your view?

 

[800 Driver]

It's uncommutable - I've had to lease a property nearby, which with the costs of things going up, isn't suitable any more - Tried the union route to no avail.

So you took a job offered in good faith at a location you said you would live near (stopping someone else getting that vacancy) and now with the reality of having to work at the location, you said you would live near, you want a job somewhere else? Don't see why your company has any obligation to help you out at all.

 

[dctraindriver]

So you took a job offered in good faith at a location you said you would live near (stopping someone else getting that vacancy) and now with the reality of having to work at the location, you said you would live near, you want a job somewhere else? Don't see why your company has any obligation to help you out at all.

They were offered a role for a depot which then did not open. As already offered the job they were then offered somewhere else.

 

[Sly Sloth]

They were offered a role for a depot which then did not open. As already offered the job they were then offered somewhere else.

s/he could have declined and advised them it wouldn’t work and they would wait on a more suitable depot

So you took a job offered in good faith at a location you said you would live near (stopping someone else getting that vacancy) and now with the reality of having to work at the location, you said you would live near, you want a job somewhere else? Don't see why your company has any obligation to help you out at all.

very true

 

[dctraindriver]

s/he could have declined and advised them it wouldn’t work and they would wait on a more suitable depot

very true

Could have, but like 99% of people looking to join the grade they made the decision to go for it. Can’t blame them, I’d have done the same. They could be still waiting for the chance if they declined.

 

[43066]

Could have, but like 99% of people looking to join the grade they made the decision to go for it. Can’t blame them, I’d have done the same. They could be still waiting for the chance if they declined.

Well exactly.

You can’t blame people for putting themselves forwards and taking whatever opportunities they can. Nobody applying for any job considers the interests of other applicants, at least they don’t if they have any sense! There are enough stories of people on here waiting years, and then washing out of talent pools with nothing to show for it.