(02 Sep 2022, 6:31 pm)Aaron21 No 204 will run between 11.32 & 16.32 tomorrow

The first two 81s are cancelled same as the 83

(02 Sep 2022, 7:46 pm)Dan Or maybe continue due to ongoing high levels of sickness, lack of desire to work overtime, and, over the next week or two at least, drivers needing to be taken off the road to assist their route learning requirements (as Go North East committed to enabling Chester-le-Street drivers move to their first depot of choice - and therefore need to move work around to depots where it’s less efficient to run from, to ensure there was enough work at the depot for those displaced drivers).


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(02 Sep 2022, 8:41 pm)Ambassador The state of the Angel tomorrow on a matchday is a disgrace, running shorts from Newcastle to Gateshead and CLS to Gateshead is really taking the piss.

The 28B looks entirely cancelled tomorrow night aside one journey from Newcastle, there is literally no other option for these passengers 

the depot closure has saved few pennies but yet again it’s passengers who suffer from sheer incompetence.

Every sympathy with the drivers who are totally exposed to GNEs failures, I’d hope Featham clears decks. I do hope you’re better at commercial development than you are predictions Dan after the ‘plenty of spare drivers after insert changes here’ comments you made

(02 Sep 2022, 7:46 pm)Dan Or maybe continue due to ongoing high levels of sickness, lack of desire to work overtime, and, over the next week or two at least, drivers needing to be taken off the road to assist their route learning requirements (as Go North East committed to enabling Chester-le-Street drivers move to their first depot of choice - and therefore need to move work around to depots where it’s less efficient to run from, to ensure there was enough work at the depot for those displaced drivers).

(02 Sep 2022, 9:06 pm)Dan If you want to find yourself a bus driver for a former Chester-le-Street route tomorrow evening, I’d suggest you head to Wetherspoons in Chester-le-Street. There might be quite the gathering there, and I’m sure they’ll be raising a toast or two to GNE’s management team (so you’d fit right in!)


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(02 Sep 2022, 9:09 pm)Storx Surely there has to be a point where you can't keep mindlessly defending GNE, even known you work for them. Lack of desire (refusal) to work overtime is a management problem, shutting a depot is a management decision which has been clearly been mishandled, not route training driver's before moving depots is a management issue, high levels of sickness / lack of drivers is management issue since loads of driver's have left.

I feel sorry for people who actually have to rely on GNE to actually commute as it's completely useless for the best part of year now with permanent service reductions as a sucker punch more than once some rather drastic, it's been going on for too long.

(02 Sep 2022, 9:09 pm)Storx Lack of desire (refusal) to work overtime is a management problem, shutting a depot is a management decision which has been clearly been mishandled, not route training driver's before moving depots is a management issue, high levels of sickness / lack of drivers is management issue since loads of driver's have left.

I feel sorry for people who actually have to rely on GNE to actually commute as it's completely useless for the best part of year now with permanent service reductions as a sucker punch more than once some rather drastic, it's been going on for too long.

(02 Sep 2022, 7:46 pm)Dan Or maybe continue due to ongoing high levels of sickness, lack of desire to work overtime, and, over the next week or two at least, drivers needing to be taken off the road to assist their route learning requirements (as Go North East committed to enabling Chester-le-Street drivers move to their first depot of choice - and therefore need to move work around to depots where it’s less efficient to run from, to ensure there was enough work at the depot for those displaced drivers).


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(02 Sep 2022, 9:23 pm)mb134 There's not too much management can realistically do about unwillingness to work overtime. Drivers, across all companies, have been working insane amounts of overtime for months on end to put out the limited service there has been - there comes a point where no amount of incentive will get the (majority of) drivers in for their 'n'th 6 day week in a row! Obviously management can do things to enhance driver recruitment, but like all things that takes time and you will also have a steady flow of folk retiring, moving to other careers, or progressing within the company. It's a vicious circle really, not helped by the fact that the entire situation will be putting some drivers onto the sick with work related stress - which makes it worse for those remaining, who are more likely to leave/get sick etc.....

(02 Sep 2022, 9:26 pm)Unber43 Or maybe GNE let CLS get run down to the point where it would cost too much to fix it, causing loads of routes to change depots. 

What about the 60+ contracts which are from August/Sept causing local bus services Frequency to be lowered as GNE bidding and won a lot of contract work.

Sheer incompetence and one for your bingo card Management Failure (shock horror)

I could probably name 10-15 other things GNE have done which are just mind boggling

(02 Sep 2022, 9:49 pm)Unber43 I wonder why GNE doesn't shut Bensham and just have it based at Riverside depot surely it would be much easier.

Not to mention Bensham looks quite run down

(02 Sep 2022, 9:23 pm)mb134 There's not too much management can realistically do about unwillingness to work overtime. Drivers, across all companies,  have been working insane amounts of overtime for months on end to put out the limited service there has been - there comes a point where no amount of incentive will get the (majority of) drivers in for their 'n'th 6 day week in a row! Obviously management can do things to enhance driver recruitment, but like all things that takes time and you will also have a steady flow of folk retiring, moving to other careers, or progressing within the company. It's a vicious circle really, not helped by the fact that the entire situation will be putting some drivers onto the sick with work related stress - which makes it worse for those remaining, who are more likely to leave/get sick etc.....

In terms of route learning, I'm not sure how GNE have done it, but I know that when the 1/2 moved to Ashington ANE had arranged a few Sundays where Ashington drivers went to learn the 1/2. When the services and drivers came across, there was a pool of "light duties" drivers tasked with going to route learn the Blyth drivers on the Ashington services, and Ashington drivers who didn't make a Sunday on the 1/2. Obviously this required drivers being willing to come in on a RD to learn routes (taking into account that, in Feb, Ashington weren't hugely short of drivers so this wasn't as much of an issue as with the GNE situation), a pool of drivers on the sick who were able to come in for light duties, and was helped by the bulk of drivers involved only needing to learn 2 relatively simple routes.

(02 Sep 2022, 9:38 pm)Dan Hear, hear!

The only way higher management can tackle unwillingness to work overtime is to ensure that the company is fully staffed to ensure there is no overtime available.

Clearly that also needs holidays and sickness to be at the budgeted level, and if that’s a lot higher, then they actually need to be over-staffed - so we actually come back to recruitment/retention being the number one thing to address.


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(02 Sep 2022, 9:56 pm)Andreos1 It's because of management that the overtime issue exists.
It's because of management that attrition is so high.
It's because of management that hundreds of thousands of pounds has been spent on recruitment and driver training.

To say that management can't do anything about the overtime issue. Well, they can. They could have done. They didn't.

(02 Sep 2022, 9:09 pm)Storx Surely there has to be a point where you can't keep mindlessly defending GNE, even known you work for them. Lack of desire (refusal) to work overtime is a management problem, shutting a depot is a management decision which has been clearly been mishandled, not route training driver's before moving depots is a management issue, high levels of sickness / lack of drivers is management issue since loads of driver's have left. 

I feel sorry for people who actually have to rely on GNE to actually commute as it's completely useless for the best part of year now with permanent service reductions as a sucker punch more than once some rather drastic, it's been going on for too long.

(02 Sep 2022, 9:57 pm)James101  
It’s not the only way though is it? 

Growing a strong co-operative culture, positive working environment. Empowering staff, making them feel valued. Favourable pay & terms. 

Similar to what’s needed to to attract and retain new staff I suppose.

(02 Sep 2022, 9:21 pm)Ambassador and why might they be there Dan? 

Because of a management decision that damages their loyalty, clearly damages your ability to serve your passengers. There’s clearly an us vs them mentality and a total lack of engagement, do GNE have an internal comms team? A colleague experience manager? All things post pandemic that are more important than ever

(02 Sep 2022, 9:56 pm)Andreos1 It's because of management that the overtime issue exists.
It's because of management that attrition is so high.
It's because of management that hundreds of thousands of pounds has been spent on recruitment and driver training.

To say that management can't do anything about the overtime issue. Well, they can. They could have done. They didn't.

(02 Sep 2022, 9:57 pm)James101  
It’s not the only way though is it? 

Growing a strong co-operative culture, positive working environment. Empowering staff, making them feel valued. Favourable pay & terms. 

Similar to what’s needed to to attract and retain new staff I suppose.

---

Agree. Culture is a long game. Also vastly cheaper to invest in retaining staff than attracting new ones. 

(02 Sep 2022, 10:09 pm)mb134 What can the current management do to address that right now though?

Pay more? Well yes, to an extent. But lots of drivers have families who they might want to spend time with, so the extra money for the 6 day week will only be attractive to a point. 

Train more? I imagine they are. But what happens when 3 out of 4 of the new recruits fail their test because they have road rage at old Doris in her Honda Jazz, is the man in charge of IT meant to swoop in and bribe the instructor?

Retain more? Again, payment will only go so far. I know of at least one person who is an active member on this forum who has left one of the "big three" in the past few months not because of the pay, or the job, or the management - but because they wanted to change career, and there are many individuals in similar boats (especially after Covid). Lots of people have seen how their friends/family can now work from home and get paid the same/more, how can bus company management facilitate people driving buses from their sofa?

(02 Sep 2022, 9:22 pm)Dan I don’t think there was a defence of Go North East in my previous post, rather an explanation. I don’t think it is possible to defend the situation at the moment, which is why I haven’t.

It has previously been stated that Go North East is fully staffed. That remains the case from 3 September, due to the temporary service reductions. There is clearly an absence issue - the reasons for this can be debated among those on this forum not employed by GNE.

Clearly there’s industrial relations issues at the moment which isn’t helping matters, and Stagecoach in Sunderland are suffering a similar fate at the moment with more lost mileage there than other areas.

Likewise I expect Arriva will have greater challenges with coverage over the next month or so due to the closure of Jesmond, especially if the rumour is true that there is very little in the way of compensation offered to those employed at the depot.

It seems like Go North East are trying to address the issues with retention and recruitment by offering drivers the largest pay increase ever previously offered (upping top hourly rates to the highest out of the three big operators in the region), achievable within a year’s service or immediately when joining the company with a PCV licence. Let’s hope it’s voted through as it should result in improved service delivery.


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(02 Sep 2022, 9:23 pm)mb134 There's not too much management can realistically do about unwillingness to work overtime. Drivers, across all companies, have been working insane amounts of overtime for months on end to put out the limited service there has been - there comes a point where no amount of incentive will get the (majority of) drivers in for their 'n'th 6 day week in a row! Obviously management can do things to enhance driver recruitment, but like all things that takes time and you will also have a steady flow of folk retiring, moving to other careers, or progressing within the company. It's a vicious circle really, not helped by the fact that the entire situation will be putting some drivers onto the sick with work related stress - which makes it worse for those remaining, who are more likely to leave/get sick etc.....

In terms of route learning, I'm not sure how GNE have done it, but I know that when the 1/2 moved to Ashington ANE had arranged a few Sundays where Ashington drivers went to learn the 1/2. When the services and drivers came across, there was a pool of "light duties" drivers tasked with going to route learn the Blyth drivers on the Ashington services, and Ashington drivers who didn't make a Sunday on the 1/2. Obviously this required drivers being willing to come in on a RD to learn routes (taking into account that, in Feb, Ashington weren't hugely short of drivers so this wasn't as much of an issue as with the GNE situation), a pool of drivers on the sick who were able to come in for light duties, and was helped by the bulk of drivers involved only needing to learn 2 relatively simple routes.