West Somerset Railway General Discussion

There seems a very easy solution to this. There are what, half a dozen or so WSR volunteers who very regularly contribute to this thread? So if each time they post *anything* to this thread, they first email the GM, they might get the idea that perhaps their policy needs a reword after all as the GM's inbox is snowed in with emails asking if it's ok to answer a timetable query/update to service or whatever...

 

While the exact boundaries of what ought or ought not to be said, when and where, are open to some debate, it is clearly absurd to prohibit anyone associated with an organisation from ever saying anything good about it (or its customers, employees, etc). That shows that the policy (presuming it to be genuine) has been adopted without thought. That, in turn, indicates that the person(s) responsible are unfit to be running the organisation.

Am I wrong?

 

It is good to see some photo's of named VIP volunteers on Mr Edge's excellent website today.
Seasons greetings to all WSR personel as well as Nat Pres contributors.

 

I concur and add my greetings for a Merry Christmas to railway volunteers everywhere.

 

YES

Tough

 

So someone (staff, passenger, whoever) is taken seriously ill or injured. Employee (paid or volunteer) has to get GM's permission before using their phone to call an ambulance?

 

Or:

Signalman has brought Car to terminal Station of Railway, having driven 50 miles at their own expense to do so. Car delivered to local Garage for MOT before duty starts. She is e-mailed by Garage to say must authorise £100 spend for Car to pass. It is an hour before next train due. Wrong to make phone call?

etc etc etc.

Robin

 

Looking at the last two posts - the distinction must be use of a phone in the line of duty versus use of a phone for social reasons (posting on social media etc). It is normal practice for operating train staff to be issued with Company mobile or land line phones to allow for such use.

If the policy is worded incorrectly then that perhaps needs to be examined but common sense requires that this must be the position.

Regards

Matt

 

I agree, common sense should always be applied. Should there be such a policy in place? Yes of course it was already an existing one before it was 'toughened up'. Should it give clear guidelines? Yes. Is it difficult to be a Director of such an organisation, Yes. However if you take any seat at the head of a £3 million turnover business you have responsibilities, you also need to know what those are and how to fulfill them. It would be fair to say that in a modern world that skill and knowledge needs to be to a high level. Any large business with over 1,100 staff (volunteer or paid, the policies are very clear that they apply to both) has to be very aware of any impact it has, the volunteer aspect also adds a further complex dimension. Corporate Responsibility comes into play here, any heritage railway is a broad church of opinion and the people who are very passionate about their hobby (me included) are everything, nothing exists without them. All have and need a voice and sometimes we will all disagree and that’s healthy in a positive, caring environment and culture (which can only be driven from the top down). Your comment about jelly is great and very accurate.

If that culture is not positive and is in place to stop peoples passion, buy in and involvement and to remove people who don’t have the ‘right’ opinion the outcome can only ever be a destructive and negative one, just ask the ex6 how it goes. They left and the ‘business’ they represented suffered badly culturally, financially and reputationally which is taking a long time to undo even after a 180 degree turnaround overnight.

I have today been asked privately: “Why does the wording of one policy concern me as it’s just not enforceable and is inept. Surely you are more concerned about some actions and new opinions in place since the departure of previous Directors and the reasons why an existing policy has been ‘beefed up’ in such a way”? Of course I can now only reply “You might think that’s what I’m thinking I couldn’t possibly comment”.

I plan to give my thoughts to the WSR PLC Chairman in writing and to pick up on his post no. 9808. His reference to a steady hand appears to have turned into something else. I also plan to now offer my services to the PLC in order to help in a positive way in re-aligning the new direction. I feel that my skills in business change, as a consultant, HR/Recruitment, and process/policy understanding may be of help here.

However I’ve now just placed myself by mentioning the WSR and PLC Chairman in a position where I WILL be placed into a disciplinary process by the General Manager whilst answering a call on social media for help from the Chairman to help. Now there’s a dilemma for you.

Merry Christmas all.

 

My personal rule for my mobile phone.
Phone gets fully charged before the rostered duty. It then lives in my footplate bag turned off for the length of the duty. It has all the relevant numbers in it should an emergency arise.
I could mention that a lot of drivers use the speedometer app in their phones to make sure they obey line speed and speed restrictions.

 

I am a volunteer on the WSR. I am a very infrequent user of social media. I use my mobile phone very sparingly, few people have my number.
But I have on occasions rung my wife to say for example I'm going to be late home because of late running.
I don't see any reason to change what I do because some jobsworth thinks we should all have our freedom of speech restricted unreasonably. I am quite at ease with the suggestions made above by Robin.
I am happy to criticise whoever in WSR thinks their action on this is sensible , and if in doing so they see fit to discipline me, then I challenge them to do so. I volunteer because I enjoy volunteering on the railway. Its not essential for me, I can walk away if I had to, although I would prefer to continue.
So, perhps someone from WSR night wish to answer, I know that there are board members who read and post on this forum.
There are enough things in life that irritate, but being pxxxxd off by an organisation that you give up your time to support shouldn't be one of them.

 

There are so many flaws in this policy that it really beggars belief that it has even been proposed, let alone adopted (if that is the case).

Some have suggested that it is a boilerplate policy used by many corporations. That may be so but such organisation have 100% paid staff who (generally speaking) have to accept the conditions of their employment. However, the WSR is wholly reliant upon the goodwill of its volunteers to maintain its operation, and attempting to suppress the free speech of those volunteers is, I would suggest, likely to be met with incredulity and could very easily backfire.

For example, comment is quite frequently made on this thread about attracting new volunteers. It is a fact of life that younger people these days, rightly or wrongly, orientate their lives around social media. To introduce a policy that prohibits them, under threat of disciplinary action, from posting about their volunteering experiences is only going to put them off and they will go elsewhere.

Further, I would argue that this forum was a force for good in helping to resolve the crisis in the WSRA a couple of years ago. I put my hand in my pocket and donated towards the costs that the Reform Group incurred in sending out their literature when the various EGMs were called. I very much doubt I would have done so had I not read about what was happening on here and been shocked by it. Had this policy been in place, those who spoke could well have felt prohibited from doing so and goodness knows what state the Association would be in had things not been resolved.

What I find even more surprising is that the current PLC Chairman and Vice-Chairman, who I assume must have signed-off on this policy, have been very frequent contributors to this forum. It seems that by adopting this policy, they are gagging themselves and removing their right to reply.

Of course, I also accept that those in management must keep an eye on the public standing of the railway and therefore, Robin's proposed amendments would seem to be very sensible, although even then limiting free speech is something that, in general, I strongly oppose.

I hope that those in management who have implemented this policy take a long, hard look at the ramifications of imposing it and reconsider.

 

Democracy, cabinet responsibilities, loyalty and individual contributions to the success of an organisation; a heady mix ? (Posting 9481, in response to 9474 et al, falteringly tried to comment proactively with these mantra in mind.)

A personal difficulty when posting, is the recognition that Nat Pres is available to all, yet as the potentially damaging subject has already been broached should I comment or not ? Many I assume recognise the same dichotomy. I note that a significant resignation from another major Heritage Railway has not AFAIK received comment on Nat Pres. I wonder if there has been much chatter on restricted access websites.

Until 2013/4 much of the more questioning posting wrt WSR from its supporters (including staff, whether paid or voluntary) would have appeared on the WSR- unofficial forum or less so on WSR - volunteers sites. (restricted sites but read by amongst others Directors and Trustees). These sites still exist, but are barely used. Did some decide to post in preference on Nat Pres because it was not merely the Plc and WSRA Management they wished to attract but the greater Heritage Railway diaspora ?

I have no knowledge as to who wrote the new Plc guidelines which have been placed on the website available to staff/volunteers. However I am sure (and I admit I may have contributed) that much of the posting on Nat Pres over the last four years (however well intentioned) may have been in PR terms seriously damaging to the WSR. Whilst bearing in mind 'democracy' etc I cannot imagine that the majority of Plc's (and that includes taking into account the special position of the WSR and volunteers) would have endured much of what has appeared for a matter of days, let alone four years. I can hear myself in the past saying "well self regulation once again has failed".

However on a more positive note. I wish every body a joyous Christmas and I have, with the WSR in mind, great hopes for 2018.

Michael Rowe

 

Come on everybody, give us a break. This is getting silly. Message is understood and it's time to move on.

This is NOT a new policy, it has been in existence for several years. The wording you are complaining about has not changed. It is exactly the same as it has been since before 2014. Nobody has complained about the wording previously.

Its pretty obvious that any company is more than happy to receive praise and positive comments about what it is doing and there is no way we would want to stifle that. We also do not want to stifle healthy debate about the railway – that is positive too. But we do wish to avoid the company or its staff being insulted or demeaned.

This is a very common type of policy across many organisations. Nobody wants their staff going online and insulting the company or its employees. The WSR is no different.

The previous version of the policy was open to misinterpretation in that it seemed only to refer to use of official IT kit. So although a staff member was discouraged from insulting the company using official IT, they seemed to be able to do so using their own private IT. Clearly, it’s the end result we are interested in, not the means to get there. So what we have done is to make a small clarification to the existing policy that makes it clear that a member of staff should not insult the company or its employees, no matter whether its official IT kit or private IT kit.

That is the only thing which is different. As I said, the remainder of the wording is exactly as it was before.

The policy refers to ‘social media activities” not ringing your wife or emailing the MOT garage.

Some very good points have been made, we will be looking at the policy again.

Have a great Christmas and here’s to healthy and positive debate next year!

Ian Coleby

 

Quite prepared to act as your rep when the disciplinary letter appears, Andy.

Robin

 

Sorry Ian you are mistaken. Policy no. 15 was amended on 20/12/17 by the General Manager and authorised by the WSR HR Committee the same day. The wording has changed and is very clear, look at clause 10 as a new inclusion, we have both now put ourselves in a position where the General Manager WILL place us and others into a disciplinary process, no other options are available to him.

Therefore your comments are in complete contradiction to your own policies. However let’s be positive, we all want the best for the WSR as one great railway. I’ll take your comments as being positive and overriding the policy and let’s all go off and enjoy Christmas. Afterward I’m happy to come and have a conversation with you and discuss how this has gone wrong and what the issues are, clearly there seems to be some confusion which is setting these issues off. Please let me know a suitable date for you.

 

Apologies Ian. I wrongly, probably as with others, assumed that as attention was drawn to it on the bulletin it contained new phraseology, sloppiness on my part. However the inclusion of private IT IMHO is entirely appropriate.

The not to use company IT, similarly to the fact that I do not use my personal IT whilst on duty, is de rigeur I suggest.

Michael Rowe

 

Given that this post refers directly to a Director, naming him, it would appear to be in breach of the policy.

I can see there being a crowded room in a seaside terminus on 28 December....

Robin

 

Edmonson type- not yet but to be honest I haven't followed up all the leads [no pun intended]. I suspect it would have to be made to special order now.

 

Andy the words I refer to are "must not directly refer to nor directly insult or
demean the Company or any member of it's staff, directors, customers or clients. Neither must it
breach any anti-harassment, defamation or discrimination legislation.".
These words remain the same as previously. They haven't changed at all.
Very happy to talk 121 in when convenient.
Ian