Daniel Odgers

Said the following about Shunter Management Team, Bedford Cauldwell Depot:

“Shunter Management Team Nomination – Rail Team of the Year 2019

I would like to nominate The Shunter Management Team for the Rail Team of the Year Award. Our team consists of One Shunter Manager (myself), Three Engineering Operations Supervisors and 40 Shunters at different shunting locations across the GN and TL North (Bedford x2 locations, Cricklewood, Letchworth, Peterborough x2 locations and Welwyn).

Over the last 12 months we have listened and worked close to staff and have introduced several new systems to improve our communications with staff and performance as a whole.

We have introduced a SharePoint page called Shunters Hub - this was designed as a one stop place for staff to go if they need anything, it has many things on this page as seen below:

Live up to date news – This is updated daily and provides the shunters and department with the most up to date news on what’s going on around the business and department.

RTS Data (powered by Power BI) – This includes all data stats on our service, best performing train, worst performing train, best and worst performing locations. This gives the staff a chance to concentrate on delays and this is raised at local meetings on how we can improve.

Other useful tools

Shunters can apply for leave, shift swaps and uniform. Shunters can access their shunters logs, Tornado, Yardmaster and site documents. They can also access other sites with our useful links list which includes staff car parking, Together Online, Star Hub, Health and Wellbeing, Planned Engineering work, Payroll, Staff travel, National rail enquires, Staff Benefits, Tyrell, Sectional Appendix and Shunter FAQs.

There is an RMT section for staff, where the minutes from meetings are published and also any other information the reps want to put on there is published.

Lastly there is an Above and Beyond Section which is where any staff member can put their colleague forward for doing something that is above and beyond – this then gets discussed at team meetings and staff are either awarded with a letter of appreciation or put through for an excellence award.

Staff have loved this new page and it really has helped our department.

We have also introduced many other new systems to staff, applying for leave, shift swaps and uniform have now all been made electronic, using Microsoft flow. Staff can now apply for all of these from their PC, Company and personal mobiles and devices. Again, staff are loving this new system and it works well for them if they need anything whilst at home or at work.

A Supervisors Hub has also been created on SharePoint to improve communication and performance for the Supervisors and Shunter Manager. This page provides live reports for how the department is functioning, this gets discussed at monthly meetings and is a great tool to use for managing targets.

The Shunter Management team brought in Power BI as part of company promoting Zero Harm, this is great for collating data and publishing it for an easy view to others. The team can now view all KPI’s and manage these accordingly. We have set up Power BI to show the following to staff and management…

• Staff Overtime Count

• Staff leave entitlement

• Site call outs

• Delay investigations

• Staff Sickness (generic – no personal names included, this is just based per site)

• Shunter Conversations – The shunter management team use shunter conversations as an advice slip if the shunter is in need of a conversation or advice from a Supervisor.

• Communication Review Group Results – We produce staffs results from our CRG review meetings, so staff can view their current and previous scores.

Staff feedback is that they really like this new tool and it is now showing a positive effect to the department as they can keep up to date on many things.

Other new systems we have brought in

Staff Swipe – this is where staff swipe with their key card when they start and finish a shift.

YardMaster - We have also introduced YardMaster system which was originally created by Kai Gohegan. We worked alongside Kai to bring this in at all our shunting locations and it has proved to be a great addition for performance and delay investigations.

Women’s PPE - As we have women working for the department we have now introduced women’s personal protective clothing. We have received feedback that our women are very satisfied with the clothing supplied.

Shunter Meetings - We have also introduced quarterly Shunter Meetings, this is where the shunting team invite shunters from all shunting locations to join them to raise any issues and generally have a face to face meeting, so staff and management can discuss and suggest current and future plans for the department.

Train Planning Meetings - The shunter management team have recently started to attend meetings with Train Planning. This has really helped the department and has also provided us with a chance to discuss our issues face to face with train planning.

So, as you can see above this is why I would like to nominate my team for the rail staff team award. They have shown great commitment and I believe we have made a great improvement not only for the staff but for the business and I am proud of working with everyone single one of them in this department.“