Workforce In Road   

I think there is not many people who reach the end of a year and think that it was all pretty good and I wouldn't change anything about it. When your part of a business and make decisions that affect its well being you are definitely thinking about all the choices that were made. We are all about "team' and the welfare of the "family" so them decisions if wrong are magnified as you have judgement from others and then the consequences.

Last year was our first year trading as a Traffic Management Company and to be fair it went ok, we managed to turn a profit which is good for a small business in its first year but our mistakes where numerous. I try to examine and analyse other companies bad practice or poor work procedure's, in Traffic Management you don't have to go far to find it. Last year we seen it on such a massive scale that we knew pretty quickly that it would be quite easy to succeed and that we would never be short of work if we even delivered at 65% of what we were capable off. We made plenty of mistakes during this and it's now the time to put last year to bed and move forward.

In life I have learnt to trust NO ONE, now I know that's not entirely true as I trust a few people with my life. In Traffic Management last year I met lots of dishonest people, no honour or loyalty unless there was financial incentive. Their passion for this industry ends in their pay check on a Friday evening or the last day of the month, if there is a shift where the job won't go on for whatever reason they rejoice in the wasted planning and expenditure loss of the client. That is something that we must change, we have to get rid of this attitude in all middle of the road operatives for the simple reason of it seeding so many other damaging issues. It leads to structural weakness in the levels of authority, animosity towards enthusiasm, curtails productivity and worst of all it leads to people who collectively don't give a fuck.

Last year I worked with plenty of Foremen who could talk a great game, but ultimately didn't deliver the goods, at this present time we have high numbers of people who have it in their own mind that they are the bollocks and they're the bollocks because they have being doing it for 10years +. They know it all and in no universe can someone tell them that something is wrong with their work. In no way am I going to say I know it all, never will but I will always try to be the smartest person in the room and I put a huge amount of effort into that. There are things that have to change in High Speed and Low Speed Traffic Management that are just not working. The more humble amongst them will say "we haven't got time to do all that, jobs won't ever go on", that is very true and lots of the operational procedures are vastly outdated with common sense missing. Change is driven by the people installing these works daily and I have worked with plenty of good Foremen last year who could start requesting this change, not only is there competent Foremen though, there are good Ops and TSS's also that know there shit and could campaign for a different approach.

What is stopping this from happening, well that's the easiest of answers.....LANTRA and everyone at the top of the industry who get paid to reassure us that everything is good whilst knocking out an addition to appendix 4 of Chapter 2 of Chapter 8. What I would love to do with them lot is get them out on a 60mph 3 Way whilst we are on ALL RED for set up as a lone M5 Operative or on the M1 Jct 10 at 2200hrs whilst Im trying to get a 60 count before installing a 4, 3 and 2 for some resurfacing.

I know this will be a funny one for these bigger duds to read, we have Chevron who have resorted to Prisoner Cell Block H for recruitment and everyone else just continuing to post for people on Facebook, LinkedIn and recruitment sites if they have the budget. All my recruitment has come from meeting folks in the local supermarket, people that work in shops, garages or veterans chatrooms. We landed a few major lines of works for this year which kick off this week so I tried a new one two weeks ago in Leicester to increase staff numbers. I parked up near the town centre, dressed up in all the kit with a Costco bag of fizzy cola bottles and I watched the people go by, I stopped them and asked them if they worked and what they did. If they had a job and they were over 35 I turned on the banter and gave them a mini bag of Fizzy Cola bottles. After parking up at 1240hrs I had 6 booked for TTMBC's by 1500hrs and they were all paid themselves for the course by 2000hrs that night. Three have already passed OnLine and three are off to UTS this week and next. There are plenty of people who will work in Traffic Management but they must be given the right reasons to enter the industry, treated with respect and then looked after and nurtured properly, never rushed into a scenario they are not comfortable with. Don't get me started on some of the 12D Ops I met in 2023, I will say one thing though, the companies putting these poor bastards in these dangerous scenarios to tick a box of their RAMS should be ashamed.

I look forward to this year, my knowledge grows by the day. The sick bastard that I am spent a great deal of time over the holidays learning about Motorway Engineering, the S50 Licence and Permitting practice. TSRGD and all of Chapter 8 and its various additions have been battered and I continue to strive for more practical experience now before I complete my TSS in a few months. I am on the NRSWA Supervisor Course in two weeks time with some of our lads doing the Operatives, I think we will learn plenty of useful stuff on that.

As I have said earlier you will learn who the genuine people are in this industry and when you learn who they are, get the rest deleted from your phone. Put them in your rear view mirror and forget about them as they will be no good for your ambitions or plans, never let history repeat itself especially with bad actors who will jump at the chance to bad mouth you or use you. Traffic Management is easy and its a great industry, if you work hard its like everything in life, you will get out what you put in. Finally, always know your worth!