The UK Rail Industry - Job Prospects for 2009
Everyone who rides the rails knows things have not been the same since efforts have been made towards privatisation. In a scramble to make things work, companies have been struggling to find qualified workers to help run a smoother and safer system. Rail jobs in the UK have become one of the fastest growing needs to fill.
Parliament has created policies which allowed an investment towards upgrading the rail infrastructure throughout the United Kingdom in 2008. This has forced the creation of new rail jobs, many with fantastic opportunities for those interested in pursuing a career within the transportation sector.
The rail industry is in a tough position when it comes to finding qualified engineers and construction workers who contribute to a safe and reliable rail network. Jobs in the rail industry cover a wide range of skills and talents from janitorial and ticket agents to engineering and management.
Professional, technical, managerial and supervisory personnel are needed by the industry to train operators, consultancies, contractors and manufacturing companies to help the rail system safely function. These positions require advance degrees and some level of experience. Although university graduates can start out in some entry-level positions in management, the greatest need is for engineers, particularly with some experience.
Ever since the London rail bombings, there is a greater need for security and it creates a niche for those who can serve as safety agents prepared to deal with emergency and/or criminal situations. These positions are ideal for former military enlistees who have served in some form of security.
People are also needed to help maintain the structure and integrity of the rail system. Construction on the rail lines is an ongoing need to assure the safety of the trains running on the tracks and that the trains are in perfect order. With a bit of mechanical or construction background, you might find a position working outdoors on the rails.
Customer service issues rank as one of the biggest complaints for riders. Rail companies are in dire need of professional ticket agents who can process ticket purchases in a speedy and courteous manner. These agents also need to be prepared to handle questions and complaints without putting off the customers. It does not take an advance degree to fulfill the requirements, but it does take dedication.
For young people just out of school, janitorial and minor maintenance work at the rail station can lead to greater opportunities later within the industry. Stations need to be kept clean and safe which require a bit of effort that does not take a lot of skills or require a university education.
If you are looking for a job, consider the great opportunities offered in the rail industry. This is a career path that is going to be in high demand for a long time.
Wednesday 17 December 2008
Thursday 11 December 2008
Russian Railways Rescue
An ambitious plan to rejuvenate Russia’s sprawling and antiquated railways will cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars, and the nation’s rail freight system is leading a hunt for new capital in London with this week’s listing of Globaltrans.
Globaltrans, the second-biggest freight operator after the state-owned Russian Railways (RZD), has tapped the London market for $449 million (£228 million), but its move is only the start of a huge and lengthy fund-raising, according to the Russian Government, which intends to privatise the business of freight carriage, to replace 20,000 locomotives, overhaul a railway network of 84,000km (52,000 miles) and eventually bring private capital into the passenger transport network.
Dealings in Globaltrans stock will begin this week, valuing the company at about $1.5 billion, but further corporate activity is expected later in the year when RZD spins off Trans-container in a public offering. A 15 per cent stake in the freight subsidiary of the national railway was sold to a consortium of investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Moore Capital and GLG, for eight billion roubles (£171 million) and RZD plans to offer a further 30 per cent of the stock in November. First Freight, another freight company from the RZD stable, will be sold off next year.
Russian railway bonds, an icon of Imperial Russia in the 19th century, may soon return as a feature of global capital markets. RZD has approved an 80 billion rouble capital-raising via bonds in the local market, but it has plans to borrow 325 billion roubles by 2010, including $7 billion in overseas markets to fund expansion and upgrading.
Russia’s rail network is the backbone of a country divided by distance. The profitable business of moving the nation’s mineral resources has been lumbered until now with the task of subsidising unprofitable services. RZD reckons that the cost of subsidising the passenger is 53 billion roubles a year. The Government wants to liberate freight, to enable it to invest and improve the commercial infrastructure. Igor Levitin, the Transport Minister, has said that the company needed to raise nine trillion roubles for rail transport to rejuvenate a system that had received no investment for 20 years.
The burden of passenger traffic is huge and, in a three-stage reform programme, it was decided to remove the freight cross-subsidy, to bring private capital into freight transport and to shift the burden of supporting passenger traffic to a direct state subsidy.
The first stage, the creation of a joint stock holding company for OAO Russian Railways (RZD), was completed in 2003. The second stage is under way, with the hiving off of commercial activities, such as freight, into profit-making ventures. The final step is the most complicated and politically difficult, since involves the rejuvenation of the passenger service and solving the subsidy dilemma.
Mr Levitin said that vast distances in Russia made passenger rail transport costly. “The longer you go, the cheaper it is [for passengers] by kilometre,” he said. “The Government is going to have to compensate for this difference.”
Private operators will be brought in to run new high-speed trains on shorter routes that might compete with air traffic, but introducing private capital to passenger transport must wait until after 2015. The priority is to get freight moving more efficiently and profitably. Eighty per cent of freight goes by rail in Russia and 60 per cent of passenger traffic.
Mr Levitin said: “Reform of rail transport is a very challenging task and we could do it faster, but it is the backbone and blood vessels of the country. There must not be hesitation, but we must not make mistakes.”
Globaltrans, the second-biggest freight operator after the state-owned Russian Railways (RZD), has tapped the London market for $449 million (£228 million), but its move is only the start of a huge and lengthy fund-raising, according to the Russian Government, which intends to privatise the business of freight carriage, to replace 20,000 locomotives, overhaul a railway network of 84,000km (52,000 miles) and eventually bring private capital into the passenger transport network.
Dealings in Globaltrans stock will begin this week, valuing the company at about $1.5 billion, but further corporate activity is expected later in the year when RZD spins off Trans-container in a public offering. A 15 per cent stake in the freight subsidiary of the national railway was sold to a consortium of investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Moore Capital and GLG, for eight billion roubles (£171 million) and RZD plans to offer a further 30 per cent of the stock in November. First Freight, another freight company from the RZD stable, will be sold off next year.
Russian railway bonds, an icon of Imperial Russia in the 19th century, may soon return as a feature of global capital markets. RZD has approved an 80 billion rouble capital-raising via bonds in the local market, but it has plans to borrow 325 billion roubles by 2010, including $7 billion in overseas markets to fund expansion and upgrading.
Russia’s rail network is the backbone of a country divided by distance. The profitable business of moving the nation’s mineral resources has been lumbered until now with the task of subsidising unprofitable services. RZD reckons that the cost of subsidising the passenger is 53 billion roubles a year. The Government wants to liberate freight, to enable it to invest and improve the commercial infrastructure. Igor Levitin, the Transport Minister, has said that the company needed to raise nine trillion roubles for rail transport to rejuvenate a system that had received no investment for 20 years.
The burden of passenger traffic is huge and, in a three-stage reform programme, it was decided to remove the freight cross-subsidy, to bring private capital into freight transport and to shift the burden of supporting passenger traffic to a direct state subsidy.
The first stage, the creation of a joint stock holding company for OAO Russian Railways (RZD), was completed in 2003. The second stage is under way, with the hiving off of commercial activities, such as freight, into profit-making ventures. The final step is the most complicated and politically difficult, since involves the rejuvenation of the passenger service and solving the subsidy dilemma.
Mr Levitin said that vast distances in Russia made passenger rail transport costly. “The longer you go, the cheaper it is [for passengers] by kilometre,” he said. “The Government is going to have to compensate for this difference.”
Private operators will be brought in to run new high-speed trains on shorter routes that might compete with air traffic, but introducing private capital to passenger transport must wait until after 2015. The priority is to get freight moving more efficiently and profitably. Eighty per cent of freight goes by rail in Russia and 60 per cent of passenger traffic.
Mr Levitin said: “Reform of rail transport is a very challenging task and we could do it faster, but it is the backbone and blood vessels of the country. There must not be hesitation, but we must not make mistakes.”
Rescuing The Railways
Sir, Currently, in real terms, the £5 billion total cost to the State of funding the railways is more than three times greater than that of the former nationalised British Rail (report, Nov 22). This financial commitment is unsustainable and passenger fares must continue to increase. Already, the Government has shifted a considerable burden of funding to the rail traveller. Within the next six years passengers who currently contribute 50 per cent of the cost of operating the railways will see their contribution increase to more than 67 per cent.
Many train operators, especially in the South East, obtained their franchises based on highly optimistic levels of predicted growth in passenger numbers. Most of these train companies have high fixed costs and are unable to reduce their main costs either quickly or meaningfully in an economic downturn. In a recession, the loss of a relatively small volume of commuter and leisure traffic will result in significant trading losses for train operating companies.
The recession in the early 1990s provided evidence of how relatively small declines in passenger numbers can rapidly hit the bottom line. If the present economic turmoil becomes deeper than previous recessions then it is likely that it will be the rail passenger — and not the Government — that will foot a financial rescue package for the train operators.
John Stittle
Essex Business School
The Times
Many train operators, especially in the South East, obtained their franchises based on highly optimistic levels of predicted growth in passenger numbers. Most of these train companies have high fixed costs and are unable to reduce their main costs either quickly or meaningfully in an economic downturn. In a recession, the loss of a relatively small volume of commuter and leisure traffic will result in significant trading losses for train operating companies.
The recession in the early 1990s provided evidence of how relatively small declines in passenger numbers can rapidly hit the bottom line. If the present economic turmoil becomes deeper than previous recessions then it is likely that it will be the rail passenger — and not the Government — that will foot a financial rescue package for the train operators.
John Stittle
Essex Business School
The Times
Dissatisfied Rail Service users
I commute daily to London from Peterborough and although it is my choice to do so, I do it to earn a living. I feel commuters and rail passengers are held to ransom by the rail companies as they know they have a captive audience. The fare for me has just increased to over £600 per month. I have to pay this fare regardless as to whether I get a seat or not. My feeling is that if you buy a ticket, you should buy a seat. Rail travel in Britain is hugely more expensive than in France, Italy and even Switzerland. In Italy last year I travelled the equivalent distance that I travel here daily for £11 return! The train was on time, clean and was an express. The reason being of course that Trenitalia is subsidised. Public services should not be run for profit, they are an essential part of a civilised society. The maintenance work that has just been done over the Christmas period is long overdue but were not done without the shareholders taking their cut first of course.
Stephen Palmer, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
Railwasy -"company structure, which can then be held financially accountable for any failures" - it is the shareholders not the passengers who would benefit or lose. I am a customer of the railways companies but have no say whatsoever.
Jane Fleming, Whittlesey, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
Stephen Palmer, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
Railwasy -"company structure, which can then be held financially accountable for any failures" - it is the shareholders not the passengers who would benefit or lose. I am a customer of the railways companies but have no say whatsoever.
Jane Fleming, Whittlesey, CAMBRIDGESHIRE
Look after the Railways
Sir, I am surprised at the lack of comment from government ministers over the recent fiascos at Rugby and Liverpool Street (report, Jan 3). This is in contrast to the manner in which the Government spoke out whenever Railtrack failed in its duty.
Perhaps there is some embarrassment that the Government’s own creation is proving to be so incompetent and a dawning realisation that if you create a “not for profit” company there is no way that you can punish it by hitting shareholders through a financial penalty — any penalty will only reduce the funds available for improvements and repairs.
Come on, ministers, face up to your responsibilities and integrate track and operations through the private company structure, which can then be held financially accountable for any failures and rewarded for success.
Brian Noton
Cowbridge, Glamorgan
Sir, On Wednesday I returned to work to find Liverpool Street station closed and all trains terminating at Stratford, where our train arrived 50 minutes late because of the difficulty of turning trains around there. Our driver informed us that the police were limiting the number of trains at Stratford because of overcrowding, and when we finally got there we concluded that the police were not wrong.
This is the station that in four years’ time will have to cope with crowds exceeding even the weekly rush hour. It is surely not a moment too soon for those responsible to set about enabling Stratford station to do just that, to prevent the London Olympics from turning into a travellers’ nightmare.
Hazel R. Morgan
Witham, Essex
Sir, In the internet age, the concept of shuttling workers hundreds of miles back and forth every day is ludicrous. No one “forces” commuters to commute, and train operators are entitled to charge the best market rate they can get.
Let’s phase out subsidies and let prices rip: employers can then decide whether they want to provide workspaces where people live, or pay their employees enough to live where the work is.
Ian Morrison
Wareham, Dorset
Sir, The railways need to be on a level playing field with other forms of transport.
A coach pays £165 a year in road fund licence for which it has access to a maintained, improved and policed infrastructure. If a single passenger rail carriage of similar size paid the same sum for access to the rail infrastructure would any further subsidy be required?
Better still, the electric car pays no road licence or tax on the fuel it uses but still has access to the whole of the road infrastructure on environmental grounds, so presumably an electric train should make no contribution at all.
David Crick
Barnstaple, Devon
Sir, Roger Lewis attributes the success of Chiltern Railways to the former “investment by BR in the early 1990s” (Jan 3). He is mistaken. Chiltern’s performance is the consequence of its own massive investment in redoubling track (reduced to single by BR), rebuilt and new stations, and good management that cares for trains and motivates its staff, communicates with customers and negotiates with skill the minefield of Network Rail and the DfT.
Geoffrey Holroyde
Warwick
Sir, How nice to read the words “railways” and “renationalisation” on your front page (Jan 4). The idiocy of having one company manage the trains and another manage the tracks was obvious to the layman from the word go. I never thought I would say it, but come back British Rail, all is forgiven.
Jo Rees
Cheltenham
Perhaps there is some embarrassment that the Government’s own creation is proving to be so incompetent and a dawning realisation that if you create a “not for profit” company there is no way that you can punish it by hitting shareholders through a financial penalty — any penalty will only reduce the funds available for improvements and repairs.
Come on, ministers, face up to your responsibilities and integrate track and operations through the private company structure, which can then be held financially accountable for any failures and rewarded for success.
Brian Noton
Cowbridge, Glamorgan
Sir, On Wednesday I returned to work to find Liverpool Street station closed and all trains terminating at Stratford, where our train arrived 50 minutes late because of the difficulty of turning trains around there. Our driver informed us that the police were limiting the number of trains at Stratford because of overcrowding, and when we finally got there we concluded that the police were not wrong.
This is the station that in four years’ time will have to cope with crowds exceeding even the weekly rush hour. It is surely not a moment too soon for those responsible to set about enabling Stratford station to do just that, to prevent the London Olympics from turning into a travellers’ nightmare.
Hazel R. Morgan
Witham, Essex
Sir, In the internet age, the concept of shuttling workers hundreds of miles back and forth every day is ludicrous. No one “forces” commuters to commute, and train operators are entitled to charge the best market rate they can get.
Let’s phase out subsidies and let prices rip: employers can then decide whether they want to provide workspaces where people live, or pay their employees enough to live where the work is.
Ian Morrison
Wareham, Dorset
Sir, The railways need to be on a level playing field with other forms of transport.
A coach pays £165 a year in road fund licence for which it has access to a maintained, improved and policed infrastructure. If a single passenger rail carriage of similar size paid the same sum for access to the rail infrastructure would any further subsidy be required?
Better still, the electric car pays no road licence or tax on the fuel it uses but still has access to the whole of the road infrastructure on environmental grounds, so presumably an electric train should make no contribution at all.
David Crick
Barnstaple, Devon
Sir, Roger Lewis attributes the success of Chiltern Railways to the former “investment by BR in the early 1990s” (Jan 3). He is mistaken. Chiltern’s performance is the consequence of its own massive investment in redoubling track (reduced to single by BR), rebuilt and new stations, and good management that cares for trains and motivates its staff, communicates with customers and negotiates with skill the minefield of Network Rail and the DfT.
Geoffrey Holroyde
Warwick
Sir, How nice to read the words “railways” and “renationalisation” on your front page (Jan 4). The idiocy of having one company manage the trains and another manage the tracks was obvious to the layman from the word go. I never thought I would say it, but come back British Rail, all is forgiven.
Jo Rees
Cheltenham
King of Tracks
If you get on an early-morning train somewhere on the Oxford line and notice a crop-haired man in a train worker’s jacket sinking a little lower in his seat, you’re probably squashed next to the head of Britain’s rail network.
Iain Coucher wears his Network Rail coat, with a badge displaying his name and title, whenever he travels. “If you don’t believe me, look, here’s my iPod,” he says, emptying the pockets of the anorak hanging on the back of his executive chair.
It’s brave, because only a few months after he became chief executive, the company had a PR disaster. Tens of thousands of passengers were left without trains on the West Coast line because Network Rail couldn’t finish repairs in time.
Mr Coucher, whose organisation demands £5 billion of taxpayers’ money a year, will receive the biggest public questioning of his life in front of MPs in the next few days.
He says that when commuters nobble him on the train, their attitude is . . . what? Tearful? Hostile? Violent? No, he says: “Sympathetic.”
What? They don’t complain, not even since the new year fiasco?
“No, no, they don’t complain.” This is hard to believe. “Honestly, I kid you not. A couple of people will say, ‘I’ve had disrupted journeys’.” And here he recounts being on a train down from Bolton last week, which came to a grinding halt.
“The driver spoke about a signalling problem. In reality, we were actually held there because we had reports of vandals putting stuff on the track, and we wanted to make sure it had been cleared. So when I spoke to them, they went, ‘Thank you very much for explaining, now I understand. Can you tell me about the works on the West Coast? When are they going to be completed?’.”
They talk of “disrupted journeys” rather than complain – through the sheer steely force of his character Mr Coucher manages to transform what sounds like a grumble into a vote of support.
It is a talent that will serve him well in the coming weeks as, after the honeymoon years when everyone was just so pleased they were better than the old Railtrack, Mr Coucher is coming under fire from all sides.
His task is to drag a Victorian system into the 21st century, making Britain a greener, faster, prouder nation. Fans say this driven “hard man” (“I’m ambitious, I’m driven, I like to push people hard”) is one of the few people forceful enough for this challenge, but he can also be just as dogmatic in his resistance to radical change.
On a rail map of Britain on his wall, his 12-year-old son has written his father’s job description in felt tip, “King of Tracks/Dad”.
Yet our King of the Tracks is an unlikely railwayman, arriving almost by chance via aviation and IT: he rides a mountain bike, and confesses to sometimes driving home in his Aston Martin.
As a boy he preferred Airfix planes to train sets, never wanted to be an engine driver, and the closest he came to feeling that trainspotter tingle was illegally jumping across the tracks that ran near the back of his home in Leeds.
“Like many kids, I was bored, I found myself playing on the railways. Only now do I realise the danger of doing so.”
Does he love trains? “I’ve learnt to love them . . . It’s now reaching a point where we are seeing a genuine renaissance in rail. For the past 50 years or so, it was an industry which wasn’t going anywhere, and now we’re combining the heritage and legacy that we’ve got, a proud history of huge great bridges and stations and saying, ‘Actually, we’re going to build something new and better’.”
On the back of his office door are lots of drawings that his children have done of trains, all with plumes of smoke.
“They say choo-choo, and they go clackety-clack, which of course trains don’t do these days. They have never seen a steam train as far as I know, but they still like to draw steam coming out of trains. It’s a little thing that makes me smile.”
So his children didn’t learn that the sounds trains emit is not choo-choo but “we’re sorry for the delays”?
“No because there’s never any delays,” he says with a wry smile – delays, have, admittedly, fallen dramatically.
Later, when one of us complains that a romantic weekend was spoilt by an eternal rain journey, he jokes about providing “quality time”.
He’s mostly deadly serious about modernising. “Because we’ve got such a huge demand for railway now, we need to do things differently. We now need to run railways every single day of the week, we need to run them on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
“We have traditionally taken weekends and Bank Holidays to do engineering work, but we know that there is demand to use the railways 365 days a year so we’ve got to change what we do and how we do it, and find ways in which we can do both: improve the railway, invest in the railway; and allow people to use it later at night, earlier in the morning, Bank Holidays and weekends.” It sounds as if he is planning to put the trains on his own relentless work schedule.
He gets up at 6am in his London pad, at which time he will, most mornings, be greeted by a call telling him of problems on their 22,000 miles of track. Anything serious, they’ll wake him in the night. He works until 8pm, and goes home to his family in Banbury only on Wednesday nights and weekends.
“I’m sure that my family would like to see me more, but I try to make the most of what time I have with them.” When things go wrong, as with this new year, journalists camp outside his home: “It’s difficult on the family.”
Meanwhile, Mr Coucher was hauled in to see the Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, recently. Was she furious? “I’m not going to say exactly the mood of the meeting, but it was – you know, we let the passengers down, we let our stakeholders down, and we resolved to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But, yeah, it was serious stuff.”
Some were surprised that Mr Coucher was not more visible during that crisis. What they did not know was that just as the news broke, his father died. When we ask about it, he says: “I don’t want people to use that as an excuse.”
Once, he said that his job was the most thankless in Britain. “Sometimes it feels like that,” he says. “It can be a thankless task, because we are measured against perfection.
“For us, if everything goes perfectly, everybody’s happy, but sadly we’re such a large railway, moving parts, so many things going on in any one day, roughly 10 per cent of the trains will be late. With three million people travelling every day, that’s a lot of people that can be affected. So, you know, always, at some part of the country, that somebody’s going to be upset.
“But,” he says quickly, aware he has become downbeat, “we’ve made a huge difference in what we do, which in itself is translated into a much better railway for people who use it every single day, so that side is very rewarding.
“It’s a great challenge, and I’ve always been attracted by challenges and seemingly impossible jobs, and this is one of those.”
Is his determination blinding him to the need for change? Over the new year he said that the disruptions were “inexcusable” – a nod, perhaps to the weariness train users have with endless and sometimes farcical excuses for train delays. In the intervening weeks he seems to have mustered his, well, excuses.
Of course, “with hindsight”, he would have done things differently, and he’s very sorry, but the project was huge, the timescale was short, etc, etc. He excuses himself at length without addressing the reasons for his failure.
He hopes that MPs will give him an “objective and fair hearing”, but instead they may challenge him on greater reform.
What about changing the strange, nonaccountable nature of Network Rail’s board?
“The last thing that this industry can need is fundamental change. We have got too big an agenda now, that the passengers need investment, we need to get on and do that, quickly and efficiently without having to constantly reexamine structures and . . . We can’t hang around, there’s a lot of work to be done.”
What about experimenting with a company owning track and trains? “The last thing this industry needs is radical restructuring and change. The passengers won’t see a better railway for it, it won’t save any money, it won’t make it any safer and it won’t make it perform better . . . Change will be the enemy of the passenger.”
Mr Coucher may be the man with a great, Victorian-scale vision, for a second age of the train. But first he has to get on friendly terms with change.
Iain Coucher wears his Network Rail coat, with a badge displaying his name and title, whenever he travels. “If you don’t believe me, look, here’s my iPod,” he says, emptying the pockets of the anorak hanging on the back of his executive chair.
It’s brave, because only a few months after he became chief executive, the company had a PR disaster. Tens of thousands of passengers were left without trains on the West Coast line because Network Rail couldn’t finish repairs in time.
Mr Coucher, whose organisation demands £5 billion of taxpayers’ money a year, will receive the biggest public questioning of his life in front of MPs in the next few days.
He says that when commuters nobble him on the train, their attitude is . . . what? Tearful? Hostile? Violent? No, he says: “Sympathetic.”
What? They don’t complain, not even since the new year fiasco?
“No, no, they don’t complain.” This is hard to believe. “Honestly, I kid you not. A couple of people will say, ‘I’ve had disrupted journeys’.” And here he recounts being on a train down from Bolton last week, which came to a grinding halt.
“The driver spoke about a signalling problem. In reality, we were actually held there because we had reports of vandals putting stuff on the track, and we wanted to make sure it had been cleared. So when I spoke to them, they went, ‘Thank you very much for explaining, now I understand. Can you tell me about the works on the West Coast? When are they going to be completed?’.”
They talk of “disrupted journeys” rather than complain – through the sheer steely force of his character Mr Coucher manages to transform what sounds like a grumble into a vote of support.
It is a talent that will serve him well in the coming weeks as, after the honeymoon years when everyone was just so pleased they were better than the old Railtrack, Mr Coucher is coming under fire from all sides.
His task is to drag a Victorian system into the 21st century, making Britain a greener, faster, prouder nation. Fans say this driven “hard man” (“I’m ambitious, I’m driven, I like to push people hard”) is one of the few people forceful enough for this challenge, but he can also be just as dogmatic in his resistance to radical change.
On a rail map of Britain on his wall, his 12-year-old son has written his father’s job description in felt tip, “King of Tracks/Dad”.
Yet our King of the Tracks is an unlikely railwayman, arriving almost by chance via aviation and IT: he rides a mountain bike, and confesses to sometimes driving home in his Aston Martin.
As a boy he preferred Airfix planes to train sets, never wanted to be an engine driver, and the closest he came to feeling that trainspotter tingle was illegally jumping across the tracks that ran near the back of his home in Leeds.
“Like many kids, I was bored, I found myself playing on the railways. Only now do I realise the danger of doing so.”
Does he love trains? “I’ve learnt to love them . . . It’s now reaching a point where we are seeing a genuine renaissance in rail. For the past 50 years or so, it was an industry which wasn’t going anywhere, and now we’re combining the heritage and legacy that we’ve got, a proud history of huge great bridges and stations and saying, ‘Actually, we’re going to build something new and better’.”
On the back of his office door are lots of drawings that his children have done of trains, all with plumes of smoke.
“They say choo-choo, and they go clackety-clack, which of course trains don’t do these days. They have never seen a steam train as far as I know, but they still like to draw steam coming out of trains. It’s a little thing that makes me smile.”
So his children didn’t learn that the sounds trains emit is not choo-choo but “we’re sorry for the delays”?
“No because there’s never any delays,” he says with a wry smile – delays, have, admittedly, fallen dramatically.
Later, when one of us complains that a romantic weekend was spoilt by an eternal rain journey, he jokes about providing “quality time”.
He’s mostly deadly serious about modernising. “Because we’ve got such a huge demand for railway now, we need to do things differently. We now need to run railways every single day of the week, we need to run them on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
“We have traditionally taken weekends and Bank Holidays to do engineering work, but we know that there is demand to use the railways 365 days a year so we’ve got to change what we do and how we do it, and find ways in which we can do both: improve the railway, invest in the railway; and allow people to use it later at night, earlier in the morning, Bank Holidays and weekends.” It sounds as if he is planning to put the trains on his own relentless work schedule.
He gets up at 6am in his London pad, at which time he will, most mornings, be greeted by a call telling him of problems on their 22,000 miles of track. Anything serious, they’ll wake him in the night. He works until 8pm, and goes home to his family in Banbury only on Wednesday nights and weekends.
“I’m sure that my family would like to see me more, but I try to make the most of what time I have with them.” When things go wrong, as with this new year, journalists camp outside his home: “It’s difficult on the family.”
Meanwhile, Mr Coucher was hauled in to see the Transport Secretary, Ruth Kelly, recently. Was she furious? “I’m not going to say exactly the mood of the meeting, but it was – you know, we let the passengers down, we let our stakeholders down, and we resolved to make sure that doesn’t happen again. But, yeah, it was serious stuff.”
Some were surprised that Mr Coucher was not more visible during that crisis. What they did not know was that just as the news broke, his father died. When we ask about it, he says: “I don’t want people to use that as an excuse.”
Once, he said that his job was the most thankless in Britain. “Sometimes it feels like that,” he says. “It can be a thankless task, because we are measured against perfection.
“For us, if everything goes perfectly, everybody’s happy, but sadly we’re such a large railway, moving parts, so many things going on in any one day, roughly 10 per cent of the trains will be late. With three million people travelling every day, that’s a lot of people that can be affected. So, you know, always, at some part of the country, that somebody’s going to be upset.
“But,” he says quickly, aware he has become downbeat, “we’ve made a huge difference in what we do, which in itself is translated into a much better railway for people who use it every single day, so that side is very rewarding.
“It’s a great challenge, and I’ve always been attracted by challenges and seemingly impossible jobs, and this is one of those.”
Is his determination blinding him to the need for change? Over the new year he said that the disruptions were “inexcusable” – a nod, perhaps to the weariness train users have with endless and sometimes farcical excuses for train delays. In the intervening weeks he seems to have mustered his, well, excuses.
Of course, “with hindsight”, he would have done things differently, and he’s very sorry, but the project was huge, the timescale was short, etc, etc. He excuses himself at length without addressing the reasons for his failure.
He hopes that MPs will give him an “objective and fair hearing”, but instead they may challenge him on greater reform.
What about changing the strange, nonaccountable nature of Network Rail’s board?
“The last thing that this industry can need is fundamental change. We have got too big an agenda now, that the passengers need investment, we need to get on and do that, quickly and efficiently without having to constantly reexamine structures and . . . We can’t hang around, there’s a lot of work to be done.”
What about experimenting with a company owning track and trains? “The last thing this industry needs is radical restructuring and change. The passengers won’t see a better railway for it, it won’t save any money, it won’t make it any safer and it won’t make it perform better . . . Change will be the enemy of the passenger.”
Mr Coucher may be the man with a great, Victorian-scale vision, for a second age of the train. But first he has to get on friendly terms with change.
Rescuing the Railways
Sir, Currently, in real terms, the £5 billion total cost to the State of funding the railways is more than three times greater than that of the former nationalised British Rail (report, Nov 22). This financial commitment is unsustainable and passenger fares must continue to increase. Already, the Government has shifted a considerable burden of funding to the rail traveller. Within the next six years passengers who currently contribute 50 per cent of the cost of operating the railways will see their contribution increase to more than 67 per cent.
Many train operators, especially in the South East, obtained their franchises based on highly optimistic levels of predicted growth in passenger numbers. Most of these train companies have high fixed costs and are unable to reduce their main costs either quickly or meaningfully in an economic downturn. In a recession, the loss of a relatively small volume of commuter and leisure traffic will result in significant trading losses for train operating companies.
The recession in the early 1990s provided evidence of how relatively small declines in passenger numbers can rapidly hit the bottom line. If the present economic turmoil becomes deeper than previous recessions then it is likely that it will be the rail passenger — and not the Government — that will foot a financial rescue package for the train operators.
John Stittle
Many train operators, especially in the South East, obtained their franchises based on highly optimistic levels of predicted growth in passenger numbers. Most of these train companies have high fixed costs and are unable to reduce their main costs either quickly or meaningfully in an economic downturn. In a recession, the loss of a relatively small volume of commuter and leisure traffic will result in significant trading losses for train operating companies.
The recession in the early 1990s provided evidence of how relatively small declines in passenger numbers can rapidly hit the bottom line. If the present economic turmoil becomes deeper than previous recessions then it is likely that it will be the rail passenger — and not the Government — that will foot a financial rescue package for the train operators.
John Stittle
Wednesday 10 December 2008
Graduate Careers in the credit crunch
Like the winter weather, the employment landscape seems to be getting steadily bleaker. For students who face the prospect of job-hunting in Britain’s worst recession since the early Nineties, it is likely to mean tough choices.
A year ago, many would have left university to go into highly paid City careers, but the downturn has radically altered their choice of employment, according to a survey of 1,000 final-year undergraduates by TMP Worldwide, a recruitment communications agency and the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) .
Working in the public sector has become much more appealing to graduates – the Civil Service has risen from eighth to fourth-most popular destination and teaching from seventh to sixth. Investment banking has fallen in popularity from second place to ninth (see graphic, right). Accountancy remains the most stable career choice and the finalists’ top choice, regardless of the credit crunch.
“At the moment, graduates are going for what they see as safer career options. It will be interesting to see whether the Civil Service and teaching professions have a problem retaining graduates in two or three years’ time,” Neil Harrison, the head of research and planning at TMP Worldwide, said.
Top 100 Graduate employers: Transport for London
The drop in graduates’ confidence has been rapid. When the AGR undertook the same survey in April, 55 per cent said that they were “very confident” of finding a job. Now only 10 per cent are very confident. Almost half say that they are not confident.
Undergraduates who might once have turned up at the university career service brandishing their degree certificate are being forced to be more proactive, Mr Harrison said. “People are getting their applications in earlier and spreading the net wider.” About 4 per cent admitted to embellishing their CVs in order to get a job, he said.
Two thirds said that they would accept a lower salary and be “much more flexible” on where they worked, while 47 per cent would put up with a poor work-life balance while they rode out the recession.
Yet most will not compromise on training, the survey found. Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the AGR, said: “It doesn’t matter what the state of the market is – graduates always want to work for jobs they will grow in. This generation puts enormous value on career development.”
Mr Gilleard predicted that 30 per cent of graduate recruiters would recruit fewer graduates this year. Starting salaries were unlikely to fall but fewer jobs could mean settling for less, he said. Some graduates plan to ride out the financial storm by going travelling or returning to study. However, Mr Gilleard said: “We are not sure that 2010 will be a better year. Employers won’t penalise you for taking time out if you can point to the skills and experiences that have made you a better prospect.”
Alexandra Harrison, 23, graduated with a 2.1 in English from Southampton University and is studying for a masters. She is applying for graduate schemes in marketing and retail management: “I probably wouldn’t have chosen to do a masters if I’d known what the market would be like. Hopefully, it will give me a bit of extra employability. There are jobs out there, but the competition will be harder.”
Laura Fletcher, 21, is in her final year of a child psychology degree at Oxford Brookes University. “I was originally planning to go straight into work in September, but I’ve decided to take time out to earn money and do a PA [personal assistant] course, which I hope will improve my prospects,” she said.
A year ago, many would have left university to go into highly paid City careers, but the downturn has radically altered their choice of employment, according to a survey of 1,000 final-year undergraduates by TMP Worldwide, a recruitment communications agency and the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) .
Working in the public sector has become much more appealing to graduates – the Civil Service has risen from eighth to fourth-most popular destination and teaching from seventh to sixth. Investment banking has fallen in popularity from second place to ninth (see graphic, right). Accountancy remains the most stable career choice and the finalists’ top choice, regardless of the credit crunch.
“At the moment, graduates are going for what they see as safer career options. It will be interesting to see whether the Civil Service and teaching professions have a problem retaining graduates in two or three years’ time,” Neil Harrison, the head of research and planning at TMP Worldwide, said.
Top 100 Graduate employers: Transport for London
The drop in graduates’ confidence has been rapid. When the AGR undertook the same survey in April, 55 per cent said that they were “very confident” of finding a job. Now only 10 per cent are very confident. Almost half say that they are not confident.
Undergraduates who might once have turned up at the university career service brandishing their degree certificate are being forced to be more proactive, Mr Harrison said. “People are getting their applications in earlier and spreading the net wider.” About 4 per cent admitted to embellishing their CVs in order to get a job, he said.
Two thirds said that they would accept a lower salary and be “much more flexible” on where they worked, while 47 per cent would put up with a poor work-life balance while they rode out the recession.
Yet most will not compromise on training, the survey found. Carl Gilleard, chief executive of the AGR, said: “It doesn’t matter what the state of the market is – graduates always want to work for jobs they will grow in. This generation puts enormous value on career development.”
Mr Gilleard predicted that 30 per cent of graduate recruiters would recruit fewer graduates this year. Starting salaries were unlikely to fall but fewer jobs could mean settling for less, he said. Some graduates plan to ride out the financial storm by going travelling or returning to study. However, Mr Gilleard said: “We are not sure that 2010 will be a better year. Employers won’t penalise you for taking time out if you can point to the skills and experiences that have made you a better prospect.”
Alexandra Harrison, 23, graduated with a 2.1 in English from Southampton University and is studying for a masters. She is applying for graduate schemes in marketing and retail management: “I probably wouldn’t have chosen to do a masters if I’d known what the market would be like. Hopefully, it will give me a bit of extra employability. There are jobs out there, but the competition will be harder.”
Laura Fletcher, 21, is in her final year of a child psychology degree at Oxford Brookes University. “I was originally planning to go straight into work in September, but I’ve decided to take time out to earn money and do a PA [personal assistant] course, which I hope will improve my prospects,” she said.
Tuesday 9 December 2008
The Healthy Work/Life Balance
Nine to Five may have been a hit for Dolly Parton, but, for most of us, it’s no longer true of working life. Longer hours and e-mail make it hard to switch off and balancing the demands on your time is a challenge, particularly if you have family commitments. But having a meaningful job doesn’t have to mean sacrificing your personal life. Weigh up what the experts have to say about finding that mythical equilibrium.
1. Join the revolution.
“Flexible working [is] on the rise,” says Stephen Overell, a researcher at the Work Foundation, a charity. “Employers will go to surprising lengths to accommodate you.” So if starting an hour later or working from home one day a week would improve things, ask for it. “Sell [the arrangement] to your employer as a business case,” says Steve Williams, head of equality at Acas, the employment relations service. Legally, managers are obliged to consider your request, although they don’t have to agree to it.
2. Manage your time.
Self-discipline is your saviour. “You might work 11 hours a day but if four are spent chatting or being interrupted it’s not productive,” says Peter Flade, a managing partner at Gallup, a consultancy. He also advises setting aside sacrosanct time outside the office where work is not allowed to interfere.
3. Say “no” positively.
“If you take on too much, [then] you can’t deliver on it well, it eats away at you and you let people down,” Flade says. “Saying ‘no’ is better for your clients, colleagues, and family.” Overell agrees. “Everyone has the urge to please, especially younger workers. But you get more respect by saying ‘no’ than saying ‘yes’.”
4. Focus on outcomes.
Measure your performance by what you achieve – don’t stay late for the sake of it. “It could be that you can do [your work] in 35 hours and your colleague takes 50, ” says Flade. “It’s the quality of the work that counts.” Overell: “Graduates are often pushed very hard and it’s intoxicating to be in that elite group. But retain a sense of perspective.”
5. Sharpen your skills.
“Take advantage of every training opportunity – you’ll improve your skills and find ways to become more efficient,” Williams says.
6. Look after yourself.
Sleep and diet are often the first casualties when work becomes too much. “Consistently working long hours is not good for you,” Overell says. “Stress can lead to mental health problems and heart disease.”
7. Take time out.
“Some people go to the gym at lunchtime, others go out for a walk,” Williams says. “A break will make you more productive and prevent that 3 o’clock output slump.”
8. Don’t neglect your friends.
Working relationships can lead to lasting friendships, but more often than not they fade when people move on. “It’s very easy to let workmates become proxy for friends and family,” Overell says. “But it’s a superficial network and needs to be checked.”
9. Talk to someone.
If you’re feeling stressed, say something early, Williams advises. “Don’t wait until you’re cracking up and your work is hopelessly behind.” Usually your line manager is the best person to approach, he says.
10. Work is not the enemy.
“Work can be a huge source of wellbeing,” says Flade, who puts in 60-hour weeks but refuses to own a BlackBerry and never works at weekends. “There’s a huge difference between being busy and being stressed,” Williams says.
1. Join the revolution.
“Flexible working [is] on the rise,” says Stephen Overell, a researcher at the Work Foundation, a charity. “Employers will go to surprising lengths to accommodate you.” So if starting an hour later or working from home one day a week would improve things, ask for it. “Sell [the arrangement] to your employer as a business case,” says Steve Williams, head of equality at Acas, the employment relations service. Legally, managers are obliged to consider your request, although they don’t have to agree to it.
2. Manage your time.
Self-discipline is your saviour. “You might work 11 hours a day but if four are spent chatting or being interrupted it’s not productive,” says Peter Flade, a managing partner at Gallup, a consultancy. He also advises setting aside sacrosanct time outside the office where work is not allowed to interfere.
3. Say “no” positively.
“If you take on too much, [then] you can’t deliver on it well, it eats away at you and you let people down,” Flade says. “Saying ‘no’ is better for your clients, colleagues, and family.” Overell agrees. “Everyone has the urge to please, especially younger workers. But you get more respect by saying ‘no’ than saying ‘yes’.”
4. Focus on outcomes.
Measure your performance by what you achieve – don’t stay late for the sake of it. “It could be that you can do [your work] in 35 hours and your colleague takes 50, ” says Flade. “It’s the quality of the work that counts.” Overell: “Graduates are often pushed very hard and it’s intoxicating to be in that elite group. But retain a sense of perspective.”
5. Sharpen your skills.
“Take advantage of every training opportunity – you’ll improve your skills and find ways to become more efficient,” Williams says.
6. Look after yourself.
Sleep and diet are often the first casualties when work becomes too much. “Consistently working long hours is not good for you,” Overell says. “Stress can lead to mental health problems and heart disease.”
7. Take time out.
“Some people go to the gym at lunchtime, others go out for a walk,” Williams says. “A break will make you more productive and prevent that 3 o’clock output slump.”
8. Don’t neglect your friends.
Working relationships can lead to lasting friendships, but more often than not they fade when people move on. “It’s very easy to let workmates become proxy for friends and family,” Overell says. “But it’s a superficial network and needs to be checked.”
9. Talk to someone.
If you’re feeling stressed, say something early, Williams advises. “Don’t wait until you’re cracking up and your work is hopelessly behind.” Usually your line manager is the best person to approach, he says.
10. Work is not the enemy.
“Work can be a huge source of wellbeing,” says Flade, who puts in 60-hour weeks but refuses to own a BlackBerry and never works at weekends. “There’s a huge difference between being busy and being stressed,” Williams says.
How to Get Promotion
Earning a promotion is a complex affair. Matters such as pay and benefits begin to look easy compared with manoeuvring your way up (or sideways) through the ranks. Look around you before you jump at a new opportunity – a new job title could be the least important of many considerations, according to our experts.
1. Put yourself out.
There’s more to a job than a 12-line description, Simon Copeman, the acquisition and alliance manager at 3M UK and Ireland, says. “I’m looking [to promote] someone who does a pretty good job... but also someone who comes up with solutions. Someone who has taken the initiative within their current role [and] has managed new experiences outside the strict job description.”
2. Own up to itchy feet.
Few people are honest about their aspirations when they speak to their manager, says Julie Bowen, the head of organisational development at Adecco, a recruitment company. “At formal appraisals, people should be honest and not say what they think their boss wants to hear. They have to have the courage to say, ‘look, I love this job but’.”
3. Ask for help.
With luck, your manager should have noticed that you are ready to take on extra responsibility, Copeman says. Take his or her advice on what role you are ready for and when you are ready for it.
4. Think twice.
It’s important to know what motivates you before you move. “Be cautious,” Bowen says. “Yes, it’s a step up but is it at the loss of everything else?” Could you find yourself better paid, but uninspired by your new colleagues or working longer hours when time at home is more important to you, for example?
5. Consider all the options.
The smart move is not always up, says Helena Clayton, the director of open programmes at Roffey Park, an executive education college. “Employability is about the range of skills that you have,” she says. “Taking a role that gives you those skills may not necessarily mean a promotion. Some of the most challenging roles might be sideways.”
6. Put yourself about a bit.
If you’re looking for a more challenging role it’s important to raise your profile, Clayton says. “Volunteer for cross-cutting projects and jobs... where you can make your mark. Put yourself in front of senior people and find yourself a senior-level mentor.”
7. Know the known knowns.
There’s no excuse for a lack of research when you’re pitching for a more senior role. Make sure you have a copy of the job description and the low-down on the skills required so that you can talk about the ways in which you shape up, Bowen says.
8. Play nicely.
“What you have achieved is important but how you achieved it is equally so. How you treat people – your management style or the quality of your interpersonal relationships – carries more weight when you go for promotion because ultimately you can achieve results only through other people,” Clayton says.
9. Be flexible.
“You might have a pretty clear idea of where you want go but that might not be possible. If you are flexible about your next move, the chances of being promoted are that much higher,” Copeman says.
10. Don’t burn your bridges.
Always leave on friendly terms – you might find yourself working for the same manager again.
Find out more
Put your best foot forward with How To Get The Perfect Promotion: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Career Prospects, by John Lees (McGraw-Hill Professional, £12.99)
1. Put yourself out.
There’s more to a job than a 12-line description, Simon Copeman, the acquisition and alliance manager at 3M UK and Ireland, says. “I’m looking [to promote] someone who does a pretty good job... but also someone who comes up with solutions. Someone who has taken the initiative within their current role [and] has managed new experiences outside the strict job description.”
2. Own up to itchy feet.
Few people are honest about their aspirations when they speak to their manager, says Julie Bowen, the head of organisational development at Adecco, a recruitment company. “At formal appraisals, people should be honest and not say what they think their boss wants to hear. They have to have the courage to say, ‘look, I love this job but’.”
3. Ask for help.
With luck, your manager should have noticed that you are ready to take on extra responsibility, Copeman says. Take his or her advice on what role you are ready for and when you are ready for it.
4. Think twice.
It’s important to know what motivates you before you move. “Be cautious,” Bowen says. “Yes, it’s a step up but is it at the loss of everything else?” Could you find yourself better paid, but uninspired by your new colleagues or working longer hours when time at home is more important to you, for example?
5. Consider all the options.
The smart move is not always up, says Helena Clayton, the director of open programmes at Roffey Park, an executive education college. “Employability is about the range of skills that you have,” she says. “Taking a role that gives you those skills may not necessarily mean a promotion. Some of the most challenging roles might be sideways.”
6. Put yourself about a bit.
If you’re looking for a more challenging role it’s important to raise your profile, Clayton says. “Volunteer for cross-cutting projects and jobs... where you can make your mark. Put yourself in front of senior people and find yourself a senior-level mentor.”
7. Know the known knowns.
There’s no excuse for a lack of research when you’re pitching for a more senior role. Make sure you have a copy of the job description and the low-down on the skills required so that you can talk about the ways in which you shape up, Bowen says.
8. Play nicely.
“What you have achieved is important but how you achieved it is equally so. How you treat people – your management style or the quality of your interpersonal relationships – carries more weight when you go for promotion because ultimately you can achieve results only through other people,” Clayton says.
9. Be flexible.
“You might have a pretty clear idea of where you want go but that might not be possible. If you are flexible about your next move, the chances of being promoted are that much higher,” Copeman says.
10. Don’t burn your bridges.
Always leave on friendly terms – you might find yourself working for the same manager again.
Find out more
Put your best foot forward with How To Get The Perfect Promotion: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Career Prospects, by John Lees (McGraw-Hill Professional, £12.99)
Getting through Recession
An economic slowdown doesn’t necessarily mean mass redundancies, but it can certainly make it harder to keep moving up the career ladder. Graduates might find it harder to get the exact job that they want while experienced managers will need to think carefully about how to avoid getting stuck in one position for too long.
1. Don’t panic. “The best data we have at the moment is that we are not going to go into a full-blown recession,” says Russell Hobby, an associate director at Hay Group, an HR consultancy. “Growth will slow for about 18 months but it will then recover.”
2. Assess your sector. On average, employers are looking to cut about 1 per cent of their work-force, but this varies considerably by industry. Something like a third of all job losses are likely to be in banking and finance, Hobby says. Other potentially shaky sectors include retail and construction; the public sector, particularly local government, is also tightening its budget and is no longer the safe haven that it once was.
3. Graduates will stay in demand. Some firms cut their graduate recruitment programmes during the last economic downturn but found that this left them short of trained staff when it got moving. They’re not likely to make this mistake again. Some get around this by signing graduates up now but inviting them to defer for 12 months. For example, UBS’s 2008 recruits can choose to spend a year doing voluntary work with the bank’s financial support.
How ethical are you?
Are you an enforcer, philosopher, judge, angel, teacher or guardian? Find out the composition of your moral DNA with our test
4. Study. With things expected to pick up again in 18 months, it’s worth looking at doing a masters degree in the meantime, Hobby says. Students and new graduates might find that further study is a good way to wait out a slow patch without getting stuck with a period of unemployment on their CVs; people who are already established in their careers, however, need to be sure that the higher degree will add enough value to justify taking time off the ladder.
5. Don’t be dogmatic. Graduates should be more open-minded about their options, Hobby says. For example, if you want to work in finance, you could take a position in industry for the moment and move across when things brighten up. Flexibility will also benefit people already in work, particularly if belt tightening means that where or how they work changes.
6. Reconsider quitting. The idea of jumping ship can be tempting – particularly if you’re desperate for promotion – but it might not be a good idea, says Nick Parfitt, a consultant at Cubiks, an HR consultancy. “For a start, if you quit you lose redundancy protection.” You may move and find that, regardless of how well you do your job, you are cheap to get rid of and therefore vulnerable if redundancies hit.
7. Keep on moving. Stagnating in your present role is not a good idea. Recruiters may peg you as lacking in drive or ambition if you stay in one position for too long. “It’s very important to keep up momentum,” says Max Williamson, a director of careersinaudit.com. “In an economic slowdown that promotion might not come. If you cannot see the next step in the UK, you can look overseas and leapfrog it.” Hobby says: “China, the Middle East and India are growing fast [although] we expect that to slow in a few years.” Go overseas for a time and move back when growth picks up.
8. Internal progress is better than nothing. If an international move is out of the question, look for training or promotion opportunities with your current employer, Parfitt says.
9. Think about your profession. Engineers are in a good position, says Chris Cole, the managing director of Darwin Park, a recruitment consultancy. “Demand is up 19 per cent this year and is set to outstrip supply by 23 per cent by 2010,” he says. Across other professions, companies are continuing to hire people for sales, marketing and customer-facing roles while those in back-office jobs – HR, finance, IT and so on – are more likely to feel the crunch, Hobby says.
10. Don’t demand a pay rise. “If your company is laying people off left right and centre and you walk in and try to negotiate a 20 per cent increase, you will really get up your boss’s nose,” Parfitt says. If you can prove that you’ve added value, consider asking for an increase in the performance-related aspect of your pay – this is easier to justify than a rise in base salary.
Taken from the times
1. Don’t panic. “The best data we have at the moment is that we are not going to go into a full-blown recession,” says Russell Hobby, an associate director at Hay Group, an HR consultancy. “Growth will slow for about 18 months but it will then recover.”
2. Assess your sector. On average, employers are looking to cut about 1 per cent of their work-force, but this varies considerably by industry. Something like a third of all job losses are likely to be in banking and finance, Hobby says. Other potentially shaky sectors include retail and construction; the public sector, particularly local government, is also tightening its budget and is no longer the safe haven that it once was.
3. Graduates will stay in demand. Some firms cut their graduate recruitment programmes during the last economic downturn but found that this left them short of trained staff when it got moving. They’re not likely to make this mistake again. Some get around this by signing graduates up now but inviting them to defer for 12 months. For example, UBS’s 2008 recruits can choose to spend a year doing voluntary work with the bank’s financial support.
How ethical are you?
Are you an enforcer, philosopher, judge, angel, teacher or guardian? Find out the composition of your moral DNA with our test
4. Study. With things expected to pick up again in 18 months, it’s worth looking at doing a masters degree in the meantime, Hobby says. Students and new graduates might find that further study is a good way to wait out a slow patch without getting stuck with a period of unemployment on their CVs; people who are already established in their careers, however, need to be sure that the higher degree will add enough value to justify taking time off the ladder.
5. Don’t be dogmatic. Graduates should be more open-minded about their options, Hobby says. For example, if you want to work in finance, you could take a position in industry for the moment and move across when things brighten up. Flexibility will also benefit people already in work, particularly if belt tightening means that where or how they work changes.
6. Reconsider quitting. The idea of jumping ship can be tempting – particularly if you’re desperate for promotion – but it might not be a good idea, says Nick Parfitt, a consultant at Cubiks, an HR consultancy. “For a start, if you quit you lose redundancy protection.” You may move and find that, regardless of how well you do your job, you are cheap to get rid of and therefore vulnerable if redundancies hit.
7. Keep on moving. Stagnating in your present role is not a good idea. Recruiters may peg you as lacking in drive or ambition if you stay in one position for too long. “It’s very important to keep up momentum,” says Max Williamson, a director of careersinaudit.com. “In an economic slowdown that promotion might not come. If you cannot see the next step in the UK, you can look overseas and leapfrog it.” Hobby says: “China, the Middle East and India are growing fast [although] we expect that to slow in a few years.” Go overseas for a time and move back when growth picks up.
8. Internal progress is better than nothing. If an international move is out of the question, look for training or promotion opportunities with your current employer, Parfitt says.
9. Think about your profession. Engineers are in a good position, says Chris Cole, the managing director of Darwin Park, a recruitment consultancy. “Demand is up 19 per cent this year and is set to outstrip supply by 23 per cent by 2010,” he says. Across other professions, companies are continuing to hire people for sales, marketing and customer-facing roles while those in back-office jobs – HR, finance, IT and so on – are more likely to feel the crunch, Hobby says.
10. Don’t demand a pay rise. “If your company is laying people off left right and centre and you walk in and try to negotiate a 20 per cent increase, you will really get up your boss’s nose,” Parfitt says. If you can prove that you’ve added value, consider asking for an increase in the performance-related aspect of your pay – this is easier to justify than a rise in base salary.
Taken from the times
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