Neil Robertson, NSAR Chief Executive, was recently interviewed by Antony Oliver for The Infrastructure Podcast. He spoke about training a new generation of rail workers, upskilling the existing cohort and all things NSAR.
“We’re buying our way out of a problem, rather than training our way out of a problem – partly anyway. What we want to do is train our way out of the problem – that is, increase the number of people new and upskilled to meet the demand.
“Do we understand and accept that this is an issue? Yes. Are we starting to do something about it? Yes. Is that having an impact? Yes. Is it enough? No.
“Planning our workforce is a very important activity. In the past, we said: ‘We want a bridge, let’s work back.’ So for ten years, we knew what we are going to do the next day to make sure that bridge was in place and we’re very good at it – that bridge is there and it’s still there. But we treat people like nuts and bolts. We say: ‘Ah! We going to need some people tomorrow, let’s go and see who’s in the market.’ We need to take a scientific approach to our people as well as our project planning.”
Listen here to Neil share his insight on where the future of the railway is going.
