Employee engagement at London Overground Rail Operations Limited (LOROL) is central to the effective operation and functioning of the business. Here, LOROL’s HR Director, Darren Hockaday, discusses how the business has achieved six consecutive years of increased engagement scores and transformed LOROL into one of the best performing rail operators in the UK.
Employee engagement at LOROL is defined as; “providing the conditions under which employees will work more effectively”. It is this definition that is the guiding principle behind LOROL’s engagement strategy.
As a result of investment here, the business expects that employees are likely to perform better at work, take less sick leave, that they’re more likely to stay with the business and will make less errors in their work. It is also anticipated that, in addition, employees will retain more positive attitudes and emotions towards their jobs and their employer, and customers. To monitor engagement levels and drive LOROL’s engagement strategy for the year ahead, the business conducts View Point, an annual employee engagement survey that is targeted at all employees. The survey lets employees give their opinions on a range of factors including the company, communications, their line manager and leadership, their job and the future of the business. The results, which are analysed by an independent, external company, set out the focus of LOROL’s engagement agenda for the year ahead, identifying clear goals, based directly on employee feedback that will contribute to achieving the business’ objectives. By positioning its engagement strategy in this way, LOROL has made employee engagement a flexible tool that works for the business and its workforce. Employees can be sure their views are listened to and acted on and senior management can be confident that their strategy and action plan will have a positive impact on the bottom line and the experience of over 400,000 people who travel on the Overground service every day.
The 2013 View Point survey was carried out earlier this month. Building on the last five years of growth and increased engagement, LOROL has seen the response rate to the survey rise from just 33 percent in 2008 (when it took over the concession) to a record 89 percent this year, which is a healthy sign of employee engagement. Based on the results of the 2013 engagement survey, LOROL will identify a number of key areas for action. These respond to areas where agreement levels may have dipped and will enable each director to identify priorities within their business area, whilst also targeting grades and teams with the lowest agreement levels. To ensure that the action plan emerging from the 2013 results delivers strong results for the business, LOROL retains a key focus on cross functional working and aligns the action plan closely to the business objectives for the year ahead. Whilst the action plan based on the 2013 View Point results is being finalised, the work undertaken by the senior management team in response to the 2012 View Point survey results demonstrates the positive impact that focus on lower scoring questions can deliver.
The 2012 survey results identified a number of target areas where engagement could be enhanced and improved, including communications, performance feedback, senior management visibility, cross functional working and co-operation, recognition and responding to suggestions, ideas and feedback. Despite being areas of concern for LOROL, these low scoring areas did in fact achieve agreement scores of 70 percent and did increase year on year. LOROL implemented three core action plans to respond to the areas where engagement levels were particularly low and which would enhance engagement with employees during the year ahead. All Performance Development Review (PDR) meetings at LOROL now include a section to assess the extent to which this happens. This encourages managers to promote and support a two-way feedback culture within the organisation. Alongside this development, LOROL has encouraged employees to submit ideas to LOROL’s ‘Suggestions Box’ for how their job or elements of the business could be improved. In return for submitting their ideas in drop-boxes at mess rooms or by email, employees are entered to a prize draw to win an iPad. The winning suggestion, announced in February 2013, for example, focused on maximising capacity and reducing overcrowding at stations. Participation has also been encouraged with the introduction of a new category for ‘Ideas & Suggestion’ in LOROL’s annual employee recognition awards, Shining Stars. Here, employees are rewarded for getting involved: all employees who nominate their colleagues or who are nominated themselves for an award is entered into a prize draw. The success of this award can be seen by the 81 percent increase in entries from 2012 to 2013.
Work is also underway here to actively seek ideas and suggestions from key employee groups, such as drivers and conductors, as part of established training and update days. Drivers, for example, have two briefing sessions during the year and seeking feedback is now on the agenda for each session. Feedback received here is summarised and published to employees to encourage more contributions at the next session. A key factor in encouraging a steady stream of employee ideas has been to ensure that feedback takes place about why an idea may not be practical or possible to implement. Here, heads of department will write to employees personally with an explanation. Keeping communications with employees open in this way has promoted involvement and engagement across the business.
Senior managers at LOROL regularly hold management and executive meetings at stations across the network and the senior team visits ten stations every two weeks. In response to feedback in the employee engagement survey, LOROL is helping its managers to help their teams more by introducing new training on how to support employee performance and development and have more positive and supportive ‘performance conversations’. This training was launched in 2010 and to date, 50 managers have taken part. A module on this area has also been included in LOROL’s new management development programme, ‘Leading LOROL’. Specific objectives have also been put in place to ensure that PDRs are completed for key groups of employees. For example, LOROL has committed to completing two PDR meetings per year for all station staff. LOROL is on track to achieve this, with 223 completed to date and 500 on track to be completed by July 2013. Good progress is also underway to support other employee groups, such as drivers and conductors, in the same way.
Where Viewpoint 2012 identified marked dissatisfaction in specific stations for key issues, a separate plan was devised and implemented. For example, compared with the company’s overall response rate of 85.5 percent about whether employees agreed, ‘I am well informed about what’s happening in LOROL’, only 65 percent of sales clerks and gateline staff on LOROL’s South London Lines agreed. The same was true of these employees in response to other questions including whether they agree their managers are clear about the performance expected of them, whether they receive regular performance feedback and whether they think they have adequate access to line managers. The impact of the work LOROL undertook in 2012 to support and enhance employee engagement can be seen in the results of the 2013 survey that relate to the company’s employee engagement agenda. In response to the following statements, there has been an increase in engagement scores: My manager gives me regular feedback on my performance, up from 77 percent in 2012 to 78 percent in 2013; My manager seeks my opinion, up from 77 percent in 2012 to 78 percent in 2013; My manager recognises when a job is well done – up from 80 percent in 2012 to 81 percent in 2013. The View Point Survey is now an established part of the LOROL calendar; employees expect it and want to participate in it. Viewpoint 2013 was launched in February 2013 and the results will be published shortly. The subsequent development of objectives and action plans to address any emerging issues or concerns will be testament to how LOROL intends to build on its strong employee engagement foundations in the future.
The approach LOROL has taken to developing and implementing a flexible employee engagement strategy shows the creative approach the business has taken to this important issue. Significantly for LOROL, this is the only way engagement has ever been managed or measured and by regularly taking positive steps to address any underperforming areas or issues of concern, employees are reassured that the business and senior management team are doing all they can to provide the working conditions in which they can thrive and achieve. High levels of employee engagement at LOROL have delivered a number of positive business benefits, most notably, perhaps, the company’s growth, which is the fastest of any UK rail company since privatisation. Passenger journeys each day have quadrupled from 90,000 in 2007 to over 400,000 today and overall passenger satisfaction has soared from 57 percent (2007) to 92 percent (2012) in the National Passenger Survey. Translated into revenue, this has increased from £30 million (2008/2009) to a forecasted £99 million (2012/2013). Such impressive results are the achievement of sustained hard work and commitment. They represent the high returns and outstanding performance that can be achieved with an engaged workforce and puts LOROL in a strong position from which to move forward to a positive future of connecting communities across London.
