What kind of unpopular changes have the staff had to communicate? Some examples would be good. For instance, turning customers away if they are 5 mins late for the breakfast cut off, is that a company policy or is that something that is down the the staff member?
And even if it is company policy, what would happen to the staff if they turned a blind eye for minor infractions?
Very few, if any, front of house staff have influence on the procedures they are operating to. So having to enact something that isn’t their idea is pretty universal up and down the country and far from unique to CS.
OK, here goes:
1) the bizarre end-of-platform boarding system of 2018-19, which staff and passengers alike hated.
2) the short-lived but ridiculous ’no sharing tables with strangers’ rule in the lounge car (another piece of 2018-19 madness), which made some passengers irate.
3) stopping first class passengers from reserving tables in the lounge car/stopping staff reserving tables for regulars, which had been a perfectly accepted practice for some years previously.
4) increases in the cost of berth supplements
5) pre-Covid, the breakfast card ordering system
6) underestimation by CS of how busy the lounge car would be, resulting in the lounge car running out of food completely/having half the menu unavailable mid-journey.
In First Group days, things were very laid back and management probably turned a blind eye to a lot of ingenious ways of working among individual crews. Serco management is quite top-down and staff seem much more reluctant to stray from company policy. The reason for the breakfast cut-off that you mention is that first class breakfasts are served on trays using crockery (standard class use disposable takeaway containers) and this must all be collected and stored on a trolley before the train arrives at its destination. This means that the staff are under quite a lot of pressure to ensure that all cutlery etc is collected before arrival. It’s not so much of an issue on the Fort William route because of the late arrival time, but it can mean quite a pressured breakfast service southbound into Euston or northbound into Aberdeen/Edinburgh/Glasgow.
Maybe it is hidden in 321 pages here but could you clarify what has not worked about the food service?
In addition to what I’ve said above:
1) The sleeper hosts are not trained chefs/kitchen assistants, but find themselves having to plate and present fiddly dishes (whereas in First Group days, the hot meals were deliberately chosen so as to be cooked and presented in one pot). This is very time-consuming.
2) Some crews are reluctant to serve hot meals to those sitting on the bar stools on the ground that the tables are too narrow. This seems to me to be bizarre. I don’t know if this is company H&S policy or staff being difficult, but it does make the service harder.
3) The breakfast card ordering system pre-Covid was a disaster, as half the passengers forgot to fill out the card. So staff were spending the early part of the journey (while the lounge car was full to bursting) trying to find passengers to ask them what they wanted for breakfast. The old ordering system from First Group days allowed passengers simply to tell the host on boarding what they wanted for breakfast, meaning that the host had a full list of breakfast orders by the time the train departed. This old system was easier for both passengers and staff (and has in fact been reintroduced for breakfast orders during the Covid restrictions). The old system works well- so why on earth did CS introduce those silly cards?
Perhaps the problem is that the company needs different staff to operate a hotel on wheels, and the best way to have done that via change management would have been to get rid of staff hired for the old way (whatever that was), and hire new staff that treat customer service as their primary purpose, on standard catering/hotel terms.
I don’t think that this would be possible, first because of TUPE, and second because the union is unlikely to allow railway staff to be hired on those terms.