STAFF & SKILLS
More than a railway C
rossrail’s achievements are well-known in railway circles, and it has made
waves elsewhere too, from archaeology to sustainability. But its latest achievement is people-related, with a major win at the Investors in People awards, taking the ‘Excellence in the Public Sector’ trophy.
There can be few Londoners (and surely no RTM readers) who haven’t heard of Crossrail, but it’s had more national exposure over the summer thanks to the BBC2 series, ‘The Fifteen Billion Pound Railway’.
Construction is currently at its peak, with almost 14,000 people working on the project overall, of whom 1,200 work for the client delivery organisation, made up of Crossrail Ltd and its partners CH2M Hill and Bechtel. The rest work for its major contractors, the supply chain, or as sub-contractors.
Crossrail is a project, a business, and a team.
Rob Jones, its head of organisational eff ectiveness, made it clear that the values driving it and the culture they have created apply to everyone working on it, not just those few hundred people directly employed by Crossrail Ltd.
He told RTM: “We don’t talk about the fact that people might work for CH2M Hill or Bechtel, or that I work for Crossrail Ltd. We’re all on ‘Team Crossrail’. Andrew Wolstenholme is the chief executive of both Crossrail Ltd and ‘Team Crossrail’.
“When it comes to the 10,000 people in the supply chain, we’ve positioned it as people working ‘on
Crossrail’ rather
than ‘for Crossrail’. Our ambition is that our values are for anybody working on Crossrail: the mission is for everybody, it’s not a case of ‘if you’re on the Costain-Skanska JV (joint venture company), these don’t apply to you’. We’ve tried to be inclusive rather than exclusive.”
A ‘pop-up’ organisation with perpetual values
Jones was thrilled that the project’s human resources and talent development achievements were recognised at the Investors in People Awards on 23 June.
He explained: “Given the complexity and the scale of what we’re doing, but also the fact that we’re what could be
52 | rail technology magazine Aug/Sep 14
referred to as a ‘pop-up organisation’ – we’re not going to be here forever – part of what impressed the judges was the amount we’ve been able to do and our commitment to doing it.
“Given the context, it would be easy to say, ‘we don’t need to do all of this stuff , we’re only a project’. We’ve taken the attitude that we need to be the best project: we’re delivering more than just a railway, we’re delivering a legacy.
“That’s the top line. Below that, [what impressed the judges was] a clarity of purpose around our vision and mission, and putting our values into practice across the programme – both on understanding and recognition, and the amount of eff ort we’ve put into our internal communications, our performance management, and so on.”
Asked whether the other companies involved
Rob Jones (centre), collecting the award at the ceremony.
Crossrail took the ‘Excellence in the Public Sector’ crown at the Investors in People Awards. After the ceremony, RTM caught up with the project’s head of organisational effectiveness, Rob Jones.
Project images © Crossrail Ltd
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