Red Vests for LU staff

I typed out a long post on this subject and the bloomin laptop......

Basically, two points:

Wearing red on platforms is no big issue. T shirts, jumpers, coats and even Santa's during the Christmas party season cause us drivers no bother whatsoever.

There is no safety concern over anyone wearing red on platforms.


I'm very disapointed to see this post.

When I started on the stations 18 years ago we were absolutely encouraged to know our local area around our station and to answer any questions put to us. In fact we carried a book called the knowlege and it contained pretty much any answer to any question you could think of. Things like hospitals, museums, theatres, shopping centres, hotels, resturaunts, big name shops, schools, churches, etc, etc across the whole of London were in it.

Our station staff were seen as trusted people who knew their city and were there to assist their customers. Our station staff are often the first point of contact for tourist and leisure visitors.

I'm astounded that the attitude seems to have changed now, and our station staff clearly don't see themselves as being there to assist our customers. Kind of begs the question "just what do you think you are there for then?!".

«rincew1nd: Consecutive posts merged»

The other main point I was making in my post that the laptop killed is that this whole debacle is LU's own doing when it introduced the current uniform 18 months ago.

The uniform we wear today has around 15 roundels depending on what garments we wear, yet nobody can spot us in a crowd. The old uniform had one, or sometimes three, roundels depending what staff choose to wear and were always readily identifiable.

They got Wayne Hemmingway in and it's proved to be an unmitigated disaster. Even I as a driver struggle not only to spot our own staff, but I also struggle to know what grade I'm speaking to and weather they carry the authority to act in certain roles during given safety procedures. In the past I knew a white shirt was someone in authority. Even the emergency services knew to aim for the white shirt.

If none of us staff have a clue who's who, what hope do the public have.

This red tabard isn't the answer to the problem. It's the uniform itself that needs sorting out.

I suggest the fundamental issue at many of the central London stations I use is the way that too many staff position themselves poorly, making themselves hard to find for a passenger.

As a passenger, I care little whether that is cause by management, or staff. However, I would like both to consider their roles in this and get their collective acts together in the interests of actually serving their customers.

That is not helped by imposing change, nor by the sort of rhetoric in the above quoted union communications.

Indeed clothing will not help with that at all. Stations are theoretically staffed at all times trains are running, but in practice that member of staff may be working on something behind the scenes, dealing with an incident, on a break, covering for understaffing at a different station, absent (e.g. ill), or simply not exist in practice (there was a shortfall of station staff even before the recent reorganisations significantly reduced their numbers in practical terms, despite ostensible intentions to the contrary)

All very embarrassing from all sides TBH. Goal should be how to serve the public rather than posturing.

Unfortunately this has ceased to happen, many staff were moved away from the areas they knew, and are no longer based at a station but at a group of stations, possibly in a totally unfamiliar area and quite likely to be moved again sometime in the future.

Sorry Chris but you're wrong.

LU staff are not paid for 30 minutes meal break each shift, so whilst on their meal break they cannot count towards minimum numbers and are not available to respond to anything. In fact because their meal break is unpaid they are very much entitled to leave the premises (and often do).

Not neccessarily.

If they're on a platform waving a white stick in the air you should wait until the train has departed before approaching them, but otherwise its generally no problem to approach a member of staff in an orange hi vi.

Do bear in mind though that they might not actually be station staff! Train operators, mobile train techicians, techical officers (people who fix signalling issues), mobile incident managers, track inspectors, emergency response unit, etc, etc could well be on a station in the course of their job and they all wear orange hi viz but none of them are station staff performing a customer service type role.

But were they performing the same job?!

The staff member in orange could have been one I mentioned above and just passing through - or maybe they were carrying out a station security check. Security checks are generally done hourly and usually the member of staff doing it wears a hi vi simply because of the area's they need to access and check.

Also, its perhaps worth noting that our CSA's (Customer Service Assistants) on stations are split into two grades - CSA1 can work all area's of a station whereas a CSA2 is restricted to non safety critical functions and are usually restricted to the unpaid side of ticket bariers. At least that's my understanding of the difference in the two grades.

For routine events like football, there's a special group of station staff called the special requirements team which are essentially ordinary members of station staff that are not attached to any particular station but travel around the network working wherever they're needed.

There's a role known as a travel ambassador which are usually staff drawn from back office functions - they wear a pink tabard - and are used when big events like the marathon are on.

The inspector sands message is only a coded warning to staff that something needs urgent attention. An evacuation is a seperate thing and is just that.

But yes, when an evacuation is required, all station staff will absolutely turn orange.

That is not the whole story. I too often see staff around barrier lines in Zone 1 in clusters, focused anywhere but on the passengers.

Whether that is a consequence of poor management and/or poor training, or a reflection on poor attitude by staff, I cannot comment.

That is certainly isn't the whole story because you don't see the minimum staffing levels at Zone 1 stations, it might look as if they're are too many staff around the gatelines but they're keeping the station open. The staff have to go somewhere, the gatelines are where most passengers seek assistance so that is where they are told to go.

Fit for the Future won't have helped, the minimum staffing levels have stayed the same but the staff that used to be in the ticket offices are now out around the gateline too.

Yes

I don’t criticise them for being near the gate lines but for their positioning and focus once there.

Staff focus is your perception and perhaps your perception would be different if you'd worked on gatelines. Five years as a Station Assistant taught me a lot and even though I've not worked a ticket barrier for over 15 years I can still spot someone who needs assistance from their body language (or if they are a fare dodger).

Ain't never gonna happen

When i first saw these I assumed they were a deviation of the bibs given to office staff who sometimes help out. Only when I recognised one of the station assistants who was wearing one, did I realise.

As to staff loitering chatting, so long as they are paying enough attention to passengers, and stop if you go to ask them a question, who cares? In my (non LUL) employment I am able to hold a discussion with a colleague whilst also paying attention to the surroundings.

It is noticeable with the cuts that any disruption at minor stations renders the staff inadequate - they are taken up with trying to deal with the incident or issue and thus aren't around. No number of fluorescent jackets will change that.

Uniform should absolutely not be fashionable or complex. I noticed recentl1y that bus inspectors have a very basic uniform with embroidered shirts and their grade is marked on epaulettes. You could probably find some way of creating a clear difference between customer facing staff and those who should be identifiable as staff but who you don't want to encourage people to bother with questions (although, a technician, cleaner, etc should still be able to provide basic assistance).

Papering over the cracks really, quite why a new uniform was needed I know not.

The SATS on the WB platform at Bank this evening was wearing the vest red side out, it makes them less visible than the orange side.