(03 Sep 2024, 12:50 am)Northern Spirit wrote unfortunately this seems to be the way the company is going. "upstairs" is a slow rot, rapidly being infilled by graduates and friends of featham.

some graduates are landing very senior depot roles, often with experience barely touching a year. it's very surreal seeing these people completely twisting disciplinary policies and putting staff through gross misconduct hearings for things that only justify minor or serious. the same graduates think it's reasonable to lecture drivers with hundreds upon thousands of hours experience on their driving styles, when they themselves only have the bare minimum from training school and the occasional special event duty...

several operations supervisors, as they're now known, appear to have got the jobs by just being mates with whoever the GM or OM is, and will adopt their style and power trip in their orange hi-vis. the position is meant to support the drivers, and in turn the service, however as you saw secondhand, they dont. from foul-mouthed rants towards drivers on Blink - i recall several drivers being threatened with midnight pizza deliveries and waking up with a horses head next to them, to others just shouting and swearing when anything doesn't go to plan, i've seen them get away with pretty much everything whilst drivers get crapped on.

I've said it before, but there does seem to be a really problematic disciplinary culture within the bus industry. Especially within the larger operators. Within Go North East, from the stories I read and hear, it appears to have become completely toxic under the current leadership. Would be interested to hear views from current or ex-drivers on whether it's always been this way (across the board, not specifically GNE), or whether there's something in the more recent times that has triggered it?

Whilst I think it's natural for a manager to build a good team around them, it appears to be all friends together at GNE. I don't dismiss the benefit of graduates, but I'm not sure how the scheme would ever be fulfilling for them, if you've got their current situation of people with zero experience trying to mentor people with zero experience.

Some of the stuff you mention, like trumping up disciplinary charges, should be seen as bang out of order. It's really up to the unions to step in at this point and force the company to do something about it. It also sounds like on the company side, if they're going to persevere with inexperienced managers, they could do with a good experienced people manager to lead a HR function. I'll not hold my breath though, unless Featham has a long-lost cousin who works in HR or something.

(03 Sep 2024, 7:50 am)Retro Nero wrote A lot of management roles come straight from university/college with no experience to the bus industry, ( no bus driving experience at all) . Many years ago when I first came into the industry, a driver worked his/her way up the ladder ( so to speak) not straight into management roles from school

I think the world has changed though, in that respect, but I think you still need to have a good mix of talent. You should never be afraid to promote and develop from your shop floor, and indeed I think some of your best managers are the ones that understand the business inside out. I do think there's a place for management graduates to come in and have a positive impact on the business, but it needs to be with a fulfilling graduate scheme, seeing them learn all aspects of the business, and mentored for a number of years by good experienced managers.