Alison Forster - merged topics

[whole diary]

[Lee]

See link below.
http://firstgreatwestern.blogspot.com/2007/07/helping-hand.html

As relayed by CJ Harrison , who as Billyo points out , is a non - FGW^▸ (First Great Western) employee , with no connection to FGW , and just happened to be there to see it :

"At a time of crisis, Ms Forster hadn^t shied away from the front line: she was there with her sleeves rolled up helping people and trying to make whatever difference she could. She deserves credit for efforts. Ms Forster probably wouldn^t think she was doing anything exceptional, she^d just see it as part of her job and of her responsibility. And maybe it is ^ but what a stark comparison to the simpering bureaucrats at the Department for Transport who, despite making passengers' lives a misery, hide in the shadows of their Ministry in Whitehall and would never dream of putting themselves in the line of fire and dealing with everyday travellers."

"It is, of course, very easy to criticise First Great Western for problems and for people to be, maybe unjustifiably, scathing about its management, but one accusation that simply isn^t true is that Ms Forster and her team don^t care. I think they do. As I saw in Ms Forster^s actions this evening, I think they care very much indeed."

[Jim]

I don;t mind Alison, for the reason she has worked her way up the railway properally, unlike some of the managers, she has railway expierecne

[Timmer]

I don;t mind Alison, for the reason she has worked her way up the railway properally, unlike some of the managers, she has railway expierecne

I second that, its the parent company that she works for that I dont have much time for. Wonder if Alison makes a nice cup of tea???

[simonw]

Hi

I agree that it is nice to see Alison Forster help at the frontline. I accept that many First Great Western staff individually care about the the service that they offer their customers; the trouble is that FGW^▸ (First Great Western) company just does not deliver.

For example

- The worst performing rail company is awarded one of the most lucrative rail franchises covering local and national services.
- The dilipated fleet is not replaced, but upgraded with little consideration for disabled passengers (toilets, carriage gangway width), rail safety due to the glass used.
- Fleet size reduced and new engineering facility was behind schedule.
- Timetables planned using 5 yr old data (FGW and DfT^» (Department for Transport - about)).
- Disaster management is poor, communication with passengers and staff is very bad. Frequently buses not laid on, etc. Many of the 'bad' days are not FGW fault, but are weather, suicide and Network Related. It would help if FGW could communicate better!

I'm sorry for being so negative, but other countries seem to do much better, ie France. We appear to have 10 years of promise but no delivery. It is so frustrating.
 

[Timmer]

well to cheer everyone up and to prove that Firstgroup can do something right, take a look at the newly refurbished 158s now being rolled out on the Scotrail network. Lets hope when they start releasing the West fleet 158s for refurbishment later this year that they look as good as these once they come out of the workshop. We've waited long enough!

http://www.therailwaycentre.com/UK%20News%20July%2007/030707_FSR.html

Alison, I'll have a coffee, milk and two sugars and a kit kat if you got any. 

[grahame]

Top marks to Alison Forster for being out there / seeing how things are being run within her empire.  I happened to be at a seminar for business owners / directors yesterday (don't ask how I got an invite  ) and was struck by statistics that showed ...

Over 90% of employees feel that the business owners should be aware of what's going on at other levels of their organisation BUT

Over 80% of managers who report to directors withhold information - especailly bad reports about morale, things not working, unhappy customers - from those said directors.

Having made that comment and applauded, a day out on the job does take away the responsibility for a franchise that was overbid to the extent that it's resource squeezed, nor for other actions / decisions that have a major impact on the lives and pockets of communities of people from Oxford to Melksham, Severn Beach to Frome, Reading to Bath, Ivybridge to Cardiff,  and places between.

[whistleblower]

Over 80% of managers who report to directors withhold information - especailly bad reports about morale, things not working, unhappy customers - from those said directors.

Interesting statistic, Graham.  But understandable in human terms.  You may be interested to know that as far as FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is concerned I am personally involved in an informal arrangement that alleviates this problem.  I recently made a personal presentation to our Customer Services Director in which I demonstrated the gap between the expectations of rail customers and what we were actually delivering in FGW West.  I also offered several possible initiatives and suggestions for improvement to our customer service and staff morale (which is an essential element of it).  The bottom line is that most of the customer expectations are not being met because of the rolling stock condition, numbers and reliability.  My only input to that is to ensure that it is recognised.  Only the accountants can bring about an improvement to that baseline.

I'm pleased to say that my input has been enthusiastically welcomed and I have been invited to help in several ongoing initiatives as many of the project managers do not have front-line experience - which I can provide.  I should add that I have many years of experience in front-line customer service in the transport industry, including managing a front-line team.

Regarding the quote from your post, one of my suggestions was that I send regular reports directly to our CS Director to ensure that she was fully aware of any issues that affect the delivery of service in the West.  This has worked exceedingly well and I send her informal fortnightly reports including my own observations and experiences and often illustrated by photos to bring home my point.  And reading contributions on these forums also helps me to pick up particular issues that I think she should know about.  Because I do not report to her (in the management sense) and do not have management aspirations nor a fear of retribution or a threat to my position, I am able to tell her exactly what I think of any situation.  And indeed I have been overtly critical in some cases and she appears to respect that.

So although her work is prioritised by HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) and Paddington (which provide about 90% of our revenue) I know she is fully informed about what is happening to us (customers and staff) out here in the West.  She may not action all my reports herself but she certainly passes them on to those who need to know.

As Alison is getting praise for keeping in touch, I thought you'd like to know that she is not the only one.  Glenda has a very sound customer service background and is very much in touch with customer thinking.  Of course she has to balance the customer's wishes with what she has to work with, but rest assured that our directors are certainly getting unadulterated feedback from the front-line in this area!

(another public service from whistleblower )

[Scooby]

As far as Devon/Cornwall are concerned we are all completed p**ssed off with our new employee, hence why so many people have left lately! We are supposed to be proud to work for such an outfit, get real, what a bunch of pennypinching tight assed retards.....

[Jim]

Interesting little post there Whistleblower, glad someone like you, from the front line is telling managment what is wrong, is brilliant. It is good to see that you are sending in continued updates to managment, even if it is informal, you are drving home the point!

Hope that made sence^!

[grahame]

This can only be a brif reply as I'm on a limited time hotel connection this morning - but, yes, I have to agree that First is almost undoubtedly in the 20% of businesses where the top managers do know of / hear of the problems at the top; that has to be good.

[devon_metro]

well to cheer everyone up and to prove that Firstgroup can do something right, take a look at the newly refurbished 158s now being rolled out on the Scotrail network. Lets hope when they start releasing the West fleet 158s for refurbishment later this year that they look as good as these once they come out of the workshop. We've waited long enough!

http://www.therailwaycentre.com/UK%20News%20July%2007/030707_FSR.html

Alison, I'll have a coffee, milk and two sugars and a kit kat if you got any. 

I hope they looks nothing like it, afterall these are the same AWFUL seats found in the HST^▸ (High Speed Train) refurbishments!

[vacman]

Over 80% of managers who report to directors withhold information - especailly bad reports about morale, things not working, unhappy customers - from those said directors.

Interesting statistic, Graham.  But understandable in human terms.  You may be interested to know that as far as FGW^▸ (First Great Western) is concerned I am personally involved in an informal arrangement that alleviates this problem.  I recently made a personal presentation to our Customer Services Director in which I demonstrated the gap between the expectations of rail customers and what we were actually delivering in FGW West.  I also offered several possible initiatives and suggestions for improvement to our customer service and staff morale (which is an essential element of it).  The bottom line is that most of the customer expectations are not being met because of the rolling stock condition, numbers and reliability.  My only input to that is to ensure that it is recognised.  Only the accountants can bring about an improvement to that baseline.

I'm pleased to say that my input has been enthusiastically welcomed and I have been invited to help in several ongoing initiatives as many of the project managers do not have front-line experience - which I can provide.  I should add that I have many years of experience in front-line customer service in the transport industry, including managing a front-line team.

Regarding the quote from your post, one of my suggestions was that I send regular reports directly to our CS Director to ensure that she was fully aware of any issues that affect the delivery of service in the West.  This has worked exceedingly well and I send her informal fortnightly reports including my own observations and experiences and often illustrated by photos to bring home my point.  And reading contributions on these forums also helps me to pick up particular issues that I think she should know about.  Because I do not report to her (in the management sense) and do not have management aspirations nor a fear of retribution or a threat to my position, I am able to tell her exactly what I think of any situation.  And indeed I have been overtly critical in some cases and she appears to respect that.

So although her work is prioritised by HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) and Paddington (which provide about 90% of our revenue) I know she is fully informed about what is happening to us (customers and staff) out here in the West.  She may not action all my reports herself but she certainly passes them on to those who need to know.

As Alison is getting praise for keeping in touch, I thought you'd like to know that she is not the only one.  Glenda has a very sound customer service background and is very much in touch with customer thinking.  Of course she has to balance the customer's wishes with what she has to work with, but rest assured that our directors are certainly getting unadulterated feedback from the front-line in this area!

(another public service from whistleblower )

I notice you touched on the subject of staff morale, something that is at an all time low in the far west! Most of it started to fall apart when centralised rostering started, on several occasions there were diabolical errors such as Conductors being rostered to drive trains, drivers rostered to be guards and still after several months it's going tit's up on a regular basis, it's these simple things they cant get right, if I were that bad at my job i'd be sacked. The overtime bill for the past six months must be immense with guards being paid 12 hours to work one train on their rest day because rosters have booked two people on the same job in the evening but noone to cover an early turn.

When will it stop? when will this company finally start doing things right, whenever we make a suggestion to control the usual reply is somewhere along the lines of "it's our job to think" , in the days of Wessex control actually listened to what we said and if it made sense they acted on it.

[Lee]

I notice you touched on the subject of staff morale, something that is at an all time low in the far west! Most of it started to fall apart when centralised rostering started, on several occasions there were diabolical errors such as Conductors being rostered to drive trains, drivers rostered to be guards and still after several months it's going tit's up on a regular basis, it's these simple things they cant get right, if I were that bad at my job i'd be sacked. The overtime bill for the past six months must be immense with guards being paid 12 hours to work one train on their rest day because rosters have booked two people on the same job in the evening but noone to cover an early turn.

When will it stop? when will this company finally start doing things right, whenever we make a suggestion to control the usual reply is somewhere along the lines of "it's our job to think" , in the days of Wessex control actually listened to what we said and if it made sense they acted on it.

FGW^▸ (First Great Western) attempt to justify this (and answer several other questions) in the link below.
http://www.accesssouthwest.org/answers.pdf

"Is FGW fully satisfied that centralisation at Swindon HQ^▸ (Headquarters) of all train-crew rostering and withdrawal of out-based Train crew Resources Manager posts, such as those currently at Bristol & Exeter, will improve efficiency and deliver a more punctual & reliable service to passengers, particularly at times of service disruption?

Yes. Centralisation of rostering ensures a significant improvement in cross coverage of work between depots by traincrew. The new structure is aligned with the organisation of Swindon ICC^▸ (Integrated Control Centre), which allows us to operate more effectively in times of service disruption as we have the ^big picture^ overview of the crew situation. This enables decision making to be quicker and more responsive to customers needs."

[Tractorman]

What tripe, rosters/resources in Swindon are accountable for a huge amount of delay minutes due to silly mistakes, mainly due to them being unable to cope with the volume of work they have to do. Local control was far better with the 'managers' knowing the crew, who would do what and what could be done. Swindon are fairly in the dark and I am aware of instances of trains being cancelled while there was crew sat spare, simply because SWI^» (Swindon - next trains) didnt know they were there.

As mentioned, Ive known three guards rostered on the same job and none to another job, people being shown as working when they are in the middle of a holiday abroad, diagrams amended for no reason and when followed it goes tits up. The other main problem is it can take up to a hour to actually get someone to pick the phone up in Swindon, this alone causing much delay when a descision is needed and no one will pick up a phone or its constantly engaged.

Maybe part of the problem is Swindon is short staffed? But then who would want to work in Swindon?? Hence why agency staff have been put in many of these positions who know nothing about the railway, reminds me of a conversation I had when the girl on the other end didnt understand 24 hour clock, yes, this really happened.

So is it really a success???

[Lee]

vacman & Tractorman's views are backed up in the link below.
http://www.savethetrain.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3660.msg7243#msg7243