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We are the champions

Chris Williams-Lilley, managing director of Rail Champions, discusses reliability and improvement in the rail sector.

The rail infrastructure sector is characterised by safety, fierce price competition, high labour intensity, and a desire to move away from transactional business models, toward collaborative business relationships, or frameworks. Recently, more and more companies have latched on to social responsibility and sustainability initiatives. They’ve used descriptive words on their websites and have catchy clever slogans in their annual review documents.

Companies want to be viewed as good corporate citizens.

So, does this imply superior corporate characteristics? Too often, companies appear inconsistent and insincere; they fail to connect CSR initiatives to their corporate vision and mission statements. In our experience, they sometimes stumble with the basics, such as employee engagement and customer service.

As a result, they end up struggling to create a positive image that is authentic and resonates with customers, staff, and business partners. Words are cheap!

The emergence of high reliability organisations

We view the most important issues impacting the quality of project delivery in the rail industry as being safety, health and wellbeing (i.e. poor physical working conditions, long and unfavourable working hours, or work-related illnesses), flexibility, stability
and security – especially further down the supply chain, where limited contracts, low pay and (perhaps, sometimes) bad practices
are common.

Cost, time, and quality are very often perceived as traditional success parameters in our sector, so what qualifies your company as a ‘High Reliability Organisation’?

HROs are organisations with systems in place that are exceptionally consistent in accomplishing their goals and avoiding potentially catastrophic errors. The industries first to embrace HRO concepts, were those in which past failures had led to catastrophic consequences (i.e. aircraft accidents, nuclear reactor meltdowns, and similar disasters). These industries found it necessary to identify issues early and respond to problems swiftly and positively, so that systems and processes were unaffected, and risk of potential future disasters could be avoided. Are we entering into a new age of corporate responsibility?

Collaboration…it’s the way we do business round here

As I mentioned, CSR activities generally focus on occupational health, safety, and risk management. Rail Champions strongly believe CSR policies in the rail industry should set a good example in public procurement processes.

Established standards for Collaborative Business Relationships (BS11000), Procuring Sustainably (BS8903) and the Social Value
Act should help reinforce the wider implementation of new business models that become ‘the way we do business round here’.

It is no longer acceptable to manage an organisation’s reputation or brand image separately from its people, culture or supply chain stakeholders. They need to be managed as one. And to do that, you need to define and communicate your corporate values. Organisations need to start building shared beliefs with key decision makers, customers, partners, employees, and local communities.

Commitment to continuous improvement

Those of you who work closely with Network Rail probably already know of PRISM, the tool used to assess the performance of suppliers, which was developed in conjunction with the supply chain and various functions across Network Rail to drive a culture of
continuous performance improvement.

This all leads me to the conclusion that organisations need to prove their corporate character, both in their actions and by developing deep and meaningful business relationships built on trust, staff empowerment and transparency.

There are a few successful organisations I can think of in the rail industry with leaders who inspire their people, support their people’s decisions, and have successfully turned actions into ongoing behaviours. Research shows that when those behaviours strengthen someone’s feelings of urgency and purpose, it can generate self-motivated advocacy – fuelling a virtuous cycle, with colleagues and procurement groups each working towards a common shared belief among the project team (extending to their respective supply chains).