A big thank you to everyone who filled out the 2022 employee survey. A total of 607 of you gave us your views on what we are doing well – and where we could do better.

Overall, you told us that balancing work and personal life, and delivery of customer services are our biggest strength, with a ‘could do better’ for digitalisation and pay.

The Business Management Group (BMG) has since reviewed the results and identified three strategic areas of focus:

• career development – internal progression and personal development

• communication and involvement – open and honest communication and better local engagement

• working conditions – this includes staff accommodation and digitalisation (equipment, systems and processes).

Managers are now working on their departmental action plans for discussion with their teams, with some already well underway.

Based on the feedback, we have already introduced a weekly vacancy list for all UK roles in Arriva to the Weekly Business Update to help you find your next opportunity.

More details on the actions taken as a result of your feedback will appear in the June issue of Exchange. In the meantime, we asked the frontline leadership team about their immediate priorities.

Taking action

Paul Brewer, head of stations

What was the standout piece of feedback from the survey?

To have more engagement with the frontline, talking to them about their jobs and plans for their development. There was a desire to work more collaboratively and have a consistent approach across all areas with developed processes and procedures.

What are the next steps?

Focus groups for both frontline and management are being arranged. Each will include 10% from the relevant area so that we get an informed outcome from the survey and strong action plans to improve the issues raised.

Who will be involved and what do you see as the key to getting this right for colleagues?

We need all roles involved, building stronger relationships and listening and delivering on the outcomes. It’s crucial to build trust among everyone.

Brian King, head of traincare

What was the standout piece of feedback from the survey?

That those working in traincare feel it is difficult to progress their career within ARL.

What are the next steps?

Sharing stories about those who have progressed from traincare into other areas of ARL. Re-briefing everyone about the Arriva learning portal and creating more job shadowing opportunities and secondments – we have a few people on these already but we can do more. The rollout
of MPRO5 will assist in this (see page 14).

Who will be involved and what do you see as the key to getting this right for colleagues?

All the above plans will be included in future job chats and informal briefings.

Stuart Giddings, head of control

What was the standout piece of feedback from the survey?

That we need better communication and improved flow of information. Collaborative working was also something we could do better and although professional development had seen an uplift compared to a few years ago, feedback indicated more could still
be done.

What are the next steps?

An action planning session, involving a number of volunteers from the department, was conducted in February to go through the results in more detail and we’ll be drawing up an action plan off the back of that.

Who was involved and what do you see as the key to getting this right for colleagues?

A mixture of people differing in both their roles and length of service. It was important
to get a cross-section of input to gain a range of perspectives. Our focus is now on trying to do a manageable number of important things well, rather than trying to do too much and ending up not being able to deliver it.

Elizabeth Umoke, head of revenue protection and security

What was the standout piece of feedback from the survey?

I’m delighted to say that our engagement scores improved by 7% with 78% agreeing we provided a good work-life balance. There is room for improvement in how we work together and around taking personal responsibility. In terms of improvement, 35% said they wanted more training and career development opportunities, while 76% said we could do better around recognition
and reward.

What are the next steps to address this feedback?

We’re in the process of arranging focus groups to explore the results further.

Who will be involved and what do you see as the key to getting this right for colleagues?

Both frontline colleagues and managers. It’s important we get this right because if an employee feels valued and fulfilled, then they will deliver their best.

Scott Ive, head of operations

What was the standout piece of feedback from the survey?

Drivers say they are generally happy with their work-life balance and their clearly defined responsibilities. They also told us that they would like to see digitalisation of operational processes, improvements in some working environments, and one depot would like to see more being done to support diversity in the workplace.

The driver management and training teams generally say their efforts are recognised and they enjoy working in their teams. They also told us that they too would like to see digitalised processes introduced and a more effective way of cascading business updates.

What are the next steps to address this feedback?

We are working with HR (EDI Steering Group) to identify the best way to support  diversity issues raised through the survey. We are in the process of introducing new communications channels for managers and frontline colleagues and we have engaged the infrastructure projects and facilities management team to arrange planned depot surgeries for drivers to effectively communicate concerns about their working environments. Work is being accelerated on paperless management systems and digitalised notice cases, as well as an iPad change-out programme.

Who will be involved and what do you see as the key to getting this right for colleagues?

All our people will have the opportunity to feed into the planned improvements/workstreams.