APTA’s Workforce Development Task Force

Overview -- Workforce Development:
Blueprint for the 21^st Century

APTA’s Workforce Development Task Force recently completed a "blueprint" for workforce development for the public transportation industry for the 21^st century.

Led by APTA’s Executive Committee and chaired by Vice Chair, Human Resources, Beverly A. Scott, Ph.D., general manager of the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority in Providence, the task force was established under the leadership of APTA’s former chair Ronald J.Tober and continues under current APTA Chair Peter M Cipolla. The task force (see Task Force members below) was charged to develop a comprehensive overview of the human resource challenges facing our industry as well as to develop an action plan and set of recommendations to address its findings.

Becoming an Employer of Choice

As part of its work, the task force was challenged to address and work on a plan to solve a number of compelling questions, including "How do we position our industry to become an employer of choice and strengthen the image of public transportation as a vibrant, meaningful, great place to work?" Interest in addressing this and many related questions and problems fueled much of the energy and support on the part of all those who contributed to the findings, identification of lessons already learned, citations of best practices and key recommendations.

A central element of the task force’s initial work had been the completion of a "scoping study," titled "Identification of the Critical Workforce Development Issues in the Transit Industry" funded by the Transportation Research Board (as part of TCRP’s Project J-6/Task 38, and Project J-6/Task 40, Identification of Practices, Techniques and Strategies for Attracting and Retaining Employees in the Transit Industry.)

Task Force Findings and Challenges

Key task force findings recognized fundamental changes underway in our industry that require systematic changes in how we approach and do business. Likewise, feedback identified concerns about our industry’s ability to craft solutions that require significant shifts in organizational cultures and attitudes. The study did find examples of progress underway in several transit systems that clearly demonstrate signs of attracting individuals to our industry. These systems can and are becoming role models of best practices to be shared with the rest of the industry.

The task force found consensus on a number of challenges. These include: changing workforce demographics and a rapidly aging workforce, critical needs in recruitment, hiring, development and succession planning, institutional barriers to workforce competitiveness and innovation, new roles for technology and the change it has on people’s lives, work practices and use of new resources, need for improved labor-management collaborations and partnerships, and lastly, the need to strengthen the overall image of public transportation – to position our industry as "an employer of choice."

2002 Task Force Proposed Initiatives

In response to some of the findings and recommendations, the task force has proposed the following set of 2002 initiatives:

• Review and expand the scope of APTA’s Human Resource Committee to include transit labor issues
• Incorporate tenets of workforce issues in actions plans and agendas of APTA’s standing committees
• Establish a clearinghouse function for the industry
• Pursue opportunities of joint collaborations with major transit labor unions, FTA, National Transit Industry and others to support needs for professional development, learning and training
• Maximize human resources best practices, products and services
• Continue education for General Managers, Transit Board Members and APTA members about WDI key topics through APTA’s major meetings and conferences

Work Underway

Meetings and discussions are planned and underway with the FTA, NTI and major transit labor unions. Most recently, APTA signed a cooperative agreement with the Society for Human Resource Management which provides APTA members eligibility for a number of benefits and services to help address and support a broad range of members’ HR issues and challenges. Please visit http://www.apta.com/services/human_resources/hrtraining/shrmindex.cfm for additional information.

Research currently is underway on efficient and new means to link members together via the internet to share best practices and engage in meaningful discussions on lessons learned. APTA’s upcoming Annual Meeting & Expo, September 22-26 in Las Vegas, will host a variety of sessions addressing workforce development related topics and issues. For additional information on APTA’s 2002 Annual Meeting & Expo, please visit http://www.apta.com.

Share Your Successes -- Post Questions -- Exchange Information

We encourage APTA members to share information about upcoming programs, recent workforce development successes, programs in development or those currently underway and available. Use the new Forums feature on APTA’s web site to write about your own achievements and advances. APTA’s Forums are reserved for APTA members.

Using this service can become a quick way for members to learn and share their successes as well as to ask questions and to learn from each other. The forums are a great way to find out what your colleagues are doing and to learn how they may have solved similar problems. In addition to sharing information, we invite members to post questions on the forum sites as well.

To access the Forums, visit APTA’s web site at http://www.apta.com. Click on Members Only, click on Forums. (If you are a first-time user of the Forums, follow the prompts to set up your user ID, password, profile information and forums to which you wish to subscribe.) Once in Forums, scroll down to the HR Forum to post your questions or to write about your recent challenges and successes.

The Forums are APTA’s Bulletin Board and e-mail list service. As you subscribe to APTA’s various forums, e.g., Human Resources, you will automatically be notified of new entries and questions via email.

Share Your Examples

If you are able, we are asking members to share electronic copies of examples of workforce development related materials, e.g., sample program descriptions, outlines, papers, reports, best practices or other information of interest that you can make available to APTA members and potentially, the general public. Please send your examples to Joe Niegoski at jniegoski@apta.com or Pamela Boswell at pboswell@apta.com. Once we hear from you, examples will be posted to the APTA web site. These examples will be made available to APTA members.

For now, we ask that these examples not be larger than 1MB. Examples may be in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML or PDF files. (Please replace all underscored items in your information that are not links with bold, italics or larger fonts.)

Upcoming Resources

APTA currently is working on a special web site to provide a more extensive means to share best practices, documents and papers, lessons learned and effective training resources in areas of workforce development. Updates on this site to follow.

Member Approaches to Workforce Development Programs -- Highlights

As noted above, a number of sites have implemented successful and innovative approaches that begin to address some of the challenges and needs facing our industry. Following are some examples of member successes and best practices as identified in the Task Force study.

Aging Workforce

• Some properties (Champaign-Urbana, for example) are trying to reconfigure some of their work to allow part-time work for which they recruit older workers, including persons retired from other professions.

Succession Planning

• Washington, DC’s WMATA is the only site among those interviewed for the study that has an explicit "Leadership Succession Planning Program" that targets ten key positions. Candidates for these positions are rigorously screened to become eligible for training, special projects and rotational work assignments. A special Superintendent Succession Planning Program for Operations has been developed to address the agency’s needs for Superintendent’s due to forecast retirements.

Recruitment

• BC Transit has addressed labor shortages in particular specialties by creating an on-going process to consider institutional or process changes. Workforce changes are looked upon as an opportunity for work reorganization. For example, equipment practices might be changed, work itself could be reorganized. The key to achieving gains is not the particular innovations but a philosophy and practice of constantly looking for opportunities for change.

• RTD in Denver addressed a bus driver shortage by creating an integrated recruitment plan that included a million dollar radio and TV advertising campaign and targeted outreach to technical schools.

• King County built a campaign around bus operations as a part time second career.

Compensation

• LA introduced a new pay for performance system for its non-union staff as of July 2001. The new system replaced a traditional approach providing standard cost of living adjustments. Getting authorization for the new system required long planning and rigorous study of approaches in other transit and governmental organizations. These studies were conducted by internal staff.

• Santa Clara conducts regular salary surveys in its area for in-demand specialties. They also reached agreement with its unions to review certain specialties on a three versus five year basis, and adjust pay to match the market.

• MARTA has adopted a program that provides bonuses ("success sharing") for organization-wide performance.

• Houston has a gain share program eligible for both union and non-union employees whereby employees received a compensation bonus on meeting performance goals.

• WMATA introduced a new market-based pay system which is updated regularly by WMATA’s Compensation Branch. As of 1997, WMATA has instituted Pay for Performance for non-represented employees, linked to a new performance management system.

• New York’s MTA turned challenges into opportunities. For certain hard-to-hire skills, MTA hires young, bright graduates, expecting them to stay 3 to 5 years and compensates them through much greater responsibility than they would have elsewhere.

Image

• Santa Clara supports its belief that each property "creates its own image." They achieve their success through an ongoing effort to reach out to workers through regular meetings, attendance at informal functions and other activities.

• King County and Santa Clara both encourage bus drivers to participate in community projects. King County for example participates in a community partnership program on "how to be safe on the bus."

Demographics

• LA wanted to increase its recruiting among Hispanics. Through partnerships with three "Employment Development Districts," LA worked to develop a program to educate applicants on how to fill out a job application form and how to do a job interview.

• Champaign Urbana has worked to tailor schedules and assignments to help accommodate some of the needs of part time workers and single parents.

• The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) has supported efforts to use Federal welfare to work funds to provide training in transit-related skills.

• The ATU also developed a training program in both Spanish and English in 1992 to ensure that its members could pass the DCL exam, with a claimed success rate of 100%.

Work Organization/Culture Change

• SEPTA has designed a customer-focused training program to help improve organizational image and to foster internal teaming.

• King County, too, has initiated a team-based approach to workforce organization. They also have sent their management staff to area wide leadership training programs with Boeing, Nordstrom’s and Microsoft. King County’s annual management retreat is regularly built around a speaker program that is designed to challenge their existing culture.

• WMATA conducts monthly meetings with its Executive Officers and Directors. Management staff meets on a quarterly basis which includes presentation by industry leaders. WMATA has formed a Joint Management Committee of Executive Officers and seven Office Directors to act as a resource and sounding board for issues that surface in the organization

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Technology

• BC Transit involves mechanics and bus drivers in creating the specifications for new buses, with the expectation that new technology will be more familiar and user friendly.

• Louisville trained several mechanics as bus inspectors and sent them to work two-week assignments on the manufacture’s assembly line. This program familiarized the mechanics with good work habits of the bus manufacturer and provided the mechanics with a sense of ownership of the new equipment.

Planning

• Houston has completed strategic plans for technology and human resources. They also are working on a strategic plan for recruiting, in cooperation with Texas Southern Railroad.

• WMATA has both a comprehensive and specific workforce strategic plan.

Partnerships

• The Canadian transit industry has helped found a Federal level "Motor Carrier Passenger Council." The Council examines retirement trends and studies how to attract applicants. It has completed a study of needed competencies and is looking at a professional certification program.

• BC Transit has initiated a joint effort with other Crown Corporations (quasi public entities) to discuss workforce issues.

• LA works closely with other city agencies to identify common issues and exchange ideas on possible approaches.

• The TWU has founded a "Community Transportation Development Center" which, according to the AFL-CIO, focuses on building "high road partnerships" which bring together management and labor in individual properties to create "career ladders" and training opportunities.

Training

• Santa Clara has a training plan for each initiative and program. They have instituted regular planning sessions and input processes with representation from all departments. Santa Clara has instituted a two-year mechanic certification program; in return they require a four-year commitment to the organization.

• Houston uses its overall strategic plan to set its training budget. They set competency levels to then determine training budgets by department.

• SEPTA conducts a series of customer expectation sessions to help make staff more customer focused.

• WMATA has major training initiatives in: leadership training for middle management; a management training core curriculum; entry-level management training; technical skills for elevator/escalator maintenance; and rail car and bus maintenance.

Mentor Programs

• Salt Lake’s program keeps new drivers under the same supervisor for his/her initial period. They also invite spouses for orientation. They also sponsor weekly "huddles" for new drivers.

• Houston’s program provides an experienced mentor for each new driver for their first six months.

Workforce Development Initiative Task Force Members

Beverly A. Scott, Ph.D. (Co-Lead) *

Vice Chair – Human Resources, APTA

General Manager

Rhode Island Public Transit Authority

Providence, RI

Victor H. Burke *

Executive Vice President/Chief of Operations

Dallas Area Rapid Transit

Dallas, TX

Mattie P. Carter *

Chairman, Board of Directors

Memphis Area Transit Authority

Memphis, TN

Gail Charles *

Deputy General Manager, Administration

Metropolitan Atlanta Regional Transit Authority

Atlanta, GA

Denise Daly *

Chief of Staff

Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority

San Jose, CA

George Dixon, III *

President, Board of Trustees

Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority

Cleveland, OH

Susanne K. Fossey

Vice President, Human Resources

BC Transit

Victoria, BC

Saundra M. Foster (Co-Lead) *

Member, Board of Trustees

METRO Regional Transit Authority

Akron, OH

Keith Greene *

Director, Organizational Program

Society for Human Resources Management

Alexandria, VA

Kevin Hyland *

Vice President, Human Resources

MTA New York City Transit

Brooklyn, NY

Robert H. Irwin *

President & Chief Executive Officer

BC Transit

Victoria, BC Canada

Dr. Minnie Fells Johnson *

Executive Director

Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority

Dayton, OH

Raymond S. Jurkowski *

Assistant General Manager, Organizational Development, Human Resources & Training

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority

Philadelphia, PA

Thomas P. Kujawa

Managing Director

Milwaukee County Transit System

Milwaukee, WI

Paul Larrousse *

Director

National Transit Institute

New Brunswick, NJ

Joan M. Martin *

Assistant General Manager for Employee Relations and Administration

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority

Boston, MA

Robert A.Molofsky *

General Counsel

ATU

Washington, DC

Jeffrey M. Rosenberg, Esq. *

Legislative Counsel

ATU

Washington, DC

Joyce F. Olson

Executive Director

Snohomish County Public Transportation Benefit Area Corporation

Everett, WA

Stephanie L. Pinson (Co-Lead) *

President/Chief Operating Officer

Gilbert Tweed Associates, Inc.

New York, NY

Lawrence G. Reuter

President

MTA New York City Transit

Brooklyn, NY

Richard J. Simonetta *

Principal Consultant

PB Consult, Inc.

Division of Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, Inc.

West Chester, PA

Michael D. Thomas

Chairman of the Board

Spear Technologies

San Francisco, CA

Brian J. Turner *

Director

Community Transportation Development Center

Washington, DC

Matt Welbes *

Office of the Administrator

Federal Transit Administration

Washington, DC

______________________

* -- Continuing participation

   

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