Lets say you have a wedding (as a guest) planned in September. We are now in July. How is anyone supposed to plan for that day if you aren't granted the day off right up until the week or even a 2 days before hand ? And yet. If someone was to go sick tomorrow, their turn would be covered and then the rest of their turns covered until they return from sick. Same if someone went PI. Their turns get covered.
I know how rosters are built and that there is already a built in level of cover for sickness, training, leave etc etc. This is what Spare turns are designed to cover. However; there is often 'no cover available for leave' but I guarantee that is a turn was suddenly needed to be covered, it would be. We even have leave declined and still have spare Drivers about :/
There is also an issue that it can be a little to easy to 'game the system' The result of which is people screwing their colleagues over. Sadly, people see it as the only way to get around such flawed systems.
I accept there needs to be a limit, been there, done that, worn the T-Shirt and All That Jazz. But there is almost zero forward planning, especially with leave.
Again, another old chestnut is that the railway relies on overtime. This is a very poor working practice. If there was sufficient cover available then the railway wouldn't need overtime and would have sufficient cover to actually allow adhoc leave to be granted. I firmly believe that sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Something I am also guilty of. We seem to have accepted that 'The Railway' is the only way and that 'That's how its always been' I think the ethos should be 'how can we do better'
I read some of the research on the RSSB website and I try and keep up to date with various bits in the industry. The industry itself wants change but TOCs seem to push back or drag their heels about it. There has been a push to learn the lessons from the airline industry with non technical skills and with how they deal with fatigue etc. COVID has been interesting in how the TOCs have reacted and how much is actually possible with rostering. Our incidents almost vanished, Drivers were more refreshed, turns have been pretty decent. As the Timetable has ramped up and the diagrams have changed, rosters are returning to normal... Yep incidents are back, complaints over fatigue, and concerns are growing over the volume of outstanding leave.
Rostering has a huge impact on everything we do. Maintaining a better work/life balance through quality time off, flexible rostering and time off for leave are vital for both our physical and mental health.
