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Dublin Bus issues

thomasj

I'm surprised there isn't a superthread where people vent their fury over service issues.

There was an issue where I went on twitter to vent my fury over a 39a no-show . It wasn't the first time either last Saturday there was a gap of 45 minutes inbound for a 15 minute frequency .

While I was on twitter I was surprised to see the amount of "apologies that service didn't run due to operational difficulties " in the past week there were a large number.

Anyone else having these issues with their route?

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punisher5112

Not enough drivers and holiday season for drivers isn't helping.

Captainsatnav

Too many bus stops. Blackrock into town - they're at intervals of 70m or less in places. Incredibly infuriating.

Wishbone Ash

Good weather - difficult to get people to do overtime when the sun in shining. Constant problem in my job. Bring on the rain!

devnull

punisher5112 wrote: »

Not enough drivers and holiday season for drivers isn't helping.

The way it works in every job I have worked in is that if you take leave there are not enough staff to cover the work, be it summer, winter, autumn or spring, you are not allowed to take leave and instead have to take it some other time when there is less people taking leave.

This kind of thing happening on a yearly basis (lets face it, this situation is happening on a regular basis every summer) is why people believe that Dublin Bus is run for staff rather than the public it was supposedly set up to service.

Wishbone Ash

devnull wrote: »

The way it works in every job I have worked in is that if you take leave there are not enough staff to cover the work, be it summer, winter, autumn or spring, you are not allowed to take leave and instead have to take it some other time when there is less people taking leave....

Annual leave can't be cancelled without giving 28 days notice which makes it difficult to change if other factors are thrown into the mix. If an employee is required by their employer to book their leave giving 6 months notice, it's difficult to go back again to that employee again and tell them that they must change it. Also, in many essential services, there are dozens of employees on annual leave on any given week of the year.

Richard tea

devnull wrote: »

The way it works in every job I have worked in is that if you take leave there are not enough staff to cover the work, be it summer, winter, autumn or spring, you are not allowed to take leave and instead have to take it some other time when there is less people taking leave.

This kind of thing happening on a yearly basis (lets face it, this situation is happening on a regular basis every summer) is why people believe that Dublin Bus is run for staff rather than the public it was supposedly set up to service.

So no annual leave allowed between May and the end of September? Thats the months classed as summer leave in my job.

ED E

devnull wrote: »

The way it works in every job I have worked

Bet they weren't Public "Service" jobs.

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Annual leave can't be cancelled without giving 28 days notice which makes it difficult to change if other factors are thrown into the mix. If an employee is required by their employer to book their leave giving 6 months notice, it's difficult to go back again to that employee again and tell them that they must change it. Also, in many essential services, there are dozens of employees on annual leave on any given week of the year.

Any decent HR or Workforce management system will allow you to see how many staff you need to run your operations and how many are on holiday at one time, you then make the decisions whether to allow annual leave or not to an employee on this basis. If allowing the leave will make you short of the numbers you need than it should be declined.

Just because an employee wants leave and it's the summer doesn't mean they should get it. Business requirements come first. If they can't let the staff go on holiday without a foreseeable impact on the ability to deliver contracted services then staff should not be allowed on holiday at that time.

devnull

Richard tea wrote: »

So no annual leave allowed between May and the end of September? Thats the months classed as summer leave in my job.

Responses to applications for annual leave should take into account the business workforce requirements for the time that leave is being applied for. Something similar has been written into virtually all of my contracts and/or staff handbooks through the years.

My boss is off for 3 weeks of July so I cannot take any time off as I have to sit in for him when he is off. I don't particularly like it as I wanted to go away on holiday myself, but I understand why it is done, because if we were both on holiday it would negatively impact the business.

devnull

dfx- wrote: »

so in a nutshell, not enough drivers then.

No - in a nutshell too many people are being allowed on holiday at one time, if they were not allowed to take time off when the company cannot afford to let staff take leave, then there would be enough drivers.

Just throwing more staff at it doesn't deal with the underlying problem that in Dublin Bus it seems more important to give drivers holiday when they want than the operation of a so called public service for the public.

Wishbone Ash

devnull wrote: »

Any decent HR or Workforce management system will allow you to see how many staff you need to run your operations and how many are on holiday at one time, you then make the decisions whether to allow annual leave or not to an employee on this basis. If allowing the leave will make you short of the numbers you need than it should be declined.

Just because an employee wants leave and it's the summer doesn't mean they should get it. Business requirements come first. If they can't let the staff go on holiday without a foreseeable impact on the ability to deliver contracted services then staff should not be allowed on holiday at that time.

It's difficult when you are carrying vacancies which are difficult to replace. At the moment we have 75 vacancies in one particular grade yet the other staff of that grade are still entitled to take their annual leave. I don't understand how you think it should be declined - it's just making the problem worse down the line.

Our contracts also state that an employee must take at least 2 weeks annual leave during the period April to September.

Stephen15

So a DB employee can just rock and say "I'm off on my holliers tommorrow take it out of my annual leave" without DB requiring any notice. I somehow doubt it. Do they really not have system in place to deal with annual leave for such a large employer you'd think they would have a first come first served system in place where no more than x amount of drivers off per depot at the one time.

Wishbone Ash

Stephen15 wrote: »

Do they really not have system in place to deal with annual leave for such a large employer you'd think they would have a first come first served system in place where no more than x amount of drivers off per depot at the one time.

I'd imagine it's done on seniority in service as opposed to first come first served which would be very unfair. I'd also imagine that X amount of drivers must be on leave on any given week of the year to make it fit in. If you are carrying vacancies then that will impact on what available not to mention sick leave, maternity leave, compassionate leave, carers leave, parental leave, etc.

thomasj

It might help that the term time only services are finished Thursday for the summer.

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

devnull wrote: »

Any decent HR or Workforce management system will allow you to see how many staff you need to run your operations and how many are on holiday at one time, you then make the decisions whether to allow annual leave or not to an employee on this basis. If allowing the leave will make you short of the numbers you need than it should be declined.

Just because an employee wants leave and it's the summer doesn't mean they should get it. Business requirements come first. If they can't let the staff go on holiday without a foreseeable impact on the ability to deliver contracted services then staff should not be allowed on holiday at that time.

It's difficult when you are carrying vacancies which are difficult to replace. At the moment we have 75 vacancies in one particular grade yet the other staff of that grade are still entitled to take their annual leave. I don't understand how you think it should be declined - it's just making the problem worse down the line.

Our contracts also state that an employee must take at least 2 weeks annual leave during the period April to September.

Not if it is properly managed. It might mean though that staff have to take leave at a different time to what they want to though and that is just tough luck. Business requirements should come before staff needs. That's even more the case when we're talking about a public service and not a business.

Wishbone Ash

devnull wrote: »

Not if it is properly managed. It might mean though that staff have to take leave at a different time to what they want to though and that is just tough luck. Business requirements should come before staff needs. That's even more the case when we're talking about a public service and not a business.

I think you've missed the point regarding leave. If I have 3,000 weeks annual leave to manage/allocate, then I need to have at least 20 employees on leave for every week of the year to ensure it's taken. Throw vacancies on top of that and there just isn't enough people to provide a full service. Declining leave for any particular week only puts more pressure on another week.

It's not like in small companies where there is only someone on leave occasionally.

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Stephen15 wrote: »

Do they really not have system in place to deal with annual leave for such a large employer you'd think they would have a first come first served system in place where no more than x amount of drivers off per depot at the one time.

I'd imagine it's done on seniority in service as opposed to first come first served which would be very unfair. I'd also imagine that X amount of drivers must be on leave on any given week of the year to make it fit in. If you are carrying vacancies then that will impact on what available not to mention sick leave, maternity leave, compassionate leave, carers leave, parental leave, etc.

That's a typical public sector issue. In every company I worked in its been first come first served because it's fair to everyone. The seniority aspect seems to be far more common in the public sector and in heavily unionised companies who are happy to feather their own cap at the expense of newer staff all under the banner of so called solidarity.

Of course a certain number of staff need to be on leave at one time but the fact we always have this problem in summer and no other time means too many are going on holiday at these times due to poor workforce management. It would not be accepted in any of my former workplaces.

Wishbone Ash

devnull wrote: »

That's a typical public sector issue. In every company I worked in its been first come first served because it's fair to everyone. .

I can't see how 'first come first served' could be fair. An employye with 40 weeks service can sign before an employee with 40 years service? And what determines who's first to come? What if an employee was on annual leave, maternity leave etc. when the leave is being allocated? I've never worked for any employer where the leave was done that way.

At least seniority in service is very black and white. There's no grey (employees who began on the same day are done alphabetically). I've never known anyone to dispute where they stand and it provides something to give back to staff with long service.

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

Not if it is properly managed. It might mean though that staff have to take leave at a different time to what they want to though and that is just tough luck. Business requirements should come before staff needs. That's even more the case when we're talking about a public service and not a business.

True but employees are entitled to their annual leave and rightly so. Don't blame employees for taking the leave they are entitled to. Blame the company for not having a proper system in place. DB are running a socially nessecary service not merely a commercial one so having a system in place is crucial for them.

I get the impression that there are a proportion of the DB workforce who hold a D licence but don't actually drive a bus in service. Most inspectors are ex drivers I believe so they would have a D licence and the mechanics also have a D licence. If there is a shortage of drivers why not ask these workers to fill in as interim solution perhaps even give them a bonus for doing so.

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

I can't see how 'first come first served' could be fair. An employye with 40 weeks service can sign before an employee with 40 years service? And what determines who's first to come? What if an employee was on annual leave, maternity leave etc. when the leave is being allocated? I've never worked for any employer where the leave was done that way.

Leave is not allocated in the private sector in the vast majority of companies. It is applied for and you have a holiday year that runs from one date to the next, sometimes it's a calendar year, sometimes it is not, it depends on the company and the sector that they are involved in. Education for instance would have one that runs from the start of the school year to the end of the school year.

Generally you apply for leave the moment you have decided that you would like to take leave. The manager will then see who else is on leave and if they are satisfied that they can accept your request as the business can fulfill it's contracted and operational requirements whilst you are on leave, they will grant the request. Otherwise they will reject it and you will have to pick other dates.

If the company has a problem with people generally taking say 25% leave in the first half of the year and then wanting to take 75% leave in the second half of the year, you're left with a problem. That's why companies write into contracts that certain amounts of leave have to be taken by a certain time or a certain amount of leave must be taken in a certain period to stop situations like this occurring.

A fair system is where everyone is treated the same. A system where people who have been in the job for a longer time than others get first pick over leave is not treating everyone the same therefore I'm not sure how you can call it fair and such system simply doesn't work from a HR perspective as it just creates a bunch of very happy people at the top and a bunch of very unhappy people at the bottom.

At least seniority in service is very black and white. There's no grey (employees who began on the same day are done alphabetically). I've never known anyone to dispute where they stand and it provides something to give back to staff with long service.

Staff with long service get things like extra holiday days and the entitlement to higher pension contributions or even more paid sick days in some companies. In the public sector and unionsed companies it is also common that people will get increments as well, among other things which are not common in most private companies.

Such system you support is ultimately set-up for the benefit of long serving staff members to the detriment of newer staff, all whilst the unions are holding up the banner claiming solidarity with the workers, when in fact the people at the top of the union couldn't care less about the people at the bottom. That's not solidarity to me.

In Bus Eireann when there was a strike it was reported by many sources that the senior drivers were working better rosters, with less driving hours, more overtime, less weekends and much higher pay than the staff who were newer, working more hours, spending more time driving, more weekend and less overtime. Essentially getting paid far less for doing more work.

There has been reports that Dublin Bus and Bus Eireann have had issues with holding on to bus drivers, because of a lot of people were leaving very soon after joining. With a system that discriminates heavily against new employees, any company would have a problem with a high attrition rate among new starters, because it's hard not to be disillusioned in that situation.

devnull

Stephen15 wrote: »

True but employees are entitled to their annual leave and rightly so. Don't blame employees for taking the leave they are entitled to. Blame the company for not having a proper system in place. DB are running a socially nessecary service not merely a commercial one so having a system in place is crucial for them.

Of course - the blame is not with the staff for applying for the leave, make no mistake about that, but it is poor workforce management. If the decision is telling a staff member their leave is rejected and to pick some other time and running a public service or giving them leave which will mean not running a public service, the former has to be the case. Even in the private sector you won't see people be released for leave when they are required for the company to fulfill a contract.

Out of interest has the 747/757 and the City Tours arms also been hit by services that have not been run because of lack of drivers or missing buses. Everything being equal they should suffer as well the same amount as any other routes coming from the same depots?

Wishbone Ash

devnull wrote: »

..Generally you apply for leave the moment you have decided that you would like to take leave. The manager will then see who else is on leave and if they are satisfied that they can accept your request as the business can fulfill it's contracted and operational requirements whilst you are on leave, they will grant the request. Otherwise they will reject it and you will have to pick other dates....

That sounds very laborious to me. What if the next dates are rejected, and the next and so on? Much easier to start at the top and work down. With seniority in service, no one's leave is rejected as they are given a choice (albeit limited as it reaches the end).

If the company has a problem with people generally taking say 25% leave in the first half of the year and then wanting to take 75% leave in the second half of the year, you're left with a problem.

That's not a problem when there are people on leave all year round.

A fair system is where everyone is treated the same. A system where people who have been in the job for a longer time than others get first pick over leave is not treating everyone the same therefore I'm not sure how you can call it fair and such system simply doesn't work from a HR perspective as it just creates a bunch of very happy people at the top and a bunch of very unhappy people at the bottom.

Much fairer that applying for leave and constantly being rejected. Very difficult for an employee with a family to plan anything. With seniority in service, everyone has notice of their annual leave dates well in advance and are moving up the seniority ladder all the time..

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

That sounds very laborious to me. What if the next dates are rejected, and the next and so on? Much easier to start at the top and work down. With seniority in service, no one's leave is rejected as they are given a choice (albeit limited as it reaches the end).

It's called welcome to the world of the rest of the staff below you in the chain who don't have the luxury of getting every single leave date that they put a request in for and caring about all of your staff, rather than just the ones at the top. Any good HR management needs to balance the needs and happiness of all staff.

Seniority is a terrible way to do it in my opinion because it pulls down morale and leads to increases in attrition among newer hires and having to keep replacing people who leave because they felt that they were discriminated against which is no good for the business.

The only reason that the senior lads don't like first come first served is that it means that they might lose some power and actually not get the plum dates all the time and the long suffering people at the bottom might actually get some rights I'd have thought unions would have been all for that, since after all don't they believe in solidarity rather than discrimination?

Much fairer that applying for leave and constantly being rejected. Very difficult for an employee with a family to plan anything. With seniority in service, everyone has notice of their annual leave dates well in advance and are moving up the seniority ladder all the time..

You do realise not only senior people have family?

Believe it or not Dublin Bus is run for the public, not to suit staffs own personal arrangements and if that means forcing a staff to take leave at another time to preserve the service to the public that is how it needs to be. Believe it or not the whole world does not revolve around senior staff and what they want.

It is discouraging for new employees to feel as if they will never get optimal time off because they haven’t been there long enough, knowing there is little chance of change in the next few years. Remember that people these days change work more often than in the past so seniority based approaches to time off penalise newer hires and can hasten their exit from the company as they feel they are not being treated fairly.

Certainly there should be some reward for service like the things I outlined but any company that gives the staff at the top everything and the staff at the bottom nothing, is going to have an issue in relation to retaining staff because they will simply get disheartened and quit and that causes further problems, especially in a company like DB when recruiting and inducting is neither quick nor cheap.

devnull

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

That's not a problem when there are people on leave all year round.

Let me tell you from someone who has dealt with this scenario, it is a massive problem.

This is because it means that so many people have so many days left that for them to use everything that they have remaining you are going to have to let more people off at one time than the business can sustain.

Stephen15

devnull wrote: »

Out of interest has the 747/757 and the City Tours arms also been hit by services that have not been run because of lack of drivers or missing buses. Everything being equal they should suffer as well the same amount as any other routes coming from the same depots?

PSO services need to come first. Drivers should be taken away from tours and Airlink duties to perform regular PSO work if there is a shortage of drivers on PSO routes. It should be PSO first commercial second.

Del2005

devnull wrote: »

Of course - the blame is not with the staff for applying for the leave, make no mistake about that, but it is poor workforce management. If the decision is telling a staff member their leave is rejected and to pick some other time and running a public service or giving them leave which will mean not running a public service, the former has to be the case. Even in the private sector you won't see people be released for leave when they are required for the company to fulfill a contract.

Out of interest has the 747/757 and the City Tours arms also been hit by services that have not been run because of lack of drivers or missing buses. Everything being equal they should suffer as well the same amount as any other routes coming from the same depots?

DB are down 70 drivers due to recruiting issues. So they allocate the holidays with the minimum cover that they can manage with. Also with not enough staff then there won't be many drivers with hours to do OT so if one or more drivers then ring in sick then services have to be cut.

So the issue is lack of resources. Which is because new drivers are treated like ****, only finding out the day before your shift and getting the **** holidays. But the union is full of senior staff with set routes and the pick of the holidays so they won't resolve the issue.

My company works first come first served for holidays and there's rarely a clash and if there is then we try to see what can be done, I can't think of a time a person hasn't got their 1st preference for holiday. Seniority is a terrible system for allocating holidays as the junior staff rarely get their 1st preference.

Tickityboo

Del2005 wrote: »

DB are down 70 drivers due to recruiting issues. So they allocate the holidays with the minimum cover that they can manage with. Also with not enough staff then there won't be many drivers with hours to do OT so if one or more drivers then ring in sick then services have to be cut.

So the issue is lack of resources. Which is because new drivers are treated like ****, only finding out the day before your shift and getting the **** holidays. But the union is full of senior staff with set routes and the pick of the holidays so they won't resolve the issue.

My company works first come first served for holidays and there's rarely a clash and if there is then we try to see what can be done, I can't think of a time a person hasn't got their 1st preference for holiday. Seniority is a terrible system for allocating holidays as the junior staff rarely get their 1st preference.

There is no pick of holidays in Dublin Bus.
Everybody is allocated a 3 week slot between May and September.
If you are allocated May this year it skips to a different month the following year.
Drivers have to try and swap amongst each other to get the weeks they need.

Stephen15

Del2005 wrote: »

DB are down 70 drivers due to recruiting issues. So they allocate the holidays with the minimum cover that they can manage with. Also with not enough staff then there won't be many drivers with hours to do OT so if one or more drivers then ring in sick then services have to be cut.

So the issue is lack of resources. Which is because new drivers are treated like ****, only finding out the day before your shift and getting the **** holidays. But the union is full of senior staff with set routes and the pick of the holidays so they won't resolve the issue.

My company works first come first served for holidays and there's rarely a clash and if there is then we try to see what can be done, I can't think of a time a person hasn't got their 1st preference for holiday. Seniority is a terrible system for allocating holidays as the junior staff rarely get their 1st preference.

I thought most drivers were relying on OT as their main source of income.

devnull

Tickityboo wrote: »

There is no pick of holidays in Dublin Bus.
Everybody is allocated a 3 week slot between May and September.
If you are allocated May this year it skips to a different month the following year.
Drivers have to try and swap amongst each other to get the weeks they need.

How many days do you get off a year and how many of those are allocated during this time period you mention?

Tickityboo

devnull wrote: »

How many days do you get off a year and how many of those are allocated during this time period you mention?

20 days plus 3 extra service days after ten years.
1after 5 years 1after 8 years and 1after 10 years.
The three week slot is 15 of those days.