ARRIVA’S
GOT TALENT
Marissa Ulevicius is one of many colleagues taking opportunities to progress at ARL
After seven years working as a customer host, Marissa Ulevicius recently took on a new role as customer experience controller.
It was an opportunity that arose thanks to an emphasis on promoting talent from within the business, and providing development paths for colleagues. As a result, more than a third of our roles are being filled by internal candidates, as we continue to invest in our people.
“After working with customers and gaining experience in my role for a number of years, I decided it was time to move up,” Marissa said. “For me, applying for an internal vacancy was a positive experience – the whole process was quick and straightforward.”
Marissa’s new role, based at the Operational Building Complex (OBC) at New Cross Gate Depot, involves working with frontline colleagues – a contrast to her previous customer-facing role.
“The job is still very new to me and I’m still getting used to it. My main duties for the day include monitoring calls and colleagues signing in for the morning, making sure any absences are covered whilst keeping an eye on emails and updating the KPI logs every couple of hours.”
“I’m still in the process of training – so far, I’ve trained with every other controller to get a taste of all sides of the department. I’m just learning and taking in as much as I can. I enjoy my new working environment and the challenges that I face daily. It’s great to understand how the network operates from this side.”
For Marissa and other colleagues within customer services, internal opportunities like this were created through a restructuring programme aimed at delivering benefits to colleagues and customers alike.
Three new duty manager positions were created and filled internally, focusing on rostering, on-the-day resource control and on-the-day passenger assistance control.
“We identified a need for greater management presence within the team to help deal with underlying issues and ultimately deliver a better service,” said Charlotte Whitfield, customer experience director.
“One of the success stories is that those who got the duty manager positions were internal to the department, releasing other positions to become open for others in the company such as Marissa to apply for. There has been a cascade effect of internal progression opportunities.”
The new managers are already delivering improvements within their areas, including standardised roster processes, quicker response times to passenger assist issues and improved processes to mitigate absences.
Bespoke training for service delivery managers has also been introduced.
“We’ve launched a number of bite-size modules and workshops that together will help up-skill our frontline managers and provide them the tools to do their job and grow into the role,” said Paul Brewer, head of stations.
The course, which includes modules such as problem solving, time management, effective leadership and motivating others, takes around six months to complete and, said Paul, has been very well-received.
Having opportunities to progress your career within Arriva isn’t just important to you – it’s crucial for us too.
Retaining our best people, and making sure we can call on their experience, knowledge and passion to deliver the best possible experience to our customers, is key.
So far this year, some 35 per cent of our vacant roles have been filled internally, across all departments.
“We’re delighted to see so many people progressing internally and have such a positive impact in their new roles, and we want that to continue,” said Charlotte Whitfield.
“It’s so important that we keep people who have the expertise and passion to work hard for ARL and our customers – and also to continue to develop our own people.”
To that end, a new e-learning programme was recently launched, that helps prepare candidates for job interviews, giving them the best possible chance to secure a new role.
“We also hope that seeing colleagues progress their careers with ARL will inspire others to go the extra mile and do the same themselves,” Charlotte added.
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