A one-industry approach to improving recruitment and retention of young professionals in rail - March 2014
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A one-industry approach to improving recruitment and retention of young professionals in rail March 2014
2 | A one-industry approach to improving recruitment and retention of young professionals in rail Table of contents Executive Summary ......................................................................... 3 Introduction..................................................................................... 5 The talent challenge ........................................................................ 7 Rail Ambassadors ............................................................................ 9 Networking & Development ......................................................... 11 Getting on the right track .............................................................. 14 UK Rail Industry as an enabler for YRP .......................................... 15
A one-industry approach to improving recruitment and retention of young professionals in rail | 3
Executive Summary
The industry faces a skills shortage, with a large proportion of the
workforce approaching retirement age. With record levels of
investment it is more important than ever for the rail industry to
attract the best talent to meet the needs of the future industry.
To do this we must turn perceptions around to attract the next
generation to the rail industry and continue to drive the industry
forward.
There has never been a better time to be in the railway industry;
the performance of the railway in terms of safety, punctuality and
customer satisfaction continues to lead the way in the EU.
Passenger growth has continued through the recession and
investment in new schemes such as Crossrail and HS2 will expand
the railway at the fasted rate in decades. But for most young
people the rail industry is not even considered as a career choice,
through a lack of awareness about opportunities available and a
generally negative public perception.
Young Rail Professionals plays a key role as an enabler to the rail
industry by helping to promote, inspire and develop young
people, helping the rail industry to recruit and retain the next
generation of railway talent.
Our members and ambassadors are promoting the rail industry in
schools and universities, through supporting school programmes,
delivering presentations, developing a railway careers video and
an online careers tool.
Once attracted to the rail industry, it is essential to retain this
talent, encouraging young people to develop their capability and
progress in their careers. Young Rail Professionals provides people
who are starting out in their careers with development and
networking opportunities, to broaden their understanding of the
whole industry and develop their soft-skills, and build a
community of future railway industry leaders.
YRP relies on the support of the industry to perform this key role
and in order to grow and expand our reach across the UK we are
inviting industry stakeholders to support our vision by:
• Encouraging employees to become involved in YRP
initiatives
• Promoting YRP’s events and opportunities to employees
4 | A one-industry approach to improving recruitment and retention of young professionals in rail
• Using YRP members, ambassadors and resources to
support your events
• Suggesting new ideas and initiatives to YRP
• Spreading the word throughout the industry about YRP
• Providing funding to YRP
Working together as one industry, we can recruit and retain the
next generation of talent and expertise by Promoting, Inspiring
and Developing its young people.
Please assist YRP in supporting GB Rail to build the community
that will sustain the industry for decades to come.
Adam Stead
Chairman, Young Rail Professionals
Acknowledgements
This paper has been published following our corporate
stakeholder launch events in London in February and Derby in
March 2014 and includes contributions from:
• Martyn Chymera, Chairman 2013-2014
• Damon High, External Relationships Manager
• Stephen Head, Ambassadors Manager
YRP’s initiatives are led by the whole YRP committee who
continue the vision set by our founding members Rob Mullen,
Martin Fenner, Paul Cooper and Martyn Chymera. This report has
only been made possible by the energy and commitment of YRP
Committee members past and present, and the support of our
employers to enable our involvement in Young Rail Professionals.
Introduction | 5
Introduction
Everyone who works in the UK rail industry is a stakeholder in its
success. It is an industry which is often not attractively perceived,
but most of us working in it are passionate about it, especially
those at Young Rail Professionals (YRP).
We have produced this paper to introduce you to YRP and show
where we can go as an industry together…
YRP formed in 2009 with the objectives to promote, inspire and
develop by bringing people together:
• To promote the railway industry as an exciting career
• To inspire people to grow their careers in the rail industry
• And most importantly, to develop people and bring them
together; people from different disciplines, engineers,
operators, lawyers, project managers, retail specialists…
Whilst we understand that is still much work to be done, to date
we’ve been successful at meeting these objectives:
• Our Rail Ambassadors programme is going into schools
and universities to present to the next generation,
• Our long list of events helps to develop the current young
professionals in the industry, and
• Our annual black tie dinner and other social events have
be a phenomenal success in bringing people together
from all disciplines and a range of companies.
Thirty years ago, before many of the YRP’s members were born,
joining the rail industry meant joining British Rail. BR was the
industry; a great place to work together and train together.
Training meant people being moved around the industry, meeting
each other, creating a railway community, one that still exists
today, and can still be seen in the pre-privatisation railway
generation.
After privatisation, the industry went through some difficult times,
particularly around the collapse of Railtrack. A short term
approach was adopted: recruitment shrank, training and
development was limited, and the railway community sank
further into silos. And with uncertainty about the future of rail, a
culture of poaching staff and reliance on contractors has
developed, rather than the industry investing in developing the
next generation of talent to plug the skills gap.
6 | Introduction But the future of rail is bright; it has never been a more exciting time to be in this industry in recent decades. The industry is growing, passenger numbers have risen despite a recession, performance continues to improve, and enormous investment on infrastructure is being made on Crossrail, HS2, Northern Hub, Electrification, ERTMS, TMS, and LU upgrades. This will place demands on the aging workforce. We must do more as an industry to recruit, retain and develop the best talent by working together as one industry.
Case profile of a young rail industry professional | 7 The talent challenge Let us briefly look at an example of a typical university leaver and YRP member. Adam had done an internship in Power Generation and had aspirations of joining the Navy, and then the wider defence community. A string of bad luck at the graduate assessment centres took Adam back to the drawing board. He went on to look for jobs in the automotive industry but shortly after his interview cut backs were announced. Another plan was needed… After automotive Adam finally considered the rail industry as a place where he could make a difference and hopefully have a long career in an environment with some unique challenges. Rail therefore was not his first choice; nor his second or third; and this is all too common. So many people who YRP encounter say they fell into rail by accident, including a number of our executive committee. Industries rallying to attract talent If we are not careful this trend could easily continue. With the economy picking up the competition from other sectors is as fierce as ever. Apprentice and graduate recruitment is still led and dominated by the big brands names such as Shell, BP, Ford, Airbus, BAE Systems, QinetiQ, Rolls Royce, GE and Airbus who are able to attract and choose from the best candidates with oversubscribed graduate schemes. In addition the competing industries are coming together and coordinating their approach to attract even more talent to fuel their growth and schemes in other industries are much further ahead than rail in doing so. Reputation We also have another major issue in attracting talent; rail lacks the glamour of many other high-tech industries, and the overarching public perception of the railway is that we’re not very good at what we do. But when you look at the numbers, comparing us as an industry to our European counterparts we are up there right at the top; whether that be for passenger satisfaction, punctuality and
8 | Case profile of a young rail industry professional reliability, information provision, or safety; we are leading the pack of large railways networks in Europe. Eurppa Report: Flash Eurobarometer 382a , EUROPEANS’ SATISFACTION WITH RAIL SERVICES, December 2013 Despite our success we are still challenged to improve by the press to meet demanding passenger expectations and we must be able to recruit talented individuals in spite of the negative headlines: Sky News Report: Rail Satisfaction Levels Drop Below 50% Promote the Industry as a whole We all have a unique opportunity to help address this. By working together we can promote the rail industry, not just our individual companies, as a diverse, rewarding and incredibly satisfying career choice, making sure that those who choose not to pursue a career with one company aren’t put off from the industry as a whole. By working together, we can develop combined marketing and promotional materials to help people like Adam make the rail industry their number one choice in which to pursue a career.
Rail Ambassadors | 9
Rail Ambassadors
In general, young people in the rail industry are enthusiastic and
passionate about what they do and this helps YRP enormously.
YRP can channel this passion and enthusiasm and use it to
promote the rail industry. This is done through our Ambassadors
programme where YRP supports these people by coordinating
them to engage with school, college and university students, to
inspire them and promote the rail industry.
Our Ambassadors scheme has been going since 2010 but it is in
the last 12 months that we've really gathered major momentum.
Engineering Development Trust Go4SET We have got lots of young people in the rail industry coming to us,
wanting to reach back into their home communities, going back
into their schools and universities - YRP provides an outlet for
YRP News: Young Rail Professionals
these enthusiastic young people to achieve their own goals.
delighted to support Engineering
Development Trust, Network Rail and It is not just young people coming to us; universities and other
First Great Western. institutions are turning to YRP for ambassadors to support their
events. YRP are acting as a mechanism for young people to bring
industry and education together, raising awareness of rail as a
great career option and supporting young people in their
decisions to enter the rail industry.
Whilst this fantastic growth of YRP's Ambassadors activities is
great to see, we are all volunteers and also have day jobs with
demanding workloads. It is only with the leniency of our
employers we have been able to grow YRP to where it is today.
There is not a shortage of young, passionate, energetic people
who are enthused to promote this fantastic industry; however
University Presentations they do need to be coordinated, led and rallied to the call. That is
where YRP comes in; we can enable and facilitate the young
YRP News: YRP Ambassadors with people in our industry to achieve their goals of promoting rail and
University Presentation Success sharing their passion. YRP can help them by coordinating and
leading programmes and ensuring our volunteers are not out of
pocket by getting involved.
Addressing the skills gap
Most people in rail are very aware of the skills gap, which for
young people is great for promotion opportunities however as an
industry it is a problem we need to tackle with a growing demand
and an increasingly under pressure workforce.
By proving a central point, we can become more efficient, working
with our partners in other institutions to deliver joint engagement
10 | Rail Ambassadors programmes with shared presentation slides, brochures and hand-outs with YRP spearheading this for the rail industry. We have been bringing together representatives from across 12 institutions to coordinate our university programmes to get maximum coverage, speaking on behalf of the whole industry at once using people with a variety of backgrounds. Our coordinated programme aims to reach 40 universities in the coming academic year to promote the rail industry. YRP are working with RRUKA to develop an industry promotional video which will form a corner stone for this series of university presentations and is a great example of working together to achieve more. We are also building relationships with the Engineering Development Trust, STEM Net and Construction Youth Trust to support others in their initiatives and learning lessons that can be applied back to YRP. Critically, that young people are best placed to inspire other young people which we are doing by continuing to support iRail in Derby each year. Fundamental to our Ambassadors scheme going forward is the development of an online careers tool, to show the variety of job roles and career opportunities available in rail, along with recommended skills and qualifications, and it will provide links to industry players who can offer such opportunities. By combining our efforts as one industry into one portal, we can reduce barriers to entry for people looking for careers in the rail industry. To do all of this requires the enthusiasm of volunteers to come on board, to attend meetings, develop plans and manage the delivery, all in their spare hours between work commitments. It also takes funding to take our vision into actions and to produce solid materials which can be made available for the whole industry to use. We are pleased to continue to work with young people, who are proud to have one of the world's best railways, one of the world's most ambitious railways, and one that is inspiring the rest of Europe who are adopting the UK's future vision too.
Networking & Development | 11 Networking & Development Our journey to promote the industry as a career is only the first step in building a sustainable workforce. To complement our Ambassadors programme, the Networking & Development side of YRP is the more visible part within the Rail Industry and is key to retaining and developing the talent and expertise who have chosen rail as a career. We do this by Inspiring people to progress in their careers, and developing the breadth of skills needed by our future professionals for our industry to succeed. Many people in industry leave at an early stage, struggling to get the right mix of opportunities that they might need to succeed in their graduate programme. Some people give up and move on to other industries, going into teaching and automotive industries, some back to universities to retrain. With a great community around you it is easier to weather the tough times, and bringing the whole industry together shows the diversity of roles available; if you find one that isn't right for you there's a breadth of other options available and if YRP is a prominent part of one’s early career then the options are visible and accessible. Rather than risk losing people in similar circumstances when the timing is not right for opportunities, graduate exchange placements could be a great way to broaden one's perspective in a different environment, ensuring both that we retain people in the industry, and within our own companies. And instead of GB Rail losing its young people to other industries, what if we were able to attract those from other industries, from defence, aerospace and software. Lots of smaller companies in our rail supply chain do not consider themselves as railway companies, but if we can attract their employees into the railway community using YRP as a mechanism to do so, there's a great deal of potential to grow our industry by assimilation, and maybe find some innovative new ideas used from other industries too. YRP's community holds our members into the rail industry, with a great network of people reminding each other that they can make a difference on days where it’s easy to give up hope in a rigid industry. We can speak to our peers via YRP's forums, using Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, and providing engaging
12 | YRP as an enabler for UK Rail Industry networking events like our Annual Summer BBQ and Christmas party to bring people together without so much formality; to let their hair down. YRP started out with a grand networking event in February 2010 with its inaugural Black Tie Dinner for 120 individuals, which became our Annual Headline event, coming up again on 28th March at the Grand Connaught Rooms. We are already sold out attracting 490 guests. In 2012 we started to deliver professional development events, building a programme of seminars and workshops, mostly in London. Without wanting to compete with technical institutions, we partner on and endorse events of particular relevance to young people, and we ensure our own events programme focuses on soft skills which professionals will come to rely on to succeed in their career, on themes of policy & governance, innovation, commercial & legal, leadership and business skills, within the context of the rail industry. Our 2013/2014 events programme has been the busiest yet, hosting at least one event each month, our first international technical visit, our first Christmas party, our first innovation conference with RRUKA and Future Railway, and includes events on Marketing and PR, lessons in taking a customer focus, procurement and project delivery strategies, and an introduction to contract law. We now have 22 events being planned up to July 2015 in our core programme and we're going to be hosting our first International Rail day conference in our 2014/2015 programme, taking a closer look at lessons to be learnt from Japan, and showcasing a different country each year. There is nowhere quite like YRP, where young people from all disciplines, departments, and geographies, can come together to mix and grow through shared understanding of industry challenges. Our joined up message is "One Industry Working Together" which our members support through coming again and again to our events. Our reputation is growing globally too with interest expressed in France, Spain, India and the USA in starting international YRP branches, and we will be hosting a networking drinks reception at Innotrans further boosting the profile of GB rail. We're happy to mentor and provide advice to our overseas peers but our focus
Networking & Development | 13
remains on promoting GB rail and we are particularly focussed on
protecting YRP's brand and reputation which extends to those of
our supporters.
We are pleased that we have the continued support of industry
leaders at our events too, to inspire young professionals to
progress in their careers and to give them the opportunities to ask
questions to industry leaders.
On Track for their future with YRP’s
Careers Planning workshop These events are available and open to all and usually free of
charge. But to ensure they achieve their goals, to inspire and
develop staff, to retain the talent within the industry we need
everyone to promote our events, to your colleagues and friends,
and encourage young people to attend to ensure that these
events realise benefits for the whole industry.
To date we've been very London-centric in our offering, and much
of the rail industry is beyond our reach yet people are crying out
for YRP events in Scotland, the North West and South West.
We've now developed strategies for regional growth. But due to
the travel required until a region is self-sustaining, part of the
YRP News: Fun in the sun at YRP challenge is covering travel costs and getting to know people in
Summer BBQ 2013 the region who can help with our growth. This year we are hosting
the Next Generation Rail event in Manchester, have recently
presented at the Derby Railway Engineering Society lecture in
March and we hope to build momentum on the back of these to
plan further regional events.
Other future plans for Networking & Development include a
buddying scheme for young people entering into the rail industry
to ensure they have the support they need from someone who
YRP Upcoming event: Next Generation Rail has recently gone through their entry into the industry, and senior
conference mentorship for those further on in their careers who might be
looking for guidance of ‘what-next’ once they've found their feet.
And a new idea we’re considering is to introduce a pan-industry
Railway Induction course, a residential course to give everyone a
great initial introduction to the rail industry, introducing much of
the terminology and concepts which we take for granted; this
might be of particular benefit to SMEs who might struggle to offer
this as a matter of course compared with the larger industry
players. This will inspire people from the moment they enter their
careers in the railway and bring them straight into the community.14 | YRP as an enabler for UK Rail Industry Getting on the right track To get to where we are today hasn’t been easy. At the end of 2012 we took a decision that radically changed our approach. We moved away from dreaming of what the industry should look like, sat down and thrashed out our vision. Over the last 15 months we’ve been through a process of business planning to put us on track for our future vision. This process led to our formation of an objectives plan for the short, medium and long term. On the back of this we developed an annual operating plan and a governance structure led by an executive committee and chair's office which is elected annually by our committee members. We have incorporated ourselves as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee, backed by our four founding members, to ensure YRP's vision continues. In the last few months we've doubled our committee numbers to 40 volunteers but many of them have been (and continue to) find it challenging to find the time to get involved, missing out on the early career opportunities which YRP offers of leadership, team management and project management - growing one's network across the industry too. We know how tough it can be to get time out of work to get involved and for many who would like to help it simply won't be possible and we can sympathise with that. In addition to all those who have come forward so far, we are still resource constrained in order to deliver all of our initiatives and so we are looking to hire part time YRP staff which we can call on to deliver the day-to- day YRP business, freeing up our industry professionals to focus on leading strategic initiatives.
UK Rail Industry as an enabler for YRP | 15
UK Rail Industry as an
enabler for YRP
There are many ways which the rail industry can come together to
support YRP in its mission and to help YRP to grow:
Encourage your staff to become members of and get
involved with YRP.
• Membership is free. We need more enthusiastic people to
help promote the industry through our Ambassadors
Programme and put on more Networking and
Development events throughout the country and to lead
our future initiatives by becoming committee members –
future leaders of YRP and the industry as a whole.
Click here to view YRP’s New Members flier
Promote YRP’s events and initiatives internally
• To help boost awareness of what we are trying to achieve
and to provide an opportunity for your YRPs to attend our
networking and development events.
Let us get involved with your events
• Many organisations are working towards the same goals
and by coming together we can pool resources and
achieve more. YRP are happy to collaborate and partner
and be consulted on events to boost the profile with
young people.
Come forward with ideas and ways to contribute.
• We are always looking for new ideas and initiatives: we
need venues where we can host events, speakers for our
events, interesting technical visits, and our mentoring
scheme will need experienced and enthusiastic volunteers
to get involved to help retain the good people we attract.
Spread the word
• Tell the rest of the rail industry and your colleagues about
YRP and wear the badge with pride telling people that you
support YRP16 | UK Rail Industry as an enabler for YRP
Provide funding for YRP
• Corporate Members will allow YRP to continue with, and
expand our activities. Previously we have received funding
on a per event basis; but with this structure cash flow can
be sporadic which made planning very difficult. Now that
we are going to operate a corporate membership scheme
we can work with an annual operating budget that will
help us plan our activities more effectively and allowing us
to provide travel and subsistence to our ambassadors for
the great work that they do and enable us to continue
putting on rewarding networking events such as our
annual dinner and award.
• There are a number of Corporate Membership packages
available ranging from £500 to £10,000. There is a wide
variety of ways in which your company benefit including
recognition on our website and social media channels,
inclusion of your company information in specific
literature, banner display spaces at events, table
allocations etc.
The corporate stakeholder events we held in February and March
2014 are part of the journey on which we embarked 15 months
ago. Due to our limited resources and manpower, we are now at a Click here to view YRP’s
turning point: we can either continue as we are today or, with the Corporate Membership
industry’s support, we can move to the next level and help lead brochure
the industry forward to recruit, retain and develop the next
generation of young rail professionals.
Direct benefits to your organisation of supporting YRP
• Helping to meet Corporate Social Responsibility
objectives;
• Your branding associated with all YRP activities;
• Your employees facilitating and leading YRP events,
improving visibility of your company;
• Proactive inclusion of your company by YRP at our events;
• Consult with YRP on initiatives for young people.
Benefits to your staff in getting involved with YRP
• Build professional networks outside of their discipline;
• Learn how the whole industry fits together;
• Development of soft skills;
• Presentation and public speaking opportunities;
• CPD towards professional registration;
• Early-career responsibility on the YRP committee.UK Rail Industry as an enabler for YRP | 17 For more information on how you or your company can engage with YRP contact: Damon High External Relationships Manager 07770326072 | damon.high@youngrailpro.com
Connect with us: Young Rail Professionals PO Box 93 Liverpool L19 3WE United Kingdom www.youngrailpro.com
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