Employee Engagement
The majority of our employees are represented by trade unions, with membership of around 90% of the UK workforce and 62% in North America. We also have Employee Directors on many UK company boards and the plc Board.
We engage regularly with the unions on a range of issues. In the UK we have worked closely with them to develop our network of learning centres and have over 100 Trade Union Learner Representatives, whose role it is to support and engage people in the lifelong learning programme. In the past two years we have also worked closely with them to introduce our new bus driver advisory systems to UK Bus. In North America we are working with unions to eliminate unnecessary idling of vehicles and reduce carbon emissions. Further, we are working with unions to ensure that our bus drivers have satisfied all medical and physical requirements. We also collaborate with unions to implement periodic drug and alcohol testing and criminal background checks.
Compliance monitoring in the US
To protect the rights of our employees to freedom of association we operated a Compliance Monitoring Program in the United States. Any employee who feels our Freedom of Association Policy has been violated can make a complaint. Prior to December 2010 complaints were considered by Professor William Gould of Stanford University Law School in California. Between April and December 2010 there were 64 complaints, of which 14 were upheld. All these complaints were from the same location and the issues there have now been resolved. In view of the low level of complaints we have now established an alternative dispute resolution procedure. We are confident that these revised arrangements will continue to protect the interests of our employees in this area.
Surveying our employees
We are committed to asking people how they feel about working for us and for the first time this year we undertook a Group-wide employee engagement survey.
Although we have undertaken previous surveys in different parts of the business, this is the first time we have used a consistent, repeatable method across all employees, which will provide the basis for measuring changes in future engagement.
Over 85,000 people across the Group responded, giving a high average response rate of 67%. The survey results showed levels of engagement below the benchmark for similar industries over much of the business. However, we now have extensive information about the issues we need to address going forward.
In the UK Rail division (where we now have three years of engagement data) there were improvements in the engagement scores in three of our operating companies: First Great Western (up 6%), First ScotRail (up 5%) and First TransPeninne Express (up 5%). Levels of engagement in First Capital Connect and First Hull Trains fell.
Engagement scores have been analysed and assessed at Group, division and site level. This allows us to act on local issues concerning employees and broader, Group-wide trends. Key themes which need addressing are:
- development and communication of direction, vision and values
- supervisory and management behaviours, capability and knowledge
- customer service skills and information for customers.
Since completion of the surveys action plans have been developed across the business and we have established a working group to oversee the implementation of these to ensure effective sharing of best practice and monitor progress.
Copies of our Employee Policies can be found here