But any decent HR manager or personal Director would have the staff age profile so they know how many replacements are needed, and when they need to be trained by, to cover upcoming retirements. There would also be an expectation that x% would voluntarily leave (moving away, changing career, early retirement etc).
I accept that no one can predict a sudden rush for the exit door of choosing to leave / retire, so might be few more short than expected, but to some extent that is why companies have short term bonuses available in their armoury (the sort where someone agrees to stay for few months, to help with transition or change, in exchange for extra £)
No “decent” HR manager or personnel director can have foreseen the number of drivers who have just simply had enough. Enough of getting up at 2 and 3 am one week and getting into bed at midnight, 1 or 2 or 3 am the next. Enough of the politics between government, management and the union, enough of being treated like **** by management, rising inflation, no pay rise for three years and much much more.
How do I know this ? Because I’m one of those drivers, I gave my six months notice and finished in March after thirty seven years service aged fifty five. Never have I ever been so glad to get out of a place, sad because I loved driving trains and had done so since age 21. In the space of two and a half years First Group have taken what was, under VT, a happy work force who would bend over backwards to keep the service running and cancellations were a rarity and driven it and everyone into the ground, imposing changes and totally ignoring the machinery of negotiation with the union’s.
The management freely admit they need drivers to work their rostered days off just to run over four hundred services each and every week.
Now drivers not wanting to work their rostered days off is why the service has been in disarray.
There are plenty more working through their notice period and a lot more considering their options.
