HS2

[frobisher]

1 hour ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I was told to use a rule of thumb that  one years salary should be allowed for as the cost of reruiting a new employee.

 

Then they're using the wrong recruiters... most agencies charge a lot less than that.

[Bernard Lamb]

27 minutes ago, frobisher said:

 

Then they're using the wrong recruiters... most agencies charge a lot less than that.

I am not talking about the fee that an agency would charge.

I am talking about the total actual cost.

Your comment is about as simplistic as the government spokesperson.

If you have a chat with the HR Director of a large company they would explain it better than I can.

Roughly:-

Cost of drawing up a job description.

Getting legal to check it.

Advertising.

Setting up interviews.

Conducting same.  Where? London I presume for those that want to see the site. 

Induction of accepted candidates and cost of pesonal equipment. Again legal to check.

Update of procedure and other manuals applicable to the job. Again legal need to look at any change in the law since this was last done.

Relocation and or travel expenses. I am totally out of touch with the value and cost of company cars these days but getting shot of the old ones and obtaining new will not be cheap.

Actual on the job training. The time will depend on the job and what time scale you are allowed to set to get a project up to speed. 

Do you start to recruit after a two year gap and then build up the work force or do you start work on the ground immediately?

Do you retain any employees to enable a quck start up? If so in which type of job.

We have not been told.

Then the big question is where are you going to find these people and when you have found them what incentives are you going to have to pay to get them to take the job.

I am no doubt out of touch with modern methods. However I did work on some state of the art projects and we managed to get them completed generally on time and on budget.

Bernard

[lmsforever]

When Euston is mothballed there will have to be a security presence and that will cost money and are the tunnels  to be constructed     whilst the main terminus is gathering dust?

[jamie92208]

As far as I know the Euston tunnels are part of the main contract and will be finished.   I think that the TBM's which are under construction will be the last pair to be launched from the Victoria Road crossover box just west of OOC, they will then have to go through the OOC station site and then on to Euston.  Whilst being dug OOC can't be completed as the lining segments will have to go in and the spoil come out.  The TBM's will then finish at Euston.  I hope that I and still around to finish the graph off.

 

Jamie

[jamie92208]

Can I apologise for the formatting of some of my recent posts.   My new tablet doesn't seem to like the forum software and the keypad does some rather strange things.   The tablet has nearly gone out through the window on several occasions,

 

Jamie

[frobisher]

1 hour ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I am not talking about the fee that an agency would charge.

I am talking about the total actual cost.

Your comment is about as simplistic as the government spokesperson.

 

You said recruiting, NOT employing said recruit.  Different things... 

[woodenhead]

1 hour ago, jamie92208 said:

As far as I know the Euston tunnels are part of the main contract and will be finished.   I think that the TBM's which are under construction will be the last pair to be launched from the Victoria Road crossover box just west of OOC, they will then have to go through the OOC station site and then on to Euston.  Whilst being dug OOC can't be completed as the lining segments will have to go in and the spoil come out.  The TBM's will then finish at Euston.  I hope that I and still around to finish the graph off.

 

Jamie

Well if nothing else, they can build a massive travelator from Old Oak to Euston or a spur off the Hammersmith to Old Oak.

 

Or the longest connecting underground walking tunnel in the world!  Big TFL arrow signs, Euston this way. 🤣

Edited March 14, 2023 by woodenhead

[jjb1970]

9 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

 

In operational terms the TGV arrangement works well and in my experience of cab rides on both Class 373 Eurostars and certain TGVs it copes admirably with what in railway terms are noticeably steep gradients plus offering more than acceptable levels of acceleration.  As a passenger i find the ride on TGV vehicles to be infinitely better than any high speed distributed power passenger vehicles I have travelled in on Britsh infrastructure.

 

I found the original Eurostar trains had a much nicer ride quality than the newer Velaro sets. The Velaro sets reminded me of the Class 350's on the WCML with harsh yaw control which leads to an unsettled, fidgety ride quality which is quite unpleasant. I found it true on the Belgian and French lines too.

 

Personally I much preferred the original trains, the softer decor was more welcoming and I wasn't impressed by the apparent quality of the Velaro trains.

[melmerby]

57 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

Or the longest connecting underground walking tunnel in the world!  Big TFL arrow signs, Euston this way.

Maybe Borisbikes or electric scooters to hire each end?

[St Enodoc]

16 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

Do our rail experts know why?

Not easy to power articulated bogies?

[Bernard Lamb]

9 hours ago, frobisher said:

 

You said recruiting, NOT employing said recruit.  Different things... 

But then I continued with a comment about ongoing costs.

I was making a comment about the two year shut down in reply to a post on that subject.

Do you support the current government policy or not?

Rather than argue about the exact phrasing can we keep to the main discussion.

I have said before that I was once told that I wrote a good report.......for an engineer.

My apologies for not having as good a command of the English language that you have.

I am a 'get results' man not an arguementative pedant and as such am 100% in favour of seeing HS2 up and running with as little delay as possible. If you find that too political then hard luck.

Bernard. (Who does know that the use of uppercase on a forum is shouting and rather rude)

[phil-b259]

8 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I found the original Eurostar trains had a much nicer ride quality than the newer Velaro sets. The Velaro sets reminded me of the Class 350's on the WCML with harsh yaw control which leads to an unsettled, fidgety ride quality which is quite unpleasant. I found it true on the Belgian and French lines too.

 

Personally I much preferred the original trains, the softer decor was more welcoming and I wasn't impressed by the apparent quality of the Velaro trains.

 

Possibly both being related to where they were designed (the skill set / experience of the manufacturer)?

 

Its well known that because BR lacked funds it wasn't able to keep the track infrastructure up to the same high standard as the Germans did and compensated by putting what money it did have into the suspension / ride quality of its coaches - the Mk3 being perhaps the pinnacle in terms of designing a vehicle which gave an excellent ride on what was, by European standards rather ropy track.

 

Thus while Siemens may well be excellent at designing products for the Germanic market - they could be far less skilled at doing the same for the UK...

 

[phil-b259]

18 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

The way the traction kit is arranged in TGV power cars isn't suited at all to distributed power.  

 

Are you able to expand on this?  (I'm curious from a technical perspective)

 

Surely its easily possible to reproduce the tractive effort produced by the power cars with distributed traction - you just need more of the vehicles in the train to be fitted with traction gear.

 

I'm a bit sceptical about the 'because its easy to swap out a power car for maintenance / differing maintenance cycles as a reason too - if it really was that much of an advantage then surely the likes of Siemens would have stuck with their 'separate power car' strategy for the ICE family rather than switching to distributed traction.

 

However I grant that modifications to TGV depots to make them compatible with distributed traction could be costly - particularly as not all TGVs will be replaced and there would have continued to be a need to be able to accommodate the tradition Power car setup alongside any new distributed traction.

 

Ultimately I expect its down to politics though - French national pride cannot have them simply 'copy the Germans', particularly as the French think of themselves as the high speed rail experts in Europe (which, to be fair, is sort of true given they were the first to get going). Also if the French authorities put out a spec which requires something that Siemens don't offer then it makes it easier to award the contract to a French company thus keeping work coming for French companies (and thus keeping jobs in France)

[black and decker boy]

11 hours ago, Bernard Lamb said:

I am not talking about the fee that an agency would charge.

I am talking about the total actual cost.

Your comment is about as simplistic as the government spokesperson.

If you have a chat with the HR Director of a large company they would explain it better than I can.

Roughly:-

Cost of drawing up a job description.

Getting legal to check it.

Advertising.

Setting up interviews.

Conducting same.  Where? London I presume for those that want to see the site. 

Induction of accepted candidates and cost of pesonal equipment. Again legal to check.

Update of procedure and other manuals applicable to the job. Again legal need to look at any change in the law since this was last done.

Relocation and or travel expenses. I am totally out of touch with the value and cost of company cars these days but getting shot of the old ones and obtaining new will not be cheap.

Actual on the job training. The time will depend on the job and what time scale you are allowed to set to get a project up to speed. 

Do you start to recruit after a two year gap and then build up the work force or do you start work on the ground immediately?

Do you retain any employees to enable a quck start up? If so in which type of job.

We have not been told.

Then the big question is where are you going to find these people and when you have found them what incentives are you going to have to pay to get them to take the job.

I am no doubt out of touch with modern methods. However I did work on some state of the art projects and we managed to get them completed generally on time and on budget.

Bernard

In a weird bureaucracy maybe. In a commercial company then no.

 

JDs already written. No legal reviews needed.

IT systems & hardware on a set call off. No reviews needed.

paperwork all done electronically, interviews by Teams 

Onboarding and mandatory training done electronically 

company car not routine in design consultants but then most of the design isn’t done on site, it’s done in existing offices by existing teams

Agency fees typically 15-20% of salary.

 

(I currently recruit on average 1 new start per month into construction contracting). 

[corneliuslundie]

I am afraid that I would not want someone on a site I was managing (not that I ever have managed a site, only chosen and trained staff for office based - usually partly computer based work) who had been employed on the basis of an interview on Teams and purely electronically based training. 

You need to be face to face and see body language etc to judge a person, not an image on a screen. And you need real training  with the real kit, whatever that may be, not simulation. 

I am afraid that your is a very dangerous approach., trendy and cheap thought it may be.

Jonathan

[jjb1970]

If the Velaro was only a rough riding train on UK HS1 then I could see it might be a problem with our track, but it also rides much more harshly on the French and Belgian lines, indicating it may be Germany which is the odd one out. Admittedly that's an extremely limited sample (three systems) but the French LGV has a pretty good reputation, and TGV and TGV derived trains do seem to offer a smooth ride, the Thalys sets are pretty smooth over Dutch tracks. 

[jjb1970]

I'm always a bit sceptical about many of these cost claims. In the 00's I was told every expense claim cost my then employer about £50 to process. I've seen claims about recruiting. I have worked in large and small companies, and been a hiring manager.

 

In large companies I've worked for the mechanics of preparing job specifications (based on technical input from the hiring department and managers), considering advertising, arranging interviews etc was done by the HR department by full time employees who were being paid anyway. It was part of their job. As a hiring manager I had to fit interviews into my schedule as an additional task, as did others. The only expenses for the interviews were travel for the candidates (not a lot) and HR if they needed to travel off site. 

 

Where it might get expensive is using recruitment agencies (their finders fee can be expensive) and if they start doing things like Myers-Briggs testing, selection days and such like as part of selection.

 

In small companies, the whole process is an additional task for whoever does it and recruiting and on-boarding costs are minimal. And in smaller companies it is easier to just short circuit the whole process if you know who you want, my current employer seems to rely on personal contacts.

 

Hiring overseas can become expensive, but that's a different matter. I have brought people into the UK from China and the Republic of Korea and the process of getting work permits, demonstrating there was nobody in Europe etc etc was painful, and usually we'd fly the candidate we wanted over before finalizing the offer (and these were internal candidates, not external). Another potential expense is tax support and potentially setting up a new subsidiary to hire someone. When I started my current role my employer (US based) had to set up a UK company and various formalities to have me employed in England until I could move to Singapore. But again, that's far from normal.

[corneliuslundie]

Only one more comment. You would not need such a big personnel department if it was not recruiting people, so that is a real cost, albeit hard to quantify.

But back to HS2, if there is a pause then I fear that there will be real problems finding good people to start the project again. Anyone any good will have found work elsewhere. I don't know about general construction, but in building services there has for many years been a shortage of good people even in times when the construction industry is not buoyant. And the best people shed by HS2 will quickly find work elsewhere, quite possibly abroad.

BWT didn't HS2 set up some kind of training/apprentice scheme? What will happen to that?

Jonathan

[phil-b259]

51 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

Only one more comment. You would not need such a big personnel department if it was not recruiting people, so that is a real cost, albeit hard to quantify.

But back to HS2, if there is a pause then I fear that there will be real problems finding good people to start the project again. Anyone any good will have found work elsewhere. I don't know about general construction, but in building services there has for many years been a shortage of good people even in times when the construction industry is not buoyant. And the best people shed by HS2 will quickly find work elsewhere, quite possibly abroad.

BWT didn't HS2 set up some kind of training/apprentice scheme? What will happen to that?

Jonathan

 

Given the core bit of phase one is still going ahead over the next few years its not as if there will be a shortage of work!

 

As such I expect the HS2 training / apprentice scheme to be unaffected in the short term.

 

Granted if phase 2 gets dumped in a couple of years time then I expect the train / apprentice scheme will be wound down accordingly - but there are a couple of years and a general election to hold before any decisions need to be made.

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, frobisher said:

 

You said recruiting, NOT employing said recruit.  Different things... 

Crikey, the angels must be falling off the head of the pin.   Recruiting someone means what is says - find them or attract them to find you, interview. select, medical check when needed, confirm selection to the candidate once all checks are completed, induction training, then train up to job skill level.  some will fal;l short at some stage in that process so coast is wasted, some will fall short at some stage in the training and might not be suitable for anything else so they go, and a few will walk once the training is complete and they have to face the reality of the shifts involved and actually doing the job.

 

Only once you get past all that do you have an employee who can do the job for which you have taken them on.   Depending on various things I reckon a year's wages will in some cases be an underestimate (e.g when you have months of training), and in others where the process is short it would be an over estimate.  But in many companies someone in the financial part of the company will also be adding in overheads.

 

PS. In my final 'big railway' job while I allowed an HR person to sit in on interviews I made it clear to her what her role was - pay & rations items.  HR thought they could select candidates to interview from the applications - I refused to go along with that nonsense because they didn't have a clue about what the jobs involved and the sort of skills needed and how they could be 'tested' or what a 'wild card' might offer.

 

Back to HS 2?

Edited March 15, 2023 by The Stationmaster

[corneliuslundie]

But please, "Personnel Department", not "Human Resources". We are recruiting people, not buying machines.

Jonathan

[jjb1970]

9 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

But please, "Personnel Department", not "Human Resources". We are recruiting people, not buying machines.

Jonathan

 

I agree, but unfortunately that train left the station decades ago. My last employer that still called the personnel department the personnel department was Maersk, I left them in 2004 and they already seemed a bit of an anachronism on the matter.

[St Enodoc]

15 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

But please, "Personnel Department", not "Human Resources". We are recruiting people, not buying machines.

Jonathan

Staff Office, if you don't mind...

[black and decker boy]

3 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

I am afraid that I would not want someone on a site I was managing (not that I ever have managed a site, only chosen and trained staff for office based - usually partly computer based work) who had been employed on the basis of an interview on Teams and purely electronically based training. 

You need to be face to face and see body language etc to judge a person, not an image on a screen. And you need real training  with the real kit, whatever that may be, not simulation. 

I am afraid that your is a very dangerous approach., trendy and cheap thought it may be.

Jonathan

Mandatory training on business systems, HR , legal compliance has to be done face to face? Why? Site based induction is F2F but that applies whether new or existing staff.

 

im not talking about plant operators. I talking about qualified engineers, project managers etc.

First interviews by Teams. Follow up, if required, can be in person. Recruitment is a lottery whether F2F or not. I’ve employed many many people over the years, only 1 or two I regard as mistakes and they were F2F interviews.

[black and decker boy]

3 hours ago, corneliuslundie said:

Only one more comment. You would not need such a big personnel department if it was not recruiting people, so that is a real cost, albeit hard to quantify.

But back to HS2, if there is a pause then I fear that there will be real problems finding good people to start the project again. Anyone any good will have found work elsewhere. I don't know about general construction, but in building services there has for many years been a shortage of good people even in times when the construction industry is not buoyant. And the best people shed by HS2 will quickly find work elsewhere, quite possibly abroad.

BWT didn't HS2 set up some kind of training/apprentice scheme? What will happen to that?

Jonathan

They aren’t pausing HS2 phase 1 which is where all the people are employed.

 

they are slowing Euston down to redesign / refine design so the design team will carry in. Construction will wind down but not sure how big the delivery team is currently 

 

phase 2a hasn’t been awarded anyway so no loss of jobs there but no mad scramble to fill vacancies either and the 2 year delay might actually help redeploy some from phase 1