Metronet Rail
Organisation Size: 5000
Sector: Rail asset maintenance
Organisation Location: London
“Metronet has faced massive change since it came into being. The Investors in People Standard has been at the heart of supporting a new culture but we have only been able to achieve that because Internal Review has helped us to embed its philosophy and practices throughout the business.”
Karen Dyas, Investors in People Business Improvement Manager
Status
Metronet SSL first achieved Standard in 2002; underwent reassessment in 2005 using Internal Review
The Organisation
Metronet Rail is a consortium of five world-class companies - Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier Transportation, EDF Energy and RWE Thames Water. The consortium is responsible for upgrading, replacing and maintaining two-thirds of London Underground's infrastructure – its trains, stations, signalling, track, tunnels and bridges - under a 30-year Public Private Partnership contract which came into operation in April 2003.
The Metronet consortium brings together expertise in project management and planning, railway engineering and asset management supported by a wide range of technical disciplines. Metronet Rail operates as two companies. Metronet Rail BCV is responsible for the Bakerloo, Central, Victoria and Waterloo & City lines - the ‘deep Tube' lines - while Metronet Rail SSL is responsible for the Metropolitan, District, Circle, Hammersmith & City and East London lines which are collectively known as the sub-surface lines.
The Challenge
Karen Dyas enjoys a challenge and in Metronet Rail she found one. Not only is Metronet a consortium of five different companies, it has also experienced almost constant change since its creation in 2002 with many of its people experiencing massive cultural upheaval having come from London Underground Ltd into the private sector. Metronet is responsible for maintenance of two thirds of the Underground’s lines under Public Private Partnership making it a highly political area to work in and one that attracts more than its fair share of media attention.
“With Investors in People we don’t focus on things we can’t change; we work on the areas we can and we employ every tool to improve the situation”, says Karen, Metronet’s Investors in People Business Improvement Manager. “Investors in People is vitally important in engaging staff, building a sense of identity and belonging to Metronet and demonstrating that all our people play an important role in improving the service London Underground provides its customers.”
The Standard has proved itself an excellent framework and tool for continuous improvement within Metronet helping to improve communication with the company’s people and facilitate the change of culture that was needed.
The Strategy
Having first achieved the Standard three years ago, Metronet turned to the Internal Review process as a cost-effective means of conducting assessments and increasing ownership of improvements within the company. It was also seen as an effective way of involving management at all levels of the company so that the philosophy behind Investors in People could become better embedded in the organisation.
Metronet SSL currently has teams of Investors in People Champions who promote the Standard and its benefits within different parts of the business. Karen now also manages an Internal Review team of eight which works within Metronet Rail SSL and she is in the process of setting up a duplicate operation within its sister company. Within a year, she plans to have a single team for Metronet as a whole, which is capable of conducting reviews across both companies.
The internal review team has been set up to conduct an ongoing and continuous programme of assessment into every business area. Business teams come in different sizes from 35 to over 100 people and the internal review team, operating on the annual basis of 13 periods of 4 weeks, is working to assess these units at regular intervals through a mini audits programme.
Working with assistance from the Investors in People Champions, the internal assessors conduct a series of around 8 to 10 interviews over a day before reporting their findings back to Karen. It is then Karen’s role to go back into business units with the findings of the audit and work with managers to take corrective action.
“The audits often show mixed results but that’s the whole point of undertaking the internal audit”, says Karen. “Given the massive change management programme that we are undergoing, we’re not yet at a stage where we’re just checking that everything is okay within the organisation. There are still areas that need to be improved but Internal Review is helping us to identify them so that we can sort them out. It is truly continuous and it has made the Standard a far more dynamic element within the business.
“This process is an excellent way of keeping Investors in People alive and relevant within the company. Without Internal Review, much of the good work that we undertook to earn the Standard in the first place would have been lost. Instead, by making sure that we regularly see how every business unit is fairing, we are able to take the examples of best practice that do exist and see how they can be spread elsewhere.”
The Result
“We are looking closely at how we can quantify the effectiveness of Investors in People within Metronet but it is clear that communication has improved and that our people have a better appreciation of their roles within the business. Internal Review has proved critical in embedding the Standard in the way we work. While there is major change going on, we are creating a new culture within Metronet and Investors in People is very much at the heart of that.
“Although there is still much work to be done, we’re a lot further on than we were two years ago and I expect Metronet to have moved even further in the next two years. We are creating the foundations of a truly positive culture and we have the opportunity to develop that into the service that has always been envisaged. Given the circumstances we’ve faced over the past three years, what we’ve achieved has been truly remarkable”, Karen concludes.