Rob Duvel, Executive Director of Zero Harm at Metro Trains Melbourne (Metro), kindly provided some of his time to enlighten me on how Metro continued providing a safe means of public transport for the Victorian Community.
What was the general feeling at Metro when the pandemic first evolved in Victoria?
Initially, like most, there was a feeling of uncertainty, coupled with a range of emotions. Naturally a lot of people were extremely concerned, particularly for those employees that were in public facing roles.
What could you do in such uncertain times to support and make people in public facing roles feel comfortable?
Communication is the key. Listening, asking and providing support.
At the time the pandemic hit, we had just come out of the bushfire crisis, so fortunately that meant we had a lot of personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, on hand, which made it easy for us to distribute masks to our employees.
We risk assessed every role within the business and implemented appropriate controls.
As an organisation that serves the community, how did you quickly mobilise and respond to the pandemic?
For us it was a combination of enacting our Crisis Management Plan and our Resilience Response Plan. For those who aren’t familiar with a Resilience Response Plan, it is a plan that focuses on how to maintain operations once the initial crisis has been responded to.
Within the Resilience Plan there is a Continuity Response Group, which comprises drivers, passengers, safety, human resources and members of the infrastructure team - these people provide insights and suggestions on the day to day issues that might be faced.
Initially these two groups were meeting daily to understand what we needed to do to ensure the health and safety of our employees and the members of the public.
These groups still convene on a weekly basis and are continually reviewing the protocols we have in place.
What operational controls were put into place in response to the pandemic?
One of the first decisions we made was to follow the direction of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). We then developed specific protocols and procedures and implemented them quickly.
We implemented a specific cleaning regime, which included deep cleaning of the trains and the platforms every night.
We developed specific training for all our managers to inform them and to help them support their teams on all the requirements and controls as it related to the pandemic. We also developed guidance on what to do if a positive case is reported and how to manage it. This guidance enabled our managers to quickly respond to what can be a stressful situation.
What challenges did you encounter from an operational perspective?
We had to continue on with our driver training program. The driver training program involves two people being in a cabin at the same time. To safely continue this program we implemented specific controls such as self -checks, additional PPE and cleaning to ensure that the training could continue.
Working in the public realm in the midst of a global health pandemic can be stressful for many people. What interventions were implemented to support employees' mental health?
A substantial amount of work was undertaken by many of our teams to ensure we were considering the mental health and wellbeing of our employees.
In my view, the most effective program we introduced was company wide webinars on a Friday afternoon. The webinars were live streamed to the entire business, and were hosted by myself and/or another member of the leadership team. It was like a press conference! The leadership team would communicate to the business on anything COVID related, we would then have a guest speaker each week and we would then open up for questions. We used a tool called Slido and people could text in their questions without notice and they would be answered.
Working within my team is an industrial psychologist - they focus on human factors. Through her leadership we were able to develop specific mental health programs that focused on stress and resilience.
It was also important for us to regularly check in with our people, particularly those who were working from home. Given the size of our workforce we have been sending out surveys to seek feedback and insights from our people.
Being a geographically spread out organisation what communication mechanisms did you rely on to quickly inform your employees of any changes?
Metro has approximately 250 different work locations. Some of our employees have access to computers and some don’t. The diversity of work in our organisation meant that pre-COVID we already had multiple communication channels in place. We were able to leverage these to get messages across the organisation quickly.
We typically used Microsoft Teams for our office based employees and for our operational employees who might not have access to emails, we were able to push messages to them through our company based app.
As a leadership team, we knew the importance of communication and were mindful of communicating regularly with all employees.
What have you enjoyed most about the COVID-19 pandemic?
I have observed a real positivity around how quick society, and our organisation, has adapted to a new way of working. People are actually just getting on and doing their jobs. I have found it illuminating and I have really enjoyed watching it unfold.
Have you learnt anything new?
In January we moved from Melbourne to Macedon. During lock down I have worked around the property, and my wife and I built a massive vegetable garden, the veggies are starting to ripen now. The vegetable garden has become a new hobby!
Have you kicked any bad habits?
No I haven’t, but I haven’t picked up any either! I will say, my sleeping patterns are much better and I think that is due to less of a commute to work.
When we return to normal, what change will you make to the workplace?
Maintaining the flexible work arrangements where you can, obviously this is difficult for primary roles like train drivers, but where it can be implemented it will be. I have always been an advocate for flexibility.
Understanding the cadence of communication needed for everyone in the business. We will be talking all the time, and not waiting for the “quarterly updates”. We need to figure out how often people should be hearing from frontline leaders.