London Underground Reviews

Pros

You can see that LUL is integral to keeping the city moving so job security is fairly strong, redundancies don't really occur, the pension scheme is pretty good and the attendance policy favours the sick, lame and lazy.

Cons

Its company with very little turnover which breeds employees that are resisitant to change, prone to strike at the drop of a hat on the unions say so.

Advice to Senior Management

Prepare long term plans to ensure that the londoners get value for money and value of time by getting tough with the unions and disruptive employees.

Pros

Great Domain and interesting projects. Where else do you get to play with trains all day.

Cons

Organisation paralysis. It's bad even compared to other public sector workplaces. Management was reactive and compounded by jobs for the boys with unqualified ex colleagues parachuted into roles. At least one organisational review by external consultants per year (of varying quality) however recommendations never implemented.

Pros

The people within London Underground are generally very friendly. It is too easy for people to "get lost" within the business though and stay for a long time without needing to contribute much.

Cons

The company is a little backward with processes, technology and mangement techniques. They do seem away of this, which is the first step on the road to improvement.

Advice to Senior Management

The business needs to behave like a money making business rather than a money spending business. The commercial accumen of some reasonably senior staff is shocking!

Pros

The corporate benefits are great - if you have an office based job. If you are on shifts, then there are zero opportunities in general; there are pockets of good practice but it's a dreadful place.

Can't drink, allocated your holidays, no social life - it's a prison sentence but take away the salary, pension contribution and free travel...you're trapped.

Cons

Head office staff - arrogant and ignorant. 90% of them don't actually know we run a train service as our primary business.

Ask them for a report - weeks.
Ask an operations manager to get a body from under a train or walk down dark tunnels on electrified track- minutes.

Advice to Senior Management

' Tim, why are all the company's biggest thugs and bullies at General Manager and Performance Manager level? They're incompetent, the staff don't want to do anything for them and they're never dealt with properly. How much money is lost at tribunals because of these people? When is this going to sink in - the staff cannot stand these people while they tell you everything is rosy in the garden - IT MOST CERTAINLY IS NOT - START DEMONSTRATING TRUE PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND SACK A GM OR 2 -then we might see some movement in the right direction.'

Pros

Pay, benefits, slack hours - it was a pretty easy life.

Cons

It was dull and nothing really ever happenned.

Advice to Senior Management

Make people accountable