Bridging the skills gap for the rail sector : analysis of six measures and recommendations.
Date: 2019-09-03
Institutions: Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking
Subjects: engineer, innovation, professional qualifications, rail network, rail transport, railway industry, report, transport infrastructure, transport staff

Bridging the Skills Gap 
for the Rail Sector: 
Analysis of Six Measures 
and Recommendations

Human Capital 
Report Series

Moving European 
Railway Forward

About this publication

Manuscript completed on 17 April 2019.

Shift2Rail  JU,  nor  any  person  acting  on  behalf  of  Shift2Rail  JU  is  responsible  for  the  use  that 
might be made of the following information.

© Shift2Rail Joint Undertaking 2019.

Reproduction is authorised provided the source in acknowledged.

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sought directly from the copyright holders.

PDF

HI-01-19-635-EN-N

ISBN 978-92-95215-16-0

doi: 10.2881/515850

Project number: 060.32480
Report number: R18068

Authors:
S. Dhondt, F.A. van der Zee, P.R.A. Oeij, T.M. Chen, D. Islam, 

Contact: 
Steven Dhondt

Healthy Living
Schipholweg 77-89, 2316 ZL Leiden, P.O. Box 30052301 DA 

steven.dhondt@tno.nl

Leiden, The Netherlands

+31 88 866 61 55

www.tno.nl; T +31 88 866 61 00; infodesk@tno.nl

Photos credits:

Cover © SNCF, Talgo, Shift2Rail JU; Back Cover © Shift2Rail JU

Legal notice:
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The information and views set out in this study are those of the authors and do not necessarily 

reflect  the  official  opinion  of  the  S2R  JU.  The  S2R  JU  does  not  guarantee  the  accuracy  of  the 

data included in this study. S2R JU nor any person acting on the S2R JU’s behalf may be held 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Summary 

Goal of the report D3a 
The  Shift2Rail  Joint  Undertaking  (hereinafter  “the  S2R  JU”,  “the  Joint  Undertaking”  or  “the 
Contracting  Authority”),  is  a  public-private  partnership  in  the  rail  sector,  established  under 
Horizon 2020, to provide a platform for coordinating research activities with a view to driving 
innovation in the rail sector in the years to come. S2R JU has assigned the consortium TNO 
and NewRail a contract three studies in the “Human capital” working area of the S2R cross-
cutting activities (CCA) of its’ research programme: 
›

To  study  the  socio-economic  context  of  the  rail  sector:  this  study  analyses  the  socio-
economic aspects of human capital, notably the skills that will be needed in the future for
the different categories of railway staff - from workers to engineers, railway managers and
researchers. This study is included in the report Deliverable 1a (see Dhondt e.a., 2018;
D1a);
To develop a preliminary prognosis on the impact of the market introduction of the S2R
research and innovation programme and its technologies on human capital. This study is
included in the report Deliverable 2 (see Dhondt e.a., 2019; D2);
To develop strategies and trainings based on the above analyses to bridge the skill gaps,
with  a  special  attention  to  ensuring  increased  flexibility  of  railway  staff.  Best  practices
from other sectors, transfer of knowledge and of workforce (mobility, etc.) are also studied
for this goal. This study is included in this report Deliverable 3a (D3a).

›

›

This report D3a includes the recommendations for strategies and trainings to bridge the skills 
gap  in  the  railway  sector  and  ensuring  increased  flexibility  of  railway  staff.  The  resulting 
recommendations are meant for S2R and the railway sector. Best practices from other sectors, 
transfer of knowledge and transfer of workforce, have been studied for this goal. 

Starting point: Interpreting the skills gap in the railway sector 
In report D2, a prognosis was made of the impacts of S2R R&I on skills: 
›

At the level of tasks, there is a shift towards more use of ICT, systems, materials and
production  processes,  but  also  a  tendency  towards  simplification  of  tasks  and  even  a
phasing out of certain tasks, with redundancy of jobs;
At the level of competences and skills, most of the changes relate to Science, Technol-
ogy, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The different IP-programmes demand differ-
ent technical knowledge to be developed. Next to STEM, there are rising social demands,
communicative  demands  and  on  organisational  demands  in  all  jobs  in  the  rail  sector,
except for train drivers.

›

It is important to understand what this skills gap means for the operation of the rail companies, 
meaning  manufacturers,  system  integrators,  transport  companies  and  rail  infrastructure 
managers. The skills gap generates new challenges and demands on rail companies:  
1. Rail companies will experience a future of growth and decline of tasks within the different
occupations.  Statistical  studies  show  decline  (see  report  D1a),  but  discussions  with
stakeholders (see report D1b) point towards growth in tasks and demand.  The precise
growth of these tasks will be difficult to estimate. Rail organisations need to organize for
flexibility in personnel provision;
The combination of new demands and ageing workforce will require the rail organisations
to master a fast changing personnel composition;

2.

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

3.  The S2R R&I will be connected to market changes in the major rail markets. Outsourcing 
and  down-sizing,  connected  to  the  further  liberalisation  of  the  rail  market,  will  demand 
from rail companies to manage unknown technical capabilities to deal with changes; 
4.  Lower employment and higher capital intensity of the rail system will demand from rail 
companies the ability to manage high risk situations and more demanding service and 
information situations (possibly with less personnel around), also connected to more se-
curity and privacy issues connected to the radical increase of the generation and use of 
data; 

5.  The rise  in  need for IT-skills requires  the rail companies to rethink how they  deal  with 

programming skills and systems knowledge of their personnel; 

6.  Rail companies will need to rethink their corporate cultures: changing social, communi-
cation  and  organisational  skills  require  different  settings  to  keep  a  satisfied  and  more 
diversified workforce; 

7.  Rail companies will need to think about ways to achieve faster upscaling of (technical) 

knowledge (from 1 person to many persons) within their organisations.  

The analysis of trainings  and strategies  is conducted  in such a  way  that  they  need to  help 
tackle these seven major changes to the skill gaps.  

Measures to deal with skills gap 
The tender specifications required the project team to look at six specific measures to deal 
with the identified skills gaps. The focus has been on the following six measures: 
›  Next Generation Learning (transfer of knowledge); 
› 
Access to virtual learning (transfer of knowledge); 
› 
Access to education (transfer of knowledge); 
› 
Attractiveness of sector to new entrants (transfer of workforce); 
› 
Transfer from reintegration (transfer of workforce); 
› 
Transfer from less represented groups (transfer of workforce). 

Research questions and method of the study 
To develop recommendations about strategies and training, we have tried to answer the fol-
lowing research questions on the practice of rail companies: 
›  Which measures do rail companies in four countries (Germany, Netherlands, France, UK) 
apply that we can see as illustration of the transfer of knowledge and of transfer of work-
force mechanisms?  

›  Why are these measures selected and how effective are they? 
›  What can be learnt from other sectors? 
›  How do the transfer of knowledge mechanism relate to the content and requirements for 

trainings? 

›  How do the transfer of workforce mechanism relate to the content and requirements for 
alternative learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and life-long learning? 
›  What should sectors try to come up as an approach, using the six measures? What further 

development is then needed? 

›  What recommendations can be formulated for other rail companies to deal with the future 

skills gap identified in this report? 

To  answer  the  main  research  questions,  we  collected  information  from  surveys  (European 
Company  Survey  (Eurofound)  and  European  Survey  of  Enterprises  on  New  and  Emerging 
Risks  (ESENER:  EU-OSHA)),  secondary  sources  and  from  interviews  with  the  major  rail 
companies in Europe (NS, ProRail, Railcenter, SNCF, DB, Network Rail). In total, the report 
describes over 45 different measures to deal with the employment change and skills gap. In 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

this summary,  we limit ourselves to the main conclusions that can help rail companies and 
stakeholders in the sector. 

Major conclusions 
How does the transfer of knowledge mechanism relate to the content and requirements for 
trainings? 
The S2R R&I will lead to changes in processes and technologies in the different countries. 
These technological developments inevitably require an adaptation of vocational training pro-
grammes,  on-the-job  training  systems  and  higher  education.  These  transfer  of  knowledge 
mechanisms help Vocational Education and Training (VET), on-the-job training and academic 
education to prepare themselves for the future skill gaps that will arise. From the analysis in 
the report, it is important to take the following points into consideration: 
› 

To understand the role of VET-systems in the different countries, it is important to bear in 
mind  the  institutional  differences  between  the  countries  participating  in  the  research. 
Companies in all countries have a clear interest to help improve the educational effort, 
but this effort will be different for each of the countries; 

› 

›  Companies should better assess the ICT-knowledge that their employees have. It should 
be  a  personal  interest  of  every  employee  to  know  where  they  stand,  but  also  to  have 
reliable tooling to assess their knowledge and competence. It would be a good thing to 
share the German validated test for assessing current ICT-knowledge and to develop this 
also for the VET and higher education systems; 
A lot of effort is invested in sector to assess new skills profiles. The lesson for the rail 
sector is that assessing the technological knowledge in a job, should be done with the 
current jobs and not so much from the drawing board. This also means that it is somewhat 
hard to give a precise content on the VET, on-the-job and academic programmes. Better 
than having a precise view on what future skills should be, is to build on a flexible system 
to assess skills changes when they arise. This requires however a close cooperation of 
companies with the VET-system, unless of course companies do everything in-house; 
Virtual  learning is already  well-embedded  in the rail sector. Most parties elect blended 
learning approaches. However, more attention to new simulation approaches may be the 
future to model technology changes. This will be more necessary for ‘management sys-
tems’ (managing a multitude of partner actions, rather than single driving trainer). For the 
educational system, more access to such systems may  only  be realisable through the 
companies. Partnerships should be built on this. eLearning seems only to be used for a 
limited  number  of  topics.  More  analysis  is  needed  for  eLearning  applications,  but  also 
more investment is needed to develop eLearning applications. 

› 

How  does  the  transfer  of  workforce  mechanism  relate  to  the  content  and  requirements  for 
alternative learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and life-long learning? 
In the report, we documented the ‘transfer of workforce’ mechanism needed to deal with alter-
native learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and lifelong learning aspects of skills 
segments of the workforce. These transfer of workforce mechanisms are needed to help the 
rail sector with new personnel in the future. From the analysis, it is important to take the fol-
lowing points into consideration: 
› 

Alternative learning systems and lifelong learning approaches should reflect the culture 
that companies want to install. They should take into account the issues with former sys-
tems and consciously correct for these tendencies (for example gendering). When devel-
oping these systems, follow earlier recommendations: equip for the future, try not to guess 
the future; 

›  Workforce transfer mechanisms may be biased towards specific skill levels. It is important 

that all systems are checked for bias toward specific skill levels; 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

› 

Lifelong learning needs to be developed in such a way that different trajectories are pos-
sible with different groups. 

What should the rail sector try to come-up with as approach, using the six measures? What 
further development is then needed? 
The answer to this question is summarized in the following ten recommendations: 
1.  Continue with closer relationship between VET and company needs. Learn from the dif-
ferent countries about VET. The in-house training system with apprenticeships and grad-
uate programmes in France, UK and Germany is recommendable, but is expensive for 
the companies. The need remains high for the sector to discuss with governments costs 
of in-house training and the great need for new recruits. 
2.  Share validated tests for assessing ICT-competencies.  
3.  Share information about assessing competences in current jobs to speed-up future roles 

and technology demands.  

4.  Keep an openness from companies to the VET- and academic system, even if most of 
the competence assessment and development of training seems to be an in-house effort. 
Keep investing into education too, not only in the company trainings. The maritime sector 
has shown that underinvesting in VET education has stalled development in companies.  

5.  Learn from practice, less from paper.  
6.  More  support  from  companies  for  higher  (academic)  apprenticeships.  A  round-table 

needed for this. 

7.  Experiment more with skill-swapping schemes. 
8.  Built partnerships on new management simulation applications.  
9.  Develop alternative learning systems and lifelong learning approaches from the perspec-
tive of new groups or from the perspective and interests of less represented groups. This 
means that these systems should be flexible to account for the needs of these groups 
(and to attract these groups).  

10.  Reintegration needs to be used as a measure at all skill levels. Learning systems should 

be developed such that reintegrated employees can re-develop their career. 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Abbreviations 

› 
ATO = automatic train operation 
›  COMM = communication competences 
›  DB = Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) 
› 
› 
› 
› 

ECS = European Company Survey (Eurofound) 
ESENER = European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (EU-OSHA) 
IPs = Innovation Programmes 
ICT = competences and knowledge to use and develop information and communication 
technologies 
ISCO = International Standard Classification of Occupations  
ISCED = International Standard Classification of Education  

› 
› 
›  NR = Network Rail 
›  NS = Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Railways) 
›  ORG = organisational competences 
› 
› 
› 
› 
› 

S2R = Shift2Rail 
SOC = social competences 
STEM = science technology engineering and mathematical competences 
T = technical skills (see report for list) 
VET = vocational education and training 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Contents 

Summary ................................................................................................................................................... i 

Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................................ v 

1 
1.1 
1.2 
1.3 
1.4 

1.4.1 
1.4.2 
1.4.3 
1.5 
1.6 
1.6.1 
1.6.2 
1.7 
1.8 

2 
2.1 
2.2 
2.3 

3 
3.1 
3.2 
3.3 

4 
4.1 
4.2 
4.3 
4.3.1 
4.3.2 
4.3.3 
4.4 

Introduction................................................................................................................................1 
Developing recommendations for strategies and trainings for the railway sector ....................1 
Interpreting the skills gap ..........................................................................................................1 
Measures to deal with the skills gap .........................................................................................3 
Training and hiring policies and OSH in the railway sector: Insights from European  
company surveys ......................................................................................................................6 
Two surveys ............................................................................................................................. 6 
Transfer of knowledge: Conditions .......................................................................................... 7 
Transfer of personnel ............................................................................................................... 7 
Research questions for D3........................................................................................................8 
Method of the study ...................................................................................................................8 
Collecting and analysis of information about measures .......................................................... 8 
Identifying recommendations for strategies and trainings ..................................................... 10 
Workshop ............................................................................................................................... 10 
Set-up of report ...................................................................................................................... 10 

Next Generation Learning ...................................................................................................... 11 
Definition ................................................................................................................................ 11 
Next Generation Learning: Overview ..................................................................................... 12 
Assessment ............................................................................................................................ 14 

Access to Virtual Learning ..................................................................................................... 16 
Definition ................................................................................................................................ 16 
Virtual learning: Overview ...................................................................................................... 16 
Assessment ............................................................................................................................ 18 

Access to Education ............................................................................................................... 20 
Definition ................................................................................................................................ 20 
The current education gap in the rail sector: Learning from the Skillful project ..................... 20 
Access to education: Overview .............................................................................................. 22 
The UK-example: Network Rail taking the lead in the new apprenticeships ......................... 22 
The Dutch example of Railcenter ........................................................................................... 23 
Learning from other sectors ................................................................................................... 25 
Assessment ............................................................................................................................ 25 

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5 
5.1 
5.2 
5.3 
5.3.1 
5.3.2 

5.3.3 
5.3.4 
5.3.5 

5.4 

6 
6.1 
6.2 
6.3 

7 
7.1 
7.2 
7.3 

8 
8.1 
8.2 

8.3 

8.4 

Attractiveness of Sector to New Entrants .............................................................................. 27 
Definition ................................................................................................................................ 27 
The challenge ......................................................................................................................... 27 
Overview ................................................................................................................................ 28 
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 28 
General campaigns to develop specific and new branding of the sector and of the 
companies .............................................................................................................................. 29 
New recruiting procedures, shifting from broadcasting to multicasting ................................. 31 
Redeployment and intersectoral mobility ............................................................................... 32 
Networking supports in which collaboration with a broad network of partners is sought 
to improve the sector image ................................................................................................... 33 
Assessment ............................................................................................................................ 35 

Transfer from Reintegration ................................................................................................... 36 
Definition ................................................................................................................................ 36 
Overview ................................................................................................................................ 36 
Assessment ............................................................................................................................ 37 

Transfer from Less Represented Target Groups ................................................................... 39 
Definition ................................................................................................................................ 39 
Overview ................................................................................................................................ 39 
Assessment ............................................................................................................................ 41 

Conclusions and Recommendations ..................................................................................... 42 
Introduction............................................................................................................................. 42 
How does the transfer of knowledge mechanism relate to the content and requirements 
for trainings? .......................................................................................................................... 42 
How does the transfer of workforce mechanism relate to the content and requirements 
for alternative learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and life-long learning? ..... 45 
What should the rail sector try to come-up with as approach, using the six measures? 
What further development is then needed? ........................................................................... 46 

References ............................................................................................................................................ 48 

Annex 1  Overview of measures implemented by companies .............................................................. 51 

Annex 2  Surveys .................................................................................................................................. 85 

Annex 3  Results from the H2020 Skillful project .................................................................................. 94 

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1 

Introduction 

1.1 

Developing recommendations for strategies and trainings for the railway sector 

The  Shift2Rail  Joint  Undertaking  (hereinafter  “the  S2R  JU”,  “the  Joint  Undertaking”  or  “the 
Contracting  Authority”),  is  a  public-private  partnership  in  the  rail  sector,  established  under 
Horizon 2020, to provide a platform for coordinating research activities with a view to driving 
innovation in the rail sector in the years to come. S2R JU has assigned the consortium TNO 
and NewRail a contract three studies in the “Human capital” working area of the S2R cross-
cutting activities (CCA) of its’ research programme: 
› 

To  study  the  socio-economic  context  of  the  rail  sector:  this  study  analyses  the  socio-
economic aspects of human capital, notably the skills that will be needed in the future for 
the different categories of railway staff - from workers to engineers, railway managers and 
researchers. This study is included in the report Deliverable 1a (see Dhondt e.a., 2018; 
D1a); 
To develop a preliminary prognosis on the impact of the market introduction of the S2R 
research and innovation programme and its technologies on human capital. This study is 
included in the report Deliverable 2 (see Dhondt e.a., 2019; D2); 
To develop strategies and trainings based on the above analyses to bridge the skill gaps, 
with  a  special  attention  to  ensuring  increased  flexibility  of  railway  staff.  Best  practices 
from other sectors, transfer of knowledge and of workforce (mobility, etc.) are also studied 
for this goal. This study is included in this report Deliverable 3a (D3a).   

› 

› 

This report describes work performed in WP3 which has the objective to deliver recommenda-
tions for strategies  and trainings to bridge the skills gap  in the railway sector and ensuring 
increased flexibility of railway staff. The resulting recommendations are meant for S2R and 
her  stakeholders.  Best  practices  from  other  sectors,  transfer  of  knowledge  and  transfer  of 
workforce, are studied for this goal. This objective has been achieved through two tasks: 
› 

Task  5.  Reducing  the  skills  gap  for  the  Railway  Sector:  this  delivers  the  view  of  how 
transfer-mechanisms can help railway transport (report D3a); 
Task 6. Strengthening the skills ecosystem in the Railway Sector: this part integrates all 
results  and  formulates  the  recommendations  for  S2R  (report  D3b).  Included  in  these 
recommendations are the results of a workshop with stakeholders in the rail sector on the 
recommendations. 

› 

1.2 

Interpreting the skills gap 

In  report  D2,  a  prognosis  was  made  of  the  impacts  of  S2R  R&I  on  skills.  It  is  important  to 
understand what this skills gap means for the operation of the rail companies, meaning  railway 
undertakings, manufacturing,  infrastructure management, integrators. This section  gives  an 
interpretation of this impact. 

The D2 report indicates that the IPs will lead to conflicting demands for skilling in the future 
working environment: 
› 

At the level of tasks, there is a shift towards more use  of ICT, systems, materials and 
production processes (ICT, ICT tool usage, system specifics, materials use, production 
process), but also a tendency towards simplification of tasks and even a phasing out of 
certain tasks, with redundancy of jobs; 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

› 

At the level of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), social, com-
municative and organisational skills, most of the changes relate to STEM-skills needed 
in the future. The different IP-programmes demand different technical knowledge to be 
developed. Next to STEM, there are rising social demands, communicative demands and 
on organisational demands. All demands are rising in all jobs in the rail sector, except for 
train drivers. For each of the job categories, the required competencies (abilities) needed 
in the future to deal with these technologies have been assessed separately. ‘Common 
sense logic’ among the rail stakeholders dictates that operations and management have 
limited ICT-knowledge, but a lot of (traditional) operational knowledge. Engineers should 
be up-to-date, whatever the technology. 

In general, the employment levels in the railway sector are expected to change as a result of 
continuous innovation and re-engineering of processes. A separate investigation is needed to 
understand  what  kind  of  change  this  will  be,  considering  changes  in  market  demands  for 
services  and  changes  in  policy  contexts  (for  example,  resistance  of  employees  to  change; 
limitation  by  national  rules).  Currently,  rail  companies  are  fighting  hard  for  new  recruits. 
Foresight  studies  also  claim  that  in  the  future,  job  growth  will  be  visible  in  the  sector  even 
though  statistical  research  in  report  D1a  shows  declining  employment  levels.  This 
contradiction is only apparent in three situations: 
› 

Firstly, the foresight studies  see a change in the conditions for operating in the sector: 
they predict a rising demand and changing public investment policies. In report D2, these 
conditions are assumed to not to change; 
Secondly, a major driving force for the great demand for jobs is for demographic reasons: 
the rail sector is experiencing an extremely ageing workforce and this already leads to 
the need to find new personnel. The amount of persons needed to replace the ‘leavers’ 
is expected to be higher than the amount of job losses caused by the S2R-technology 
projects. This situation is however very different between countries considered: 
• 

In France, SNCF has been experiencing the consequences of ageing during the past 
two decades. The older generations have been replaced and the company sees the 
current replacement as a ‘return-to-normal’, this means that age composition is less 
distorted with overrepresentation of very old age groups; 
In Germany, DB  welcomes the major ageing transition because  it allows a strong 
rejuvenation of the workforce. As a consequence, the current workforce consists al-
ready of persons that started their career with DB after 2012. For new persons, the 
fact that a lot of colleagues are also new-starters, is quite stimulating; 

• 

Thirdly, as a consequence of the economic surge, Europe is currently experiencing major 
job growth in all countries which in turn leads to a rather more difficult situation to find 
new recruits on the labour market. And last but not least, the railway sector, moreover, 
has to compete on the labour market with other sectors, especially where STEM skills are 
concerned. 

› 

› 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

These  developments  provide  for  a  com-
plicated  situation  in  which  at  the  same  time 
employment  will  be  lost  and  needed  to  find 
sufficient  replacement  of  personnel  leaving 
for  demographic 
reasons.  The  S2R 
innovation  projects  will  help  the  sector  to 
become  more  efficient.  The  skill  changes 
have  different  outcomes  depending  on  the 
type of job. 
Given this context, the skills gap can be seen 
as  new  challenges  and  demands  on  rail 
companies. These challenges and demands 
are summarised as the following according to 
our assessment: 
1.  A  broad  spectrum  of  scenarios  on 
growth  and  decline  of  tasks  within  rail 
companies: this means that the precise 
growth  will  be  difficult  to  estimate.  Rail 
for 
organisations  need 
flexibility in personnel provision; 

to  organize 

2.  The  combination  of  new  demands  and 
ageing  workforce  will  require  the  rail 
organisations to master a fast changing personnel composition; 

SNCF to passing-by travellers 

Figure 1.1  The  change  challenge  presented  by 

3.  The S2R R&I will be connected to market changes in the major rail markets. Outsourcing 
and down-sizing will demand from rail companies to manage unknown technical capabil-
ities to deal with changes; 

4.  Lower employment and higher capital intensity of the rail system will demand from rail 
companies the ability to manage high risk situations and more demanding service and 
information situations (possibly with less personnel around), also connected to more se-
curity and privacy issues connected to the radical increase of the generation and use of 
data; 

5.  The rise  in  need for IT-skills requires  the rail companies to rethink how they  deal  with 

programming skills and systems knowledge of their personnel; 

6.  Rail companies will need to rethink their corporate cultures: changing social, communi-
cation  and  organisational  skills  require  different  settings  to  keep  a  satisfied  and  more 
diversified workforce; 

7.  Rail companies will need to think about ways to achieve faster upscaling of (technical) 

knowledge (from 1 to many) within their organisations. 

This report will focus on connecting  these seven major changes to the skill gaps that have 
been identified in report D2. One extra challenge is added to this list, after assessing all of the 
measures in this report: 
8.  The future of work in the rail sector requires more academic level thinking, but current 
policies  are  focused  on  VET-  and  graduate  recruitment  and  training.  This  needs  to 
change. 

1.3 

Measures to deal with the skills gap 

The tender specifications require the project team to look at six specific measures to deal with 
the identified skills gaps. In Figure 1.2, these measures are identified. 

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Figure 1.2  Development of Comprehensive Strategies and Trainings in railway sector 

The focus should be on the following six measures: 
›  Next Generation Learning; 
› 
Access to virtual learning; 
› 
Access to education; 
› 
Attractiveness of sector to new entrants; 
› 
Transfer from reintegration; 
› 
Transfer from less represented groups. 

Next to this analysis, we also need to interpret the measures in the context of general strategy 
considerations of rail companies. The strategies and recommendations on education and train-
ing for the rail sector will be addressed following two mechanisms: ‘transfer of knowledge’ and 
‘transfer of workforce’. 

To weigh these strategies and recommendations, we have used the following framework to 
understand  which  measures  have  been  selected  by  rail  companies  and  are  currently  sug-
gested to deal with challenges connected to the skills gap identified in Section 1.2. The follow-
ing figure shows how the six measures relate to, but also only cover part of the general human 
resource (HR)-strategies developed by any organisation. 

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Skills EcosystemRailways SectorTransfer 1: attractiveness of sector to new entrantsTransfer 2: from reintegration (from sickness etc.)Transfer 3: from less represented targetgroups (e.g. women)Access to educationGeneration learningAccess to virtual learningtransfer of workforce transfer of knowledgebest practices from other sectors 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Figure 1.3  Overview  possible  HR-measures  to  maintain 

Figure 1.4  Selection  of  transfer  of  knowledge  (yellow) 

an organisation 

and transfer of workforce measures (green) 

Text box 1.1  Explanation of HR-measures to maintain an organisation 

›  Recruiting:  the  recruiting  function  is  focused  on  guaranteeing  the  supply  of  new  candidates  to 
match turn-over or growth of employment. It is important that shifts in skills situation are countered 
with  getting  access  to  new  ‘labour  supply’,  either  at  the  school  level  or  from  other  compa-
nies/sectors. 

›  Maintenance of personnel: measures such as diversity management, contracting, job design, pre-
vention and reintegration are needed to keep the company aligned with its external environment. 
Diversity management aligns companies with the diversity in society; contracting takes account of 
contract possibilities (flexibility); job design helps to build learning components into jobs; preven-
tion is focused on securing healthy working conditions;  reintegration deals with bringing absent 
employees back into the workforce. 

›  Mobility (external, internal, upwards): this function is connected to the recruiting function of organ-
isations and helps to balance the organisation over time. Promotion helps to offer career perspec-
tives to personnel and works as a measure to reduce turnover. 

›  Pensioning: legal requirements ensure that workers are not staying indefinitely in an organisation; 

at the same time legal retirement age is going up throughout Europe. 

›  Training, learning: a set of measures to ensure that the capabilities of an organisation are matched 

to the demands. 

The figures show a trapezium that represents the personnel distribution according to age in 
an organisation: there is a large base for the many newcomers in an organisation, and a small 
top for the remaining personnel in high age-groups. Of course, this trapezium can have many 
other shapes due to strategic and policy choices or historical situations: for example, an ageing 
workforce and difficulties in recruiting new talent may change the shape from a trapezium into 
an  hourglass  with  an  overrepresentation  of  older  workers.  Above,  we  have  described  that 
SNCF experiences different ageing issue than other rail companies. The illustrations represent 
possible  HR-measures  organisations  can  deploy  to  manage  personnel  development.  

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Access to new groupsContractingRecruitingPensioningExternal mobilityPromotionTrainingLearningDiversitymanagementJob designInternal mobilityPreventionRe-integrationAccess to traditional groupsAccess to new groupsContractingRecruitingTrainingLearningDiversitymanagementJob designNGLVirtual toolingAccess to educationAttract new groupsInternal mobilityAttract new groupsPreventionRe-integration 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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1.4 

1.4.1 

Figure 1.3 shows the general setting for measures. Figure 1.4 shows in yellow those measures 
pin-pointed by S2R JU. This figure clarifies that the six measures are only a part of possible 
approaches  to  deal  with  the  seven  challenges  we  have  identified  for  rail  companies.  To 
develop recommendations about strategies and training, we will try to understand the following 
issues in the practice of rail companies: 
›  Which measures do the rail companies apply that  we  can see as illustration of the six 

main (S2R) measures? 

›  Why are these measures selected and how effective are they? 
›  What is the broader approach of these companies to deal with the seven challenges iden-

tified in this report? 

A good starting point for dealing with the six measures, is to have an insight into the ‘general’ 
practices of European rail companies. This is done in Section 1.4. 

The conclusions and recommendations have been validated by stakeholders in a validation 
workshop  in  November  2018.  In  total,  some  42  participants  participated  coming  from  trade 
unions, rail companies, EU-agencies, associations, research and consultancies. Results are 
documented in report D3b. As a starting point for further positioning, an insight from European 
company  surveys  and  from  current  practices  of  rail  companies  is  useful.  The  information 
provided in the next chapter gives further background to the strategies developed and which 
were discussed with the companies concerned. 

Training and hiring policies and OSH in the railway sector: Insights from European com-
pany surveys 

Two surveys 
The  European  Company  Survey  (ECS:  Kankaraš  &  Van  Houten/Eurofound,  2015)  and  the 
European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER-2: Irastorza, Milcza-
rek  &  Cockburn/EU-OSHA,  2016)  are  both  employer  surveys  at  the  European  level.  Both 
surveys  provide  information  on  the  type  of  training  and  hiring  policies  used  by  samples  of 
companies in Europe. The ECS is more focused on company HR-policies and the ESENER-
2 is more focused on the Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) policies. By selecting com-
panies active working in the rail sector, these surveys give us an indication of current person-
nel policies used by railway undertakings. For each of the surveys, the information from the 
rail sector is compared to the general situation in other companies presented by the surveys. 
This gives an indication to what degree policies of rail companies have particular traits. In the 
analysis of the surveys, the material has been collected in such a  way that they give infor-
mation about the six core-measures of this study: 
› 

ECS: Table A2.1 in Annex 2 shows a comparison of the main characteristics of personnel 
policy of the rail sector with all sectors in the ECS 2013. The ECS survey 2013 counts a 
representative sample of 27,300 establishments, with 10 or more employees, in the EU-
28. Among these, 91 establishments have been identified as belonging to the rail sector. 
These  companies  belong  to  the  Manufacture  of  railway  locomotives/rolling  stock; 
construction  of  (underground)  railways;  Freight  &  Passenger  (interurban)  rail  transport 
(3020+4212+4910+4920). A further distinction of results to subsectors is not allowed for 
statistical  reasons.  As  a  total,  this  group  can  give  a  representative  image  of  company 
practices in the rail sector at the EU-level; 
For the ESENER-2, Table A2.2 in Annex 2 shows a comparison of the main characteris-
tics of personnel policy of the rail sectors with all other sectors, in the ESENER-2 survey. 
The ESENER-2 survey counts 40,584 establishments, with 5 or more employees, in the 

› 

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1.4.2 

EU-28 in 2014. Among these, there are 41 companies belonging to the rail sector in the 
EU-28  countries.  The  rail  sectors  which  can  be  identified,  involve:  the  manufacture  of 
railway  locomotives/rolling  stock; construction  of  (underground)  railways;  and  freight  & 
passenger (interurban) rail transport. A further distinction of results to subsectors is not 
allowed for statistical reasons. This number is about half of the ECS and can only be seen 
as a first indication of company practices in the rail sector. The sample is random, but the 
representativeness seems less than in the ECS. 

In the ECS, rail companies are mainly bigger sized companies (four times bigger on average: 
250 employees) in comparison to the rest of companies of other sectors. More of these rail 
companies have experienced personnel downsizing in period 2010-2013 than on average (5% 
more companies have downsized). The number of downsizers outnumbers the growth com-
panies, whereas outside the rail sector, growth companies outnumber the downsizers. Nearly 
twice as much rail companies in comparison to non-rail companies have experienced organi-
sational change in the period 2010-2013. 

Transfer of knowledge: Conditions 
In both surveys, there are no specific questions about new learning methods. However, the 
ECS provides questions about conditions for  Next Gen Learning (see further in this report). 
About 70% of companies  make employees document and keep records of their good  work 
practices or lessons learned, with the purpose to share these with other employees. This is 
10% higher than outside the rail sector. The learning demands are higher in the rail sector. 
About  70% of companies require (versus 60%  outside rail)  at  least one  year  of on-the-job-
learning in order for the person to become proficient in their task. The training methodologies 
need to be focused on specialized work. Nearly 10% less rail companies use task rotation as 
a job measure. Rail employees are performing more specialized work than employees in other 
sectors.  They  are  also  more  appraised  and  evaluated  at  a  personal  level  in  comparison  to 
employees in other sectors. All of these conditions provide possibilities for companies to de-
velop Next Gen Learning. A possible barrier for implementing new learning methodologies is 
the lower schooling levels of personnel in rail companies. The number of companies with 40% 
or more employees with a university degree is at 8,5%, whereas in the rest of the survey this 
is at 24% of companies. 

Both surveys do not provide insights into use of virtual training tools, neither in access to ed-
ucation. The ECS does however, show what training approaches are used by the rail compa-
nies. The ESENER-2 only looks at training for OSH-risks. Nearly 60% of rail companies in the 
ECS has given employees paid time-off from their normal duties to undertake training, either 
off  or  on  their  premises.  On-the-job-training  is  also  more  prominent  among  rail  companies. 
More rail companies also provide training to employees to take on different job positions or 
improve/extend skills within current jobs. 

1.4.3 

Transfer of personnel 
For the topic of transfer of personnel, both surveys show what company practices are more 
common among rail companies. In terms of HR-strategy, most rail companies are focused on 
retaining employees with temporary contracts and hiring employees for a long time. However, 
these  percentages  (and  practices)  are  not  very  different  from  other  sectors.  The  recruiting 
problem is at the same level as the non-rail companies: about 40% experience finding difficul-
ties in finding employees with the required skills. This was in the period of economic downturn 
in Europe. The figures will surely be higher at the current date. 

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For reintegration, the ESENER-2 is a good source on strategies. The ECS only shows that rail 
companies  apply  more  preventive  OSH-training  strategies  than  all  other  companies.  The 
ESENER-2  shows  that  work  in  rail  companies  is  still  more  risky  than  work  outside  the  rail 
sector. More rail companies find that work is more tiring and painful (77% of companies versus 
56% of companies outside rail), loud noise is a risk (55% versus 30%), high and low temper-
atures are an issue (65% versus 36%), machine or vehicle accidents (80% versus 46%), risks 
of slips, trips and falls (61% versus 36%) and time pressure (76% versus 42%). It is no surprise 
that absenteeism is reported as substantial higher in rail companies than in other companies 
(10% of rail companies rate absenteeism as high versus 5% in other companies). Rail com-
panies are, however, more attentive to these situations and apply to a higher degree all kinds 
of risk assessments, safety measures, investments, preventive measures and training. Man-
agement and staff are also reasonably aware of these situations. 

In terms of diversity, the ECS shows that women workers are clearly underrepresented in the 
workforce of rail companies. More than half of rail companies have less than 20% women in 
their personnel, where in general this would be less than 30% of companies. The number of 
companies with employees older than 50 years shows however the reverse image: the per-
centage of companies with 20% and more 50 year’ old employees is nearly double the number 
than  in  the  rest  of  sectors.  The  figures  show  the  need  for  rail  companies  to  work  on  their 
diversity policies. 

1.5 

Research questions for D3 

The main research questions are: 
›  Which measures do rail companies in four countries (Germany, Netherlands, France, UK) 
apply that we can see as illustration of the transfer of knowledge and of transfer of work-
force mechanisms? 

›  Why are these measures selected and how effective are they? 
›  What can be learnt from other sectors? 
›  How do the transfer of knowledge mechanism relate to the content and requirements for 

trainings? 

›  How do the transfer of workforce mechanism relate to the content and requirements for 
alternative learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and life-long learning? 
›  What should sectors try to come up as an approach, using the six measures? What further 

development is then needed? 

›  What recommendations can be formulated for other rail companies to deal with the future 

skills gap identified in this report? 

1.6 

Method of the study 

1.6.1 

Collecting and analysis of information about measures 
To  answer  the  main  research  questions,  we  collect  information  from  different  sources  and 
enhance the quality of this material by discussing this material with the major rail companies 
in four  European countries. The information  has been tabulated,  analysed  and  checked on 
several quality dimensions. The main quality criteria are the clearness of information, the reli-
ability of information and the availability of performance data. Our results have been checked 
by the rail organisations. 

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Sources 
The following sources have been consulted: 
› 

Two EU-wide surveys about current HR-strategies in rail organisations. Two surveys are 
relevant for this purpose: the European Company Survey (ECS 2013; Eurofound (Dublin, 
Ireland))  and  the  ESENER  survey  (EU-OSHA  (Bilbao,  Spain)).  These  surveys  give  an 
overview of measures and possible impact; 

›  Major journals documenting developments in the sector. The following sources have been 
researched:  Rail  News;  Global/European  Railway  Review;  Railway  Gazette;  Railway 
Staff; Railtechnology Magazine; Eisenbahntechnische Rundschau; NSAR Newssite; 
These publications have been consulted through their websites. Articles have been col-
lected  from  2012  to  the  current  date.  428  articles  dealing  with  the  six  measures  have 
been selected and analysed. A separate report has been written for this purpose. Main 
conclusions have been integrated into this report; 

› 

›  Documents and data from rail organisations have been requested and studied: in-depth 
study and (intra-rail) comparison of documents and data on training strategies in different 
categories  (=operators,  infrastructure,  machine)  of  the  rail  sector  (inventory  from  web-
search, direct requests to the four country main operators) and material from interviews 
with these organisations. The materials have been analysed, reported and discussed with 
the  leading  train  operators/infrastructure  companies  in  France,  UK,  Germany  and  The 
Netherlands; 

›  Next to rail information, an overview of best practices was made from other sectors (from 

logistics: air, road, maritime). 

Interviews 
The following table shows the organisations visited and the interviews conducted. 

Table 1.1  Overview of contacts for interviews and surveys 

Organisation 

Contacts 

NS (NL) 

Mr Maarten Willems, Projectleider Arbeid van de Toekomst 

Mr Herman Bakker, HR 

ProRail (NL) 

Ms Sandra Visser, Beleidsadviseur | HR Expert Center 

Ms Marjolein Knegt, Adviseur & Projectleider HRM 

Railcenter (NL) 

Mr Willem Brummel, Directeur 

SNCF (FR) 

Mr  Vincent  Louart,  SNCF-  DIRECTION  DES  RESSOURCES  HUMAINES  DU  GPF, 

Pôle Recrutement, Emploi et Compétences 

Ms Barbara Grau, SNCF – Direction Cohésion & Ressources Humaines 

Direction Stratégie Sociale, Chargée des Affaires européennes 

DB (GE) 

Ms  Caroline  Schwarte,  Strategische  Personalentwicklung  und  Grundsätze 

Nachwuchskräfte (HDN) 

Mr Mario Ma Perilli, DB Training, Learning & Consulting, Leiter New Learning Solutions 

(HS.L 5(2)) 

Ms  Inga  Masina,  Expertin  Globale  Personalgewinnung  Projekte  und  Programme/, 

Expert Global Talent Acquisition Projects and Principles 

Network Rail (UK)  Mr Mark Allen, Development Manager 

Ms Karen Venn, Diversity & Inclusion Project Manager 

Mr Simon Goodland 

Mr Peter Verlic 

Slovenian 

Railways  

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The main interview questions have been on the six measures dealing with skill gaps. Ques-
tions have been put forward on the availability of the measures, the aim and target groups of 
the measures, and on any results on the effectivity of the measures to solve or mitigate the 
skills gaps. 

Analysis 
The analysis of all of the material has been done by developing a table for each organisation 
with on the one side measures aimed at transfer of workforce and of knowledge, and on the 
other side different kind of skills gaps. These tables have been compared. 

1.6.2 

Identifying recommendations for strategies and trainings 
The strategies and recommendations for education and training have been assessed in light 
of the new requirements for skills and competences of the workforce brought forward by the 
implementation of S2R innovative solutions. This means that a table was produced  with on 
the one side measures aimed at the transfer of workforce and of knowledge, and on the other 
side the different kind of skills gaps. The table helped to identify: 
›  Good practices from the leading rail companies; 
›  Good practices from other sectors (from logistics: air, road, maritime; also other sectors 
discussed  with  S2R JU In  task 1  -  workshop 1), transfer of knowledge and transfer of 
workforce. The significance of these practices for the rail transport sector has been iden-
tified.  The  overview  is  included  in  a  separate  annex  aimed  at  S2R-members,  showing 
how the identified skills gaps can be tackled by measures from other sectors. 

1.7 

Workshop 

A third and last workshop was organised on November 30th with over 40 representatives of 
the participating countries and other stakeholders. This workshop had as agenda: 
› 
› 
› 

To discuss results from the data analysis. 
To discuss the overviews of skills gap. 
To discuss possible overviews of good practices and possible scenarios for reducing the 
skills gaps for major workforce categories in these countries. 

The workshop consists of representatives of the participating countries and other stakehold-
ers. A summary of results is included in this D3b report. 

1.8 

Set-up of report 

The report is set-up around the six mechanisms: Chapters 2 to 7 deals respectively with Next 
Generation Learning, Access to Virtual Learning, Access to Education, Attractiveness of the 
Sector  to  New  Entrants,  Transfer  from  Reintegration  and  Transfer  from  Less  Represented 
Groups. Each of these chapters starts with clarifying main definitions and main challenges, 
describing main measures applied by rail organisations, and an assessment of the measures. 
In Chapter 9, main recommendations are formulated on the basis of main observations. The 
annexes contain the more detailed information for some of the chapters. 

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2 

Next Generation Learning 

2.1 

Definition 

Next-Generation Learning (NGL) is the first knowledge transfer mechanism that S2R has sug-
gested for research. NGL is positioned in the literature as a learning approach different from 
standardized class based training, as an approach in which students and teachers - both sec-
ondary and post-secondary - will have access to high-quality, relevant, and engaging educa-
tional content in a variety of forms. Class time and structure will be more flexible, adaptable to 
the learning needs of the students. Students will have access to multiple sources of instruction 
and use assessment and diagnostic tools to help direct the pace and format of their personal 
learning. Teachers will tailor their instruction and guidance to ensure progress and mastery for 
all students, with a focus on those who have historically been underserved. The scientific dis-
cussion  on  NGL  focuses  mainly  on  academic  students  and  the  difficulty  of  ‘teacher-centric 
training systems’ to adapt to blended learning and more learner-centric approaches (Wilson 
et al., 2010; Lytras et al., 2016; Scott-Webber, 2016). Important in this respect is the availability 
of  new  teaching  technologies,  but  for  the  rail  sector,  also  the  fact  that  the  technological 
changes seem best to be countered with the NGL knowledge transfer mechanism. 

Next Generation Learning Challenges seeks to answer these questions: 
›  How do we better engage young people in learning and demonstrate its relevance to -

real life - and their aspirations? 

›  How do we personalize learning to accelerate and deepen understanding and knowledge 

retention? 

›  How do we encourage persistence and completion in spite of the competing demands of 

students’ lives? 

›  How can institutions and educational systems afford improvements in student success in 

light of flat or declining budgets? 

Increased community, in our case, rail sector, prosperity shared by all; 

The Next Generation Learning is a ‘collaborative community-connected’ approach to achieve 
the following outcomes: 
1. 
2.  A strengthened talent pipeline; 
3.  Young people prepared for college, careers, lifelong learning, and leadership; 
4.  Educational equity and justice for all; and 
5.  The capacity to contribute and go further. 

Next Generation Learning, for example at Ford NGL1, is a unique and comprehensive com-
munity initiative that brings together educators, employers, and community leaders to imple-
ment a proven model for transforming secondary schools, which ultimately improves the re-
gional workforce development system. Ford NGL supports a growing number of communities 
that are committed to expanding and strengthening their networks of transformed secondary 
schools. 

1   Ford Next Generation Learning at www.fordngl.com. 

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2.2 

Next Generation Learning: Overview 

This  chapter  mainly  focuses  on  the  possibilities  of  NGL  as  a  new  learning  methodology  to 
better transfer ever newer knowledge contents to students and trainees. NGL has been used 
as an approach in the training centres and pedagogical approaches used by the rail training 
centres. Maybe the training centres and companies have not used the NGL-terminology as 
such  in  their  training,  but  the  elements  of  personalisation,  technology  as  teaching  tool  and 
learner-communities learning in practice seem to have become quite common. To understand 
to what degree NGL is been used, what components are identified by the different rail organ-
isations, and to what degree NGL is seen as a means to deal with future skill gaps, the follow-
ing table gives an overview of examples of NGL-measures taken by national rail organisations 
and organisations from other sectors. The detailed overview of each of the measures is pro-
vided in Annex 1. The table provides an answer to the following questions: 
›  What is the example and which organisation is responsible? 
›  What skill gaps are tackled with the training? 

Table 2.1  Overview measures Next Generation Learning in the rail (training) sector and other sectors2 

Example 

Organisation 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

NGL as a general approach  SNCF 

Digital  passport  helps  personnel  to  discuss  any 

gaps in skills and competences with management. 

RailNewcaslte 

Newcastle University  No lessons yet, mainly because of lack of students.  

Roles Based Capability 

Network Rail 

Strong  methodology  to  deal  with  changes  within 

(RBC) 

roles within NR. 

Techniekfabriek 

Nedrail 

Collaboration and programmes attuned to the tech-

nological requirements of the Dutch railways. 

Skills Fitness Test and indi-

DB Training 

Skills Fitness Test allows better alignment between 

vidualisation of training 

Other sectors 

Process industry 

needs  of  a  person  and  the  training  components. 

The  self-tests  are  connected  to  newly  developed 

training systems, much in line with what the RBC of 

NR does. 

Honeywell Process 

New technology connected to operator training sim-

Solutions (Canada) 

ulator need new competency development method-

ologies to help operators.  

As reported, all rail companies have integrated parts of the NGL-philosophy in their training 
approaches to ensure a better transfer of knowledge to current employees and to new recruits. 
Other sectors such as maritime, airlines and bus operators have been checked, but they didn’t 
really add new information to the rail initiatives. The example of the process industry has been 
added for the reason that the development in the work of process operators up to a certain 
degree is comparable to the main operator functions in the rail sector. 

The examples in the annex have been selected from the  interviews because they  illustrate 
seven advantages of the NGL-components in comparison to traditional learning and training 
methodologies: 
1.  The methodologies help to target competency gaps that arise  with (e.g.) technological 

change and innovation; 

2.  The training methodologies avoid (irritating) redundancy in training materials; 

2 For detailed overview of each of these measures, please consult Annex 1. 

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3.  The methodologies reduce the overall training time; 
4.  The methodologies ensure that the trained knowledge is always practice related; 
5.  The trainings employ the technologies that operators will be confronted with later; 
6.  The trainings use core elements that new recruits are used too; and 
7.  The new methodologies ensure that training components are going to be redeployed in 

the future. 

The total return-on-investment of training should improve with the methods. All rail companies 
can learn from the parts presented: 
› 

Target  competency  gaps:  The  training  institutes  (NR  Training,  DB  Training,  Railcenter 
etc.) all have a better understanding of how to pin-point the knowledge areas students 
and  employees  need  to  further  develop.  Over  the  years,  there  have  been  several  ap-
proaches to bring more insight into what an employee knows and does not yet know. 
In the UK, the SkillsID database was developed by NSARE in 2013 to provide employees 
with the possibility to follow more closely their own skill development and to show to new 
employers what progress they have made over time. At its core is a full list of all relevant 
qualifications,  skills  and  competences,  accessible  by  the  individual  and  their  spon-
sor/employer, but hidden to others. Another approach has been adopted in Germany in 
which previous diploma or certificates are not anymore the criterion to be selected for job 
interviews. With such a measure, everyone is allowed to apply for a job. From 2014 on, 
students can fill out an online test if they want to start a vocational training or a dual study 
with DB (‘Neues Bewerberverfahren bei der Deutschen Bahn’). Thus, the DB eliminates 
the  preselection  of  school  grades.  Strengths  and  abilities  of  the  individual  take  centre 
stage, according to the group. All applicants will be invited without pre-selection. 
These approaches help to open up the labour market supply. The examples of measures 
in Annex 1 allow to improve on the identification of skills with recruits and employees. The 
Role  Based  Competency  (RBC)  methodology  is  a  new  method  developed  by  Network 
Rail Training (NRT) to identify required skills in roles by reverse engineering use of skills 
and competences in practice. RBC helps to break up tasks into components and identifies 
trainings needed for these components. DB Training and SNCF have developed methods 
to identify the skill level of employees. SNCF has a test to identify digital skills. DB Train-
ing has develop several sets of questions that can be used which skills need updating 
and helps to connect the employee to training components; 

›  No wasted time during training: DB Training has tested and analysed their trainings in 
great detail to identify what elements could be redundant. They see that trainees can get 
irritated by such redundancy and shy away from further training; 

›  Reduce training time: The RBC methodology breaks up learning components into mod-
ules that are then integrated into Moodle-programmes. The modules help reducing train-
ing time; 
Practice related (RBC, TF, DB): All of the trainings discussed during the interviews are 
always focused on real-life practice: 
• 

› 

ProRail insists that 70% of training needs to be on-the-job, 20% from working with 
colleagues and 10% from courses; 
Practice related training can be even brought to the extreme when looking at Skills 
Swap schemes. Apprentices from the UK Great Western Railway (GWR) and Amey 
company have been swapping places in 2016 (Rail Technology Journal) as part of 
a “rare” cross-organisational skills exchange between the operator and the engineer-
ing consultancy company. The skills swap helps operators from both companies to 
better understand what the other companies do and this helps collaboration between 
the companies. GWR and Amey have invested in this scheme together with training 
programmes to develop their skills in engineering; 

• 

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› 

• 

The Dutch TechniekFabriek (Technology Factory) was developed as a collaboration 
between rail operators and several VET-schools to improve the quality of the (mech-
atronic) students that are delivered on the labour market. The previous class-based 
trainings were not adequate for the companies; 

Technology  supported:  All  of  the  reviewed  training  methodologies  use  virtual  learning, 
learning management systems, simulators (see next section). In this sense, the methods 
used in the trainings are in line with what operators will be using in practice. The example 
of the operator training simulator shows in more detail how the technology is in line with 
the operational system operators will experience in the future; 

›  New  training  approach  (learning  nuggets,  gamification,  team  based,  learning  on  de-
mand): Blended learning is the future. Not everything can be offered through technology 
as learning content. The point is to understand what adaptive learning is: where are the 
gaps in the knowledge of a pupil and how can that be filled up and how does technology 
play a role in this. The Dutch Railcenter, not mentioned in the table, has experience with 
the various multimedia methods to do that; 

›  Redeploy training components (RBC): RBC has been specifically designed to have com-
ponents that can be redeployed in other trainings. Modules should be copied into other 
roles, if possible. 

2.3 

Assessment 

NGL focuses on the transfer of knowledge to new recruits or to current employees. The idea 
is that old training methodologies are too slow and too expensive to help the rail sector confront 
the skill gap that has been identified. Table 2.2 summarizes in what way NGL helps to deal 
with the skills gap issues identified in Section 1.2 

Table 2.2  Linking transfer mechanisms to the skill gap 

Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes 

Next Gen Learning helps: 

Programmes  feed  into  unpredictable  growth  and  decline  of 

Faster learning, more specific learning 

tasks: this requires ‘flexible personnel provision for the future’ 

Programmes require mastering fast changing personnel com-

Faster learning, more specific learning 

position 

Programmes  require  managing  unknown  technical  capabili-

Integration  of  quality  expectations  of  net-

ties (suppliers, ageing groups) 

work 

Programmes lead to rising risk situations that need managing  Learning in the future (perspective to deal 

Rise  in  need  for  IT-skills:  programming  skills,  systems 

Directed at IT-skills 

knowledge 

with future risks) 

Programmes  support  a  new  corporate  culture:  changing  so-

Approach  to  represent  ideal  method  to 

cial, communication and organisational skills 

deal with culture 

Programmes require faster upscaling of (technical) knowledge 

Individual  customisation  of  knowledge 

(from 1 to ) 

content + digital tool helps upscaling 

From this table, NGL has a function for all the challenges the skill gaps present to rail compa-
nies. Personalised training and training connected to real-life working situations help speed up 
the training  efforts of companies. NGL  will  be  needed to deal  with  the disbalances that  will 
arise in future provision of the right knowledge in rail companies. 

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NGL as a new training philosophy is delivering the training institutes and departments in the 
rail  sector  a  new  terminology  and  language  to  redirect  the  training  effort.  There  is  a  better 
understanding of the core components in skill and training to deal with the future skill gaps. 
The philosophy helps the organisations to adapt faster to the future situations. All organisa-
tions are working within their own national environments and it certainly would be helpful if the 
organisations share their experiences. The different topics discussed in this section can be 
useful for such a discussion. 

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3 

Access to Virtual Learning 

3.1 

Definition 

The second type of Transfer of Knowledge mentioned 
in Figure 1.2, is ‘Virtual learning’. A Virtual Learning En-
vironment  (VLE)  in  educational  technology  is  a Web-
based  platform  for  the  digital  aspects  of  courses  of 
study, usually within educational or training institutions. 
VLEs  typically  allow  participants  to  be  organised  into 
cohorts, groups and roles present resources, activities 
and  interactions  within  a  course  structure  provide  for 
the different stages of assessment report on participa-
tion; and have some level of integration with other in-
stitutional systems. The VLE learning platform allows: 
›  Content management - creation, storage, access 

to and use of learning resources, 

›  Curriculum  mapping  and  planning  -  lesson  plan-
ning,  assessment  and  personalisation  of  the 
learning experience, 
Learner  engagement  and  administration  -  man-
aged access to learner information and resources 
and tracking of progress and achievement, 
›  Communication  and  collaboration  -  emails,  no-

› 

tices, chat, wikis, blogs, 

›  Real time communication - live video conferencing 

or audio conferencing. 
Important is that the tools are embedded in a pedagogical approach. 

› 

Figure 3.1 

Next Generation Learning needs to be developed with the use of virtual learning.. 

3.2 

Virtual learning: Overview 

In Table 3.1, an overview is given of several measures, examples of virtual learning at different 
rail  companies  and  the  maritime  sector.  The  table  provides  the  core  idea  of  each  of  these 
measures that helps to deal with the skill gap created by the S2R-Innovation projects. 

Table 3.1  Overview measures virtual learning3 

Example 

Organi-

sation 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Moodle e-Learning  

Network 

Portal  does  not  show  training  for  technological  topics. 

Digital tools 

Rail 

SNCF 

Elearning is not yet the context for this.  

Broad set of tools (elearning, virtual and augmented reality, 

simulation, employee support systems.  

App Mijn Vakmanschap 

NS 

Employee  support  system needed  to  follow-up  skill  devel-

opment. 

3 For detailed overview of each of these measures, please consult Annex 1. 

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Example 

Digital training system 

Organi-

sation 

DB 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Understanding how digital training is different from face-to-

Training 

face  training.  More  attention  needed  in  developing  these 

tools.  

e-Learning,  MyLearningPortal 

NS 

Close  monitoring  of  use,  no  data  available.  Used  for  high 

and simulation  

Other sectors 

tech training, connected to simulator.  

Simulation of Sea Traffic Man-

STM 

Simulation  allows  reduction  of  learning  time.  Jobs  change 

agement 

from reporting on situations to more decision making. Situ-

ational awareness and more oversight are required. 

Virtual  learning  tools  in  Mari-

Different 

Virtual tools are effective for technical skills; maritime sector 

time 

sources 

tends to underinvest. 

It is noteworthy to see that in the rail sector over the past years, a lot of organisations have 
rebuilt their training facilities taking into account the digital possibilities available (Network Rail, 
NCHSR, DB, Infrabel (3D simulator for the training of on-track safety staff), Scot-Train (Peter-
shill Road facility), Crossrail. The rail sector has a strong belief in the power of these tools. 

The overview in Table 3.2 shows that all rail organisations are well equipped with virtual learn-
ing tools. All of them possess the range from simulators, e-learning, MOOCs, employee sup-
port systems, social media platforms and portals. The tools are only effective if they are fitted 
into a pedagogical and learning strategy. All rail companies have a lot of experience (since the 
1980s)  with  these  tools  and  clear  views  for  what  they  can  be  used.  Our  interviewees  all 
stressed the importance of using blended learning, and not only rely on virtual tools for transfer 
of  knowledge.  A  comment  that  was  made,  was  that  the  most  powerful  form  of  training  still 
remains the combination of practical learning with good supervisorship. Technology remains 
subordinate. 

The DB Training experience is instructive here. The shaping of a digital training is very different 
in  comparison  to  face-to-face  (ftf)  learning.  In  a  ftf-context,  the  trainer  can  personalize  the 
training to the needs of the pupil. In digital learning, you can’t see feedback from the pupil. The 
digital training needs to allow for extra information to allow personalisation: e.g., selection of 
own  speed  of  training,  a  good  mix  of  pictures, movies,  sound,  etc.  Everything  needs  to  be 
directed at direct attention of the pupil. In the railway sector, this is however a main problem: 
people  working  within the rail business are very traditional. They  are not used to learn, not 
used to learn to self-organise their training. The training approach of DB  Training takes ac-
count of these difficulties. DB Training invented a method for supplying each training, next to 
the  content  part,  also  with  an  awareness  part:  where  does  the  topic  come  from?,  why  is  it 
important for your business?, why is it important for you (motivational)? Only then the content 
follows. 
Is content offered at the individual level? This is not the case. Each training component can 
be reduced to 3-4 learning types and relevant content. Users are offered a training according 
to the fitting learning type. This is offered in these ways in the training instruments. In essence, 
this means that training  is  very specific to the personal situation, but  it  is not personalized. 
That would be impossible (too expensive) to arrange. 

It is important to understand that DB Training always analyses the full content of learning. DB 
Training always asks the task owner what is needed in the training. A user will always maxim-
ise his or her needs, but DB Training knows how to focus on what is relevant: for each learning 
component, an analysis is done at three levels: must know (65% of the training content), good 

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to know, nice to know. DB Training focuses on the 65%: this is the added-value. The content 
is always independent of learning technology. Training is not better or worse because of the 
technology used, but it is the content that matters. 
The experiences from the maritime sector confirm that the tools need to be embedded in a 
broad approach to have the targeted learning outcomes. 
In  the  future,  rail  organisations  will  need  to  deal  with  stronger  privacy  rules.  Over  the  past 
years, personal data has been collected to monitor the effectiveness of trainings. This kind of 
data has been collected in connection to the e-learning system. Possibly, separate surveys 
will be needed to develop insights from the offered trainings. 

Figure 3.2  App ‘Mijn Vakmanschap’ offered by NS to its personnel 

3.3 

Assessment 

Virtual  learning  needs  to  be  seen  in  connection  to  other  approaches  of  learning.  For  NGL, 
virtual tools are the main carrier for the ‘transfer of knowledge’. The following table summarizes 
in what way virtual tooling can help to deal with the skill gap issues identified in Section 1.2. 

Table 3.2  Linking transfer mechanisms to the skill gap 

Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes 

Virtual tooling 

Programmes  feed  into  unpredictable  growth  and  decline  of 

More access to knowledge areas (e.g., di-

tasks: this requires ‘flexible personnel provision for the future’ 

rect translations?) 

Programmes require mastering fast changing personnel com-

Larger upscaling: one to many 

position 

Programmes  require  managing  unknown  technical  capabili-

Faster access to external knowledge 

ties (suppliers, ageing groups) 

Programmes lead to rising risk situations that need managing  Tool can be used for purpose 

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Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes 

Virtual tooling 

Rise  in  need  for  IT-skills:  programming  skills,  systems 

Tool can be used for purpose 

knowledge 

Programmes  support  a  new  corporate  culture:  changing  so-

Tool can be used for purpose 

cial, communication and organisational skills 

Programmes require faster upscaling of (technical) knowledge 

Larger upscaling: one to many 

(from 1 to ) 

Virtual learning and tooling needs to be connected to NGL. Virtual learning will help the indi-
vidualisation of training, but also to support life-long learning through personal monitoring of 
learning development. Virtual learning will also help employees to make use of ‘lost time’ dur-
ing the day. An important element is that virtual tools allow for upscaling of training to large 
numbers of employees. 
Virtual tooling has become an important carrier for the Next Generation Learning that is now 
advocated in learning. The rail organisations use a broad range of tools to support their em-
ployees. However, having developed a long time experience with these tools, rail organisa-
tions insist on using blended learning approaches. 

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4 

Access to Education 

4.1 

Definition 

The third approach of ‘transfer of knowledge’ is access to education. The main idea is that rail 
companies develop new methods to get access to new knowledge from students, academics 
and other labour market groups. These methods consist of new agreements with VET/CVET, 
professional  and  academic  educational  institutions.  Such  methods  can  be  apprenticeships, 
but  also  collaboration  agreements  with  these  institutions  for  direct  learning  or  for  life-long 
learning  support.  The  methods  can  direct  themselves  to  technical,  but  also  non-technical 
knowledge. To understand why companies need to develop such new access, the next section 
shows the current education gap in the rail sector as identified in the H2020 Skillful project. 

4.2 

The current education gap in the rail sector: Learning from the Skillful project 

1.  The  skills  gap  in  the  sector  can  only  exist  if  there  is  insufficient  supply  and/or  training 
provided by the rail sector (with internal or external training). To understand this ‘educa-
tion gap’, results of the EU H2020 Skillful l project are summarized in the table in Annex 
3 and Table A2.1. This study provides an insight into the educational approaches in a set 
of EU-countries. Some extra information has been added for the situations in France and 
The Netherlands, not included in the H2020 Skillful-project. This table gives an overview 
of the availability of training courses aimed at the rail sector in a selection of countries at 
the  professional (professional, VET, CVET) and at the academic level. The two tables 
show the availability in the different European countries of different level of training and 
education facilities. In some countries, all training is provided within the companies and 
not in the educational system. 

2.  The rail sector provides a large number of jobs at various levels and in very specific tech-
nical (and other) competences. The table shows that for the bigger countries, the educa-
tion system provides supply of trainees and educated students at a broad set of compe-
tences. In the other countries, it appears that educational institutions need to specialize 
in their offerings. This leads to a broad set of possible trainings,  but  there is  not a full 
coverage of trainings available for the broad set of skills required in the sector. Most major 
rail organisations have reverted to in-house training systems to ensure sufficient supply 
of the right skills. In some countries, the railways are still a state-owned operation with 
very closed approaches to education and employment situation (Ireland, Italy, Poland). 
These countries do not rely on the educational system to provide them with talent. These 
different approaches reflect the possibilities these countries have to respond to new de-
mands in the rail systems. The approach used in the H2020 Skillful-project (2017, pp. 34-
35) has been split for academic and non-academic trainings schemes. The table shows 
the responsiveness of the systems. 

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Table 4.1  Ranking of countries responding to the needs and existing training and education at the academic 

level in railway sector 

Categories 

Countries 

Reasons 

Average to high re-

UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, 

High  supply  of  rail  oriented  university 

sponse to demand  

Bulgaria 

degree programmes.  

Long response to de-

Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Roma-

A small amount of rail oriented univer-

mand  

nia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, 

sity degree programmes. 

Greece, Sweden 

Table 4.2  Ranking of countries responding to the needs and existing training and education at the not-aca-

demic level in railway sector 

Categories 

Countries 

Reasons 

High  response  to  de-

UK, France 

Comprehensive training system for rail sector in place. 

mand  

Apprenticeship scheme in place. 

Many certified companies provide courses to meet the needs 

for daily operation. 

Easy  access  to  Virtual  learning  system with  easy  access  to 

information. 

Information available in a living world language.  

Average  response  to 

Netherlands, , 

A comprehensive training system for rail in place. 

demand  

Romania, Spain, 

Apprenticeship scheme not in place. 

Italy, Germany, 

There are a reasonable number of certified companies provid-

Belgium 

ing courses to meet the needs for daily operation. 

Challenging to access information. 

Information unavailable in a living world language. 

Long response to de-

Bulgaria, Ireland, 

Apprenticeship scheme not in place. 

mand  

Poland, Portugal, 

Monopoly by a single rail company providing training for jobs 

Slovakia, Greece, 

in rail. 

Sweden 

In-company  training  –  information  not  disclosed  to  external 

parties. 

None  or  a  small  number  of  certified  companies  providing 

courses to meet the needs for daily operation. 

Uneasy access to information. 

Information unavailable in a living world language. 

The overall situation still remains a situation of insufficient supply of new talent from the school-
ing system. Only the UK and France have sufficient supply of talent through the educational 
system. The UK has a well-developed market of providers. France possesses a large network 
of suppliers functioning under the guidance of SNCF. But even in the UK, an organisation such 
as Network Rail organises most of its training needs in-house. In Germany, at the university 
level, there seems to be a situation as in France. At the non-academic level, the companies 
build on a well-developed apprenticeship system. In the Netherlands, the rail sector has its 
own training providers (NS Rail Training; Railcenter). Each of the rail companies are looking 
to the new training methods and approaches to educate their professionals, or new methods 
to attract more employees. 

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4.3 

Access to education: Overview 

In Table 4.3 an overview is given of several measures, examples of Access to Education in 
different countries and sectors. The table provides the core idea of each of these measures 
that helps to deal with the skill gap created by the S2R-Innovation projects. 

Table 4.3  Overview measures ‘Access to education’ 4 

Example 

Organisation 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Newcastle College Rail Acad-

University of 

Specialist knowledge supplied. 

emy 

Newcastle 

University of Birmingham Rail 

Birmingham 

Newest course is specifically focused on ATO-devel-

Academy 

University 

opments. 

Apprenticeship Training 

Network Rail 

Growing  supply  of  technically  schooled  students, 

Schemes 

aligned with company interests. 

Graduate studies 

Network Rail 

Strong  rise  in  past  years  in  programmes.  Much  di-

rected  at  helping  adapt  all  technical  studies  to  com-

pany needs.  

Collaboration agreements with 

NS 

NS shifts own trainings to VET-institutions, with great 

Secondary (VET) Schools 

savings. 

Collaboration agreements with 

Railcenter 

Supply  of  technical  trained  personnel,  train  drivers, 

Secondary (VET) Schools 

aligned with company interests. 

Minor Rail Technology (NL) 

UAS Utrecht 

New technical (bachelor-level) for the rail sector. 

Apprenticeship Training 

Arriva 

In line with UK policy. Not specifically technical. 

Schemes 

General policy  

SNCF 

In-house  model  dominant:  flexible  towards  new  do-

mains 

Apprenticeship and other 

DB 

Broad well developed model with a lot of tradition. Pro-

measures 

Other sectors 

fessorships to keep link to technical universities. 

Access to education in Mari-

Maritime sec-

Discussions about splitting up tasks within marine of-

time sector  

tor, Dutch ex-

ficer  occupation.  Collaboration  schools  and  compa-

periences 

nies to achieve better alignment. 

Recruiting bonuses Aviation 

European 

Competition requires more measures to attract talent 

Business & Piloting 

Flight Academy 

to the training. 

When focusing on the different measure listed in Table 4.3, the following major initiatives show 
how access to education has been improved to help the skill gap in the sector. The first initia-
tive is the development of the apprenticeship system in the UK and the second is the devel-
opment of the intermediate schooling supply in the Netherlands. The example from the avia-
tion, but more specifically from the maritime sector does however  gives some guidance on 
possible  choices  to  be  made  in  developing  more  relationships  between  education  and  rail 
sector. 

4.3.1 

The UK-example: Network Rail taking the lead in the new apprenticeships 
Apprenticeships are a central system in the UK, but also in Germany, to help connect students 
during their training more closely to the needs of companies. In the UK, the apprenticeship 
system has been thoroughly reviewed over the past couple of years. The system is now fo-
cused on carrying a levy on employers for apprentices and using this levy, to finance specific 

4 For detailed overview of each of these measures, please consult Annex 1. 

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Transport planning technician (level 3). 

Passenger transport driver rail (level 2); 
Passenger transport onboard/station team member (level 2); 

approved apprenticeships programmes.5 These programmes can be coordinated by the Insti-
tute of Apprenticeships. Such funding is available for each of the jobs defined in the occupa-
tional map of a sector. Rail occupations are included in the Transport and Logistics occupa-
tional map. The HR-director of Network Rail has been president of the working group to de-
velop this occupational map and the profiles behind each of the occupations listed. The fol-
lowing occupations are listed as approved for apprenticeships: 
› 
› 
›  Network operations (network performance operator, scheduler) (level 2); 
› 
Objectives of this change are to limit the number of subsidized routes to those occupations 
with the most future (greatest need in the sector), to ensure better quality in the training by 
proposing a standard and by securing a process in which employers can integrate their views 
on the required competences and skills for these occupations. An apprenticeship must be at 
least 12 months including 20% of the job training. 
This new system means that other kind of in-roads into these occupations are not foreseen in 
the UK and will not be funded by the government. Level 2 means starting levels in the occu-
pations and apprentices take up to 12 months and receiving some 3,000-6,000 pounds fund-
ing. Level 4 takes 18 months of training and receive funding for 12,000 pounds. Costs exceed-
ing these funding rates must be paid by employers. The system has also led to a rearrange-
ment of the educational market. 
Next  to  the  new  apprenticeships  training,  the  UK  government  is  changing  the  approach  to 
follow-up technical training (T levels). Both T levels and apprenticeships will provide in depth 
technical training via two different routes. Apprenticeships are employment with training, and 
apprentices specialise in one occupation  as they  learn on the job. T levels  will  be primarily 
studied  at  an  education  or  training  provider.  Students  will  study  a  broad  occupational  area 
before specialising, and will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge and skills on a sub-
stantial work placement. The intention is for T levels to replace most current technical qualifi-
cations available to 16 to 19 year olds in the UK. 
Companies such as Network Rail have engaged themselves deeply into the development of 
the system and adapting their own procedures for new students. In this example, the rail sector 
has been thoroughly engaged in the new development of the access to education for rail oc-
cupations. 

4.3.2 

The Dutch example of Railcenter 
In order to understand the issue of "access to training" in a country such as the Netherlands, 
it is important to see that training systems differ greatly between the larger countries such as 
France, Germany and the UK, and a medium-sized country such as the Netherlands (17 mil-
lion  inhabitants).  The  Netherlands  can  be  an  example  for  other  medium  sized  countries  in 
Europe. In the Netherlands, infrastructure and transport have been separated and this split is 
reflected in the training system. The training sector for both parts (internal operation, access 
to education) also  looks different. Railcenter is the training  centre for all occupations in the 
network and construction sector of rail. It was outsourced some 17 years ago from NS (Dutch 
Railways)  and  is  now  managed  as  a  Foundation  by  representatives  of  railway  contractors, 
engineering firms, ProRail (infrastructure) and a board member from mainstream education. 
NS does not take part in Railcenter. Railcenter is more than just training: Railcenter has all the 
training equipment (old and new) so that, in addition to training, it can also be used for exper-
imenting, testing and simulating on location in Amersfoort. In addition to training, Railcenter 

5   https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apprenticeship-levy-how-it-will-work/apprenticeship-levy-how-

it-will-work. 

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devotes a lot of attention to promoting the rail profession and it functions as a meeting point 
between players from the field. 
In the Dutch rail market, there are separate training providers next to Railcenter. There is no 
legal obligation to follow training at Railcenter. However, ProRail, as main manager of the rail 
infrastructure, has drawn up a list of over 50 critical tasks for which companies are obliged to 
engage certified employees. These certificates are only issued if a candidate has passed an 
exam successfully. This independent exam is a responsibility of the RailAlert foundation. Rail-
center is the main supplier of these certified trainings. 
Railcenter has been the main carrier for developing new relationships between the rail supplier 
companies and the educational system. In the regular Dutch educational system, rail-related 
training  is  very  weakly  represented.  The  vocational  education  training  institutes  (ROC)  and 
university of applied sciences (Hogeschool) face too limited demand of rail students to set up 
a track-oriented vocational training. The only rail training provided at the VET level is for train 
drivers. This training runs at three ROCs. In order to increase visibility of rail among students, 
a minor track technology has been set up between Railcenter and the Utrecht University of 
Applied Sciences. The minor now runs for the sixth year, in which teaching is mainly done by 
specialists from the sector. In 2018, more than 20 pupils will follow the minor. The success of 
the  minor  for  the  railway  sector  is  demonstrated  by  the  fact  that  over  70%  of  the  previous 
participants work in the railway sector. Another example is the training for Rail Engineering as 
an optional training at ROC Midden Nederland. This optional component (counterpart of the 
minor but at secondary vocational level) was also set up by Railcenter in collaboration with the 
main rail contractors. There are 25 places offered and 30  young people have applied. The 
training  takes  place  at  Railcenter  and  at  the  companies.  The  pupils  even  go  on  a  training 
during a night shift with a mechanic. This allows them to get a good picture of the work and 
hopefully it will leads to future job applications at the companies. The development of more 
sector-specific training would obviously be great for the rail sector, but limited volume of stu-
dents for specific technical training remains a challenge. Apprenticeships do not really exist in 
the Netherlands. Internship systems do not last more than 3 months. Work-training systems 
exist in the Netherlands as a the long-term BBL system. 
For the rail sector in the Netherlands, increasing access to education is primarily a strategy to 
get more control on the educational programmes without managing the programmes them-
selves. This is mainly the consequence of the particular government policy in the Netherlands. 
One reason for this is that Dutch policy makers want students from 16 to 18 years to leave any 
education with at least a basic qualification. The idea is that a basic qualification helps chances 
of getting a (future) job. A basic qualification is a general secondary education (havo/vwo), or 
VET (mbo)-level 2 or higher diploma. Qualification obligation extends the compulsory educa-
tion. 
The government wants the (VET) educational institutions to cooperate more with companies 
on the content of the  programmes offered to these students. For companies this offers the 
advantage that pupils come into contact with the sector as a potential employer  at an early 
stage. There are upsides and downsides to this situation. An upside is that training costs for 
students are borne by the education system. The downside is that the motivation of (some) 
students to remain until their 18th birthday in a traditional school is sometimes limited. Com-
panies see a growing mismatch between what students deliver as competences and what they 
need. The Dutch government has the plan to extend the qualification obligation until 21 years 
of age to prevent too many young access the labour market without any qualification whatso-
ever. Railcenter sees its activities as important in networking between the VET-schools and 
the companies. 

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4.3.3 

Learning from other sectors 
Both examples show different approaches to developing access to education in the rail sector. 
These  approaches  are  different  mainly  because  of  institutional  differences. The  Railcenter-
example does show the benefit of developing a network partner in a context of strong differ-
entiation  between  market  partners  in  the  rail  sector.  The  challenges  of  the  rail  sector  with 
access to education can be also be seen in other sectors. In Annex 1, the examples of the 
airline pilots and the marine officers are described. For airline pilots, the markets of private 
trainers is seen to come under pressure because of the rising market demands for pilots. This 
type of occupation has already long time been confronted with highly automated machines. 
But given the fact that most large airplanes can be flown full automatically, there are no real 
examples of airline companies investing in autonomous airplanes. Pilots need to keep devel-
oping their piloting skill. The development in the airline sector seems to be that airline compa-
nies are more and more integrating the full training of pilots into their companies. Airlines are 
offering higher and higher bonuses to attract new candidates to their trainings. 
The  maritime  sector  has  seen  a  separate  development  as  the  rail  sector.  The  demand  for 
marine officers is much larger than for rail personnel. There are more specialized educational 
systems for the maritime sector. The technological developments have been treated differently 
from what is currently under investigation in the rail sector. In the rail sector, a lot of thought is 
given to what train drivers may be needing to do in the future. In the maritime sector, the idea 
in the past years was that marine officers in more and more automated vessels might be able 
to combine desk tasks with engineering tasks. This idea has been experimented by companies 
but currently is being abandoned quite quickly. The demand from the maritime companies is 
to add more specialized tasks to the separate marine officer functions. In practice, integration 
has been reversed for more specialized functions. Companies are also more and more en-
gaged  by  educational  institutions  to  co-develop  the  trainings  for  marine  officers.  In  some 
cases, companies are developing collaborations to offer their officers to learn tasks within the 
network of companies. 

4.4 

Assessment 

Transfer of knowledge to the rail sector can also be accomplished by linking the educational 
institutions more closely to the needs of the rail sector. The following table summarizes in what 
way this helps to deal with the skill gap issues identified in Section 1.2. 

Table 4.4  Linking transfer mechanisms to the skill gap 

Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes  Access to education 

Programmes  require  mastering  fast  changing  personnel 

Channelling new talent to rail companies 

composition 

Rise  in  need  for  IT-skills:  programming  skills,  systems 

Attracting talent from other sectors 

knowledge 

Dealing with competition from other sectors 

Access to education needs to be improved if companies experience insufficient supply of talent 
or if talent is not channelled to the right educational needs the rail companies have. Rail com-
panies do not always have sufficiently adequate schooling systems themselves that deliver 
the right knowledge. Two main issues have restricted the better access of companies to the 
educational system. First, educational systems in the past have been quite reticent to discuss 
with rail companies their needs  and the rail companies have not  always been  able to  offer 
sufficient  jobs  to  students.  Second,  companies  have  only  recently  experimented  with  new 
learning systems for new recruits. The companies have  only started to share  these experi-
ences. 

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Having more access to education, in terms of better collaboration with the educational system 
and co-developing apprenticeship systems, is currently a main approach by rail companies. 
Most of the major rail companies however, do rely on their own training departments to secure 
sufficient specific rail knowledge for their operations. The analysis has shown that institutional 
differences between countries explain  different approaches to the issue, even though  in  all 
countries employers want to develop better relations with educational institutions (VET, bach-
elor level) to provide more specific knowledge to the sector. Better relations with the educa-
tional  systems  provides  more  flexibility  in  programming  of  the  trainings,  which  is  certainly 
needed  for  the  future.  The  experience  of  the  maritime  sector  is  helpful  in  this  sense  that  it 
shows that finding solutions for the future technological changes may require several options 
that need to be developed. 

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5 

Attractiveness of Sector to New Entrants 

5.1 

Definition 

Transferring workforce is the most direct way to deal with transfer of knowledge and finding 
new personnel. To find new personnel, rail companies need to set-up a clear recruiting strat-
egy and have a clear idea how to attract even more labour market groups. In the past, recruit-
ing may have been skewed towards ‘traditional’ labour market groups: male, white, technical 
background. Also, the companies may have also counted on sufficient self-applications of can-
didates. In the new labour markets, rail companies need to deal with shortages of personnel, 
even if they need to let go parts of their personnel. The ageing workforce forces the companies 
to  find  new  ways  to  replace  personnel  groups,  in  labour  markets  in  which  competition  with 
other companies is growing. For attracting new entrants, the following measures are in focus: 
›  General campaigns to develop specific and new branding of the sector and of the com-

panies to improve image of sector; 

›  New recruiting procedures, shifting from broadcasting to multicasting; 
›  Redeployment and intersectoral mobility; 
›  Networked approaches in which collaboration with a broad set of partners is sought to 

improve the sector image. 

Important  in  this  respect  is  the  monitoring  and  measurement  of  net-effectiveness  of  such 
measures. 

5.2 

The challenge 

The challenge in transferring workforce is a complicated one for rail organisations. Companies 
are trying to balance very conflicting demands: they need to recruit sufficient new talent to deal 
with an ageing workforce and they need to take account of the unpredictability of the techno-
logical challenges. 
The ageing workforce is an issue in all four countries. As indicated in the introduction to this 
report, the issue is somewhat different between the countries. At SNCF, the major generation 
shift has already passed. The major recruiting boost was in the 1970s (50 years ago) and this 
generation has now left the company. SNCF has been able to develop more balanced recruit-
ing level of about 10,000 persons (5% of total personnel) per year. 
The most fluctuating recruiting effort can be seen at DB. DB is one of the biggest employers 
in Germany. The recruiting demand has risen quite importantly, mainly because of the rising 
average age of personnel in DB (now: 47 years). Some six years ago, the company needed 
to find 6,000 new recruits per year. This year, the recruiting need exceeded 22,000 persons. 
In the coming years, it will be around 15,000 vacancies per year. This rise is affected by re-
cruiting in the past. DB had known a major growth of the company after the re-unification of 
Germany. After re-unification, DB needed to slim down the organisation because of the major 
overlaps in personnel in the new unified company. This slimming down has finished years ago, 
at this moment recruiting is very important for DB to deal with the new demand, the techno-
logical challenges and the ageing employment at DB. 
In the UK, Network Rail also foresees large volumes of retirees in the next 5-15 years. For 
Network Rail this means that they need a mixture of new entrants and upskilling/reskilling in 
large volumes to create a natural pipeline of talent for the future. Also, many projects do not 
operate in parallel, and therefore Network Rail seeks to ‘incubate’ the talent they have from 
one programme to the next so that lessons learnt as well as the transferable skills are not lost 
from one project to another. 

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For the technological challenge, as is clarified 
in report D2, the personnel shift is more com-
plicated  than  simply  calculating  the  number 
of  staff  that  is  being  cancelled  out  by  intro-
ducing new technology. For the Dutch situa-
tion, for example, some 70% of the Dutch rail 
security system is based on relay technology 
that dates back to the beginning of the 1950s 
(built with help from the Marshall Plan). It is 
therefore  very  outdated  and  must  be  re-
placed in the future. In practice, rail organisa-
tions  will  need  to  keep  staff  who  can  work 
with the old technology, next to new staff who 
can  work  with  new  relay  technology.  Rail 
companies need to decide if specialists in the 
old  technologies  will  move  over  to  the  new 
technologies, but also if new recruits should 
acquaint  themselves  with  old  technology. 
New  technologies  are  always  better  than 
older  technologies.  The  technologies  are 
however  more  complex  than  previous  vin-
tages. A risk is that the technology is also so 
complex that if it really breaks down there is 
insufficient knowledge to recover quickly. Re-
cent examples from neighbouring sectors are 
the computer problems at the traffic control at 
the  major  Dutch  airport  operator  Schiphol: 
the breakdowns meant that many flights had 
to be cancelled with serious economic consequences. In the past 18 months, this has hap-
pened four times. 

Figure 5.1  Recruitment  advertisement  of  Belgium 

rail organisation 

5.3 

Overview 

5.3.1 

Introduction 
In Table 5.1, an overview is given of several measures for the four topics listed above. The full 
information is included in Annex 1. For comparison purposes, the impact of the Dutch Tech-
nology Pact is used as reference point. This example shows that a lot of campaign measures 
may be insufficient to change labour market behaviour of individuals in general. This example 
is more instructive than overviews from campaigns in other sectors, because these tend to 
work in general much in line with what the rail sector is trying to achieve. The table provides 
the core idea of each of these measures that helps to deal with the skill gap created by the 
S2R-Innovation projects. 

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Table 5.1  Overview measures Attracting new talent6 

Organisa-

Example 

tion 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Labour Market Communication 

NS 

Rebranding the image of NS as an innovative employer 

“Touch Campaign” NS 

helps to change the mindset of young academics and 

high-tech minded youth. For lasting impact, more cam-

paigns are needed.  

Attractiveness for new candi-

SNCF 

Modernization of image is a tool for attracting new labour 

dates at SNCF 

market groups.  

Rising demand for recruiting at 

DB 

The recruiting strategy is multi-dimensional and complex 

DB 

to fit the requirements of the labour markets and the 

needs of DB. 

Employer and sector branding  DB 

Carefully developing the brand helps to get access to tar-

get groups on the labour market. 

Redeployment of personnel 

DB 

Measures allow to keep technical talent deployed in the 

and ‘quereinstieg’ 

sector.  

Labour market campaigns 

NR 

The recruiting strategy is multi-dimensional and complex 

to fit the requirements of the labour markets and the 

needs of NR. 

Redeployment of personnel 

NR 

Measures allow to keep technical talent deployed in the 

and intersectoral mobility 

sector.  

Other sectors 

Dutch Technology Pact (sector 

Network of 

Measures are focused on improving attraction of technol-

of manufacturing industry) 

partners 

ogy among young, to train technical professionals for the 

future, and to retain professionals within the sector. Net-

effectiveness of measures are unclear. 

In Table 5.1 an overview is given of measures that should improve the attractiveness of work-
ing in rail. In this section, there are promotional measures such as events and prizes to attract 
new groups to the rail sector. More developed measures have to do with company practices: 
lowering and changing recruitment demands to get access to greater number of recruits, of-
fering better working conditions to work with digitization, supporting mobility to other jobs. 

General campaigns to develop specific and new branding of the sector and of the com-
panies 
An analysis of rail related labour market campaigns in UK rail journals over the past years has 
resulted in a list with a multitude of actions: Kids’ week in Wales (2013); Next Generation Rail 
Conference organized by RSSB and YRP (2015); Recruiter and HR Person or Team of the 
Year Award (Stobart Rail, 2015); YRP Rail Week (2016); 2016 Young Rail Professionals’ An-
nual Dinner; Entrepreneurs in Action (EiA) in setting the 2016 Classroom to Boardroom busi-
ness challenge; Future Engineers (2017); Enterprise for Education (2016); Enjoyment to Em-
ployment  (2016);  National  Apprenticeship  Week  (2017);  national  Big  Bang  careers  (2017); 
2018 Year of Engineering (UK; DfT). The campaigns are focused on different target groups 
and are meant to broaden the supply base for future and current recruiting efforts of rail com-
panies. Such campaigns can be found in all countries under investigation. Next to campaigns, 
companies engage in prizes to attract more attention to themselves: e.g., the Queen’s Anni-
versary Prize for Higher and Further Education (2018) in the UK. Companies also engage in 

5.3.2 

6 For detailed overview of each of these measures, please consult Annex 1. 

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specific company events targeted at very specific groups. DB reports that they organise some 
600 events per year to talk to all kind of target groups. 
This  continuous  communication  with  the  labour  markets  is  hard.  The  Dutch  Railcenter 
acknowledges that in the many campaigns they conduct, it is difficult to remain well connected 
to what young people want. The 'times' change quickly and the messages need to be redevel-
oped each time. 
A lot of effort is done by the rail companies to ‘re-brand’ their profile in the labour market. The 
following table shows the current brand recognition the major rail companies have in the Uni-
versum employer branding surveys. 

Table 5.2  Ranking  of  main  rail  companies  in  the  Universum  Employer  Branding  2018  among  students  in 

different educational programme (number in ranking) 

Engineering, IT, Natu-

Humanities, Liberal 

Business 

ral sciences 

arts, Education 

NL - NS 

NL - ProRail 

GER - DB 

UK - Network Rail 

FR - SNCF 

55 

75 

40 

90 

25 

56 

50 

15/34/37 

29 

13 

31 

52 

61 

63/59 

Universum’s research draws on the opinions of more than tens of thousands of professionals 
in the different countries. This talent survey give a clear indication of where the organisations 
ranks when it comes to its potential to attract new recruits. The reports give crucial elements 
for developing employer branding strategies of companies (see website Universum). More and 
more campaigns of rail companies are less focused on general branding of the sector as rail, 
but  much more  on  showing  that  the  companies  are  also  tech  companies.  The  above  table 
shows the positioning of the companies as engineering and IT specialists. They need to do 
this to attract new talent to high tech jobs. The previous table shows the performance of the 
rail companies in the engineering and IT communities. Figure 5.2 contains the advice of Uni-
versum in developing an employer branding strategy. 

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Figure 5.2  Components of an employer branding strategy according to Universum 

The conclusion for this part is that the companies all have developed a lot of experience with 
different kind of campaigns (overhaul campaigns, employer branding, nurturing campaigns). 
They are all very professional, but need to campaign against other very strong approaches 
from other sectors. As was reported in the analysis of the Dutch NS campaign: the campaigns 
have the ability to change the perception of their audiences as targeted, but having only one 
campaign in ten years will not result in lasting impacts. 

5.3.3 

New recruiting procedures, shifting from broadcasting to multicasting 
The European rail organisations have strongly professionalized their recruiting departments to 
deal  with the great number of recruits, trainees and  messages they  need to convey on the 
labour  markets.  Not  only  do  they  need  to  conduct  more  actions,  they  are  all  positioned  to 
convey new messages to their labour market groups. 

For  example,  DB  has  been  experiencing  growing  recruiting  demands  that  require  a  strong 
professionalization of the recruitment process. DB Recruiting, created some six years ago, is 
now  several  thousands  of  persons.  The  Talent  acquisition  department  now  comprises  400 
persons. DB Recruiting is, next to the recruiting process, also responsible for employee referral 
projects; diversity; international projects (to become more attractive on an international scale); 
recruiting for the international parts of the company (Arriva, Schenker). DB is more and more 
an international operating company. 

The  previous  section  already  documented  the  need  for  new  company  profiles  in  the  cam-
paigns, but these profiles need to be backed-up by a new culture in the companies. For ex-
ample in DB, the fact that the recruiting effort has risen enormously has had as important side-
effect that since 2013, already a third of the total employment at DB is completely new to the 
sector.  For  new  recruits,  this  helps  to  give  them  a feeling  that  they  truly  are  operating  in  a 
renewed company. For DB, the recruiting effort also has to be  backed by new  agreements 
with trade unions. One example is the new collective agreement on digitization at DB (2016). 

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5.3.4 

The objective of the agreement is to create better working conditions to deal with digitization. 
Homeworking and flexible working arrangements are part of this deal. 
That rail organisations switch from general ‘broadcasting’ in their labour market communica-
tion to communication at different levels and with different messages is illustrated in the fol-
lowing overview, documented in Annex 1. “DB plays the entire personnel marketing keyboard, 
addresses the target group individually via regional newspapers and digital media and tries to 
get in personal contact quickly. For example, the ICE is used for job interviews; potential train 
attendants can thus conduct their job interview in the future work environment. This makes the 
interview an exciting experience and a spark for the job, and the company can more easily 
skip  during  the  application  phase.  In  order  to  address  new  groups  of  applicants,  Deutsche 
Bahn also uses its own employees as testimonials. Trainees as well as newcomers report on 
their job in various locations as part of recruiting action days. Social media and events can be 
addressed for cross-promotion suitable groups of applicants on topic-specific content. In this 
way you get access to technology-affine people who can be invited to special events in the 
company”  (Neumann,  2018).  The  aim  in  the  recruiting  process  is  to  make  the  process  as 
smooth as possible for the applicant. The recruiting process should reflect the technological 
demands people will be operating in in the future in these companies. 

Redeployment and intersectoral mobility 
Getting access to new entrants also means to look at recruiting demands and at international 
and other sectoral labour markets. DB has lowered its recruiting demands in this sense that it 
does not select on the basis of diploma (see above), but on more general criteria. International 
recruiting  is  important  for  all  companies,  but  has  become  a  contentious  topic  in  most  EU-
countries. In England, to receive Levy funded apprenticeship training, an apprentice needs to 
spend at least 50% of their working hours in England. With the upcoming Brexit, UK-employers 
are  looking  carefully  at  what  strategy  to  follow,  to  which  degree  it  will  harm  their  recruiting 
possibilities.  In  Germany,  producers  have  developed  recruiting  actions  in  Spain,  but  also 
trained engineers from India and from the UK. For train drivers, DB is looking at Romanian 
recruits. To work in Germany, however, anyone still needs high level knowledge of the German 
language. The international recruiting is a specialised field in itself and is not further developed 
as an access to workforce measure. 

In the case  of redeployment of personnel, companies in the rail sector are more and more 
confronted with the unpredictability of contracts they are performing and need to reapply for. 
Redeployment means that contractors are allowed or may even be obliged to take-over per-
sonnel from another contractor if old contractor loses continuation of a previous contract. In 
the UK, one of the main contractors of Network Rail recently went into bankruptcy, even after 
having  just  won  several  new  contracts.  For  Network  Rail,  this  brought  as  a  challenge  that 
several important tasks on the network would risk to be discontinued. After months of dealing 
with different partners, the contracts and personnel were taken over by other contractors. The 
UK law regulates how personnel needs to be redeployed (the TUPE-regulation, see annex). 
The rules are in line with what is allowed in the Netherlands: new employers can take over 
personnel from a previous employer, but need to respect previous contractual obligations in 
the future. Redeployment is, however, fraught with several difficulties: 
› 

A main issue is what happens when a major part of this personnel has received important 
training investment over the past years. For train security mechanics, for example, a long 
learning time is required and a lot of investment is required to obtain and keep the certif-
icates. Whether training costs are taken over by the new concession holder (or at least 
reimbursed) depends on whether this is included in the collective labour agreements. The 
maintenance contractors in the Netherlands have agreed such compensation in their col-
lective agreement. 

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›  Next to the fact that in contracting, companies need to take account of the training invest-
ment, they also need to consider the labour market, future contracts and the will of the 
personnel: 
•  When  winning  new  concessions  from  other  parties,  the  new  concessionaires  are 
very much focused on taking over staff. In the Dutch rail industry, maintenance con-
tracts are given for 5 years. In the recent re-tendering of the ten major maintenance 
contracts on the Dutch rail, nine concessions did not go to the same party. For the 
new concessionaires, there is a large incentive to take over the staff of the old con-
cessionaire. In the past decade, the old concessionaire would have wanted to con-
tribute to the transition of personnel. In the current situation, the old concession hold-
ers are not inclined to cooperate because there is such a shortage of (qualified) per-
sonnel. The old concessionaires are more inclined to transfer their current staff to 
new locations. In practice, also this is a difficult option because the success of such 
an intention depends on the degree the staff is prepared to move to other parts in 
the country. In most cases, the staff tends to leave to other sectors outside the rail-
ways. 
For the staff, the situation is also not that clear-cut. Personnel is not obliged to switch 
to the new concessionaire, but staying  with a  new concessionaire may bring  new 
risks (for example: they are not always at an advantage to other personnel from the 
new concessionaire). Currently, any railway staff is very attractive for other sectors 
such as construction and electrical infrastructure (Tennet etc). The rule for any em-
ployer is that it is increasingly cheaper to hire qualified personnel than to train your-
self. 

• 

› 

› 

This discontinuity in contract ownership has serious consequences for the contractors. 
There  is  a  lot  of  insecurity  among  contract  holders  what  the  future  will  bring  for  them. 
Some parties in the Dutch market are considering completely dropping out of the compe-
tition, finding the market is too unpredictable. This would lead to a further concentration 
of the market. 
A major complication in redeploying personnel is at the international level. Companies in 
the UK and the Netherlands are used to work in competitive and deregulated markets. 
For such companies, it is difficult to enter the more regulated markets such as Germany 
and France, mainly because of agreements within these markets between the major rail 
organisation and local players. A company like the Dutch Strukton is active in Europe and 
works in Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Italy. They can transfer knowledge and person-
nel  between  their  companies  in  these  countries,  but  not  easily  in  France  or  Germany. 
Markets are still not completely deregulated. 

For intersectoral mobility, all depends on the relative position of the rail sector in comparison 
to other sectors such as ICT, construction and engineering. Currently, the rail companies need 
to offer more opportunities (comparable payment, perks) to their personnel in order not to lose 
them to other sectors. 

5.3.5 

Networking supports in which collaboration with a broad network of partners is sought 
to improve the sector image 
Most of the previous measures are company-based. In most of the countries, major players in 
the  whole  rail  sector  have  collaborated  to  develop  a  better  positioning  of  the  companies  in 
recruiting new talent. Next to national approaches (for example UK National Training Partner-
ship and the Dutch Technology Pact), there are examples of regional and international initia-
tives (for example: UITP) to achieve the same goal. 

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Rail Forum East Midlands (RFEM) is an example of a region that is taking innovative action to 
tackle the national skills shortage. “RFEM represents over 150 rail organisations - from infra-
structure to rolling stock and from manufacturing to technology services. The strategy sets out 
four key priority areas. One of these is to Facilitate Local Delivery of National (and Regional) 
Strategy. Working closely with RSG and NSAR, RFEM is implementing specific actions locally 
for the benefit of members. Second, encouraging more people to take up a career in rail. This 
work includes taking a co-ordinated approach to education outreach in the East Midlands and 
working with the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) to offer a co-ordinated approach to work-
ing with armed forces leavers. Thirdly, driving up the number of apprenticeships in rail, includ-
ing supporting companies to either make the best use of their apprenticeship levy payments 
or, for non-levy payers, to navigate the new funding arrangements. An example is the estab-
lishment of a Rail Employment and Skills Academy with Derby College. The academy allows 
employers to work with the college to advise on the content of the curriculum, develop facilities, 
offer work placements and workplace visits and set projects. The academy will focus on both 
apprentices and full-time students who may progress onto an apprenticeship or higher educa-
tion, and the intention is that all the full-time students will be ‘sponsored’ in some way by an 
employer. The academy provides opportunities for students from across a range of disciplines, 
not just engineering or construction. Students will be studying a wide variety of subjects, such 
as business and management, commercial, marketing, digital technology and even catering.” 
(Rail Technology Magazine, 17/1/2017). 

The most extensive approach in the rail sector is the  UK National Training Partnership that 
develops an ecosystem to support training of newcomers. The National Training Partnership 
was launched in 2017 by NSAR to support world-class career opportunities in rail. The Na-
tional Training Partnership is meant to bring together NSAR’s newly formed National Network 
of Colleges and Training Providers, the Training Alliance and Quality Assurance provision and 
will support the UK rail industry in achieving an integrated approach to education, professional 
development and training. The National Training Partnership helps in optimising training pro-
vision  and improving rail  employment opportunities.  NSAR recently established its National 
Network of Colleges and Training Providers and will comprise of selected Further Education 
(FE) Colleges, partner universities, Development Centres, specialist training academies and 
NSAR Quality Assured training providers. Through the Colleges and Training Providers which 
NSAR has forecast will be required to meet predicted workforce demands, the Training’s Part-
nership’s aim is to secure a steady long-term flow of talented people entering the rail industry 
through an apprenticeship (NSAR Newswebsite). 

The Dutch Technology Pact does much the same as the UK National Training Partnership, 
but  then for the  whole of the tech sectors. As of 2013, the education community,  business 
sector and government have been jointly developing the Technology Pact in an effort to struc-
turally improve alignment between education and the technology job market, and reduce the 
shortage of technically  trained staff. This Technology Pact is now updated in  order to ade-
quately  respond  to  new  technological  developments.  Annex  1  contains  more  details  of  the 
Pact.  Important  for  the  other  described  network  approaches  is  to  understand  how  effective 
these initiatives may be. The Dutch Technology Pact keeps monitor data on the development 
of the number of technicians and this helps to understand to what degree the Pact has had an 
impact. The number of people working in technical professions has increased over the years 
and  the  number  of  unemployed  technicians  has  become  minimal.  However,  it  is  unclear 
whether these developments would have occurred without campaigns too because the devel-
opments  are  much  in  parallel  to  the  general  developments  on  the  Dutch  labour  market.  In 
addition, it appears that in the figures the number of young people in technical jobs has not 
really increased, but older workers have started to work longer. Despite the absolute increase 

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in the  number of  young technicians, there  is a stronger aging of technically skilled  workers 
(and remaining in the workforce). This phenomenon also occurs among IT professionals. Here 
the group consists of almost three quarters of higher educated people. The growth of the group 
of higher educated people was also 25 percentage points over the period studied; the growth 
among younger IT professionals is much lower. The example shows that it is difficult for even 
a well-funded and very broad programme to show its net-effectiveness. The number of tech-
nicians has risen, but maybe not the elite the programme was intended for. 

5.4 

Assessment 

Attracting new entrants is important for the ‘transfer of personnel’. The following table summa-
rizes in what way these measures can help to deal with the skill gap issues identified in Section 
1.2. 

Table 5.3  Linking transfer mechanisms to the skill gap 

Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes  New entrants 

Programmes feed into unpredictable growth and decline of 

If connected  to  new  contract systems:  then 

tasks:  this  requires  ‘flexible  personnel  provision  for  the  fu-

more flexible? 

ture’ 

Programmes  require  mastering  fast  changing  personnel 

Broadening supply base with new talent 

composition 

Programmes require managing unknown technical capabili-

Broadening supply base with new talent 

ties (suppliers, ageing groups) 

Rise  in  need  for  IT-skills:  programming  skills,  systems 

Attracting talent from other sectors 

knowledge 

Competition 

Programmes support a new corporate culture: changing so-

New  entrants  need  new  culture  (require-

cial, communication and organisational skills 

ment) 

Programmes 

require 

faster  upscaling  of 

(technical) 

New entrants may be more receptive 

knowledge (from 1 to ) 

Bring new culture 

Access to new groups is essential for rail companies to find new talent to deal with the tech-
nological challenges that (for example) S2R-innovations will offer. The table and the analysis 
show  that  access  to  new  groups  requires  an  integration  of  different  set  of  strategies  within 
companies, but also among different companies. Redeployment efforts will for example be-
come more important in the future, but this requires that within the rail sector some general 
agreement arises between rail companies. The regional and national network approaches can 
help to create such understanding. The risk for the rail sector is that much of new workforces 
and training investment may get lost to mobility to other sectors. 

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6 

Transfer from Reintegration 

6.1 

Definition 

Reintegration is defined as those measures applied to help employees for whatever reason 
not at work, to return to work. Reintegration is one of more unlikely measures to deal with the 
technological developments since most of the absenteeism and sickness-at-work have little to 
do with technology itself. Technology can, however, be a solution to many of the demanding 
work situations in the rail sector. For example, it can help reduce the amount of work in the 
nights. The major measure to deal with high demands at work (physical, mental) is to work in 
a preventive way in designing good jobs and working conditions. 

Figure 6.1  Example of publicity about safety policies at a major Dutch construction company 

6.2 

Overview 

Table  6.1  includes  several  interventions  deployed  by  the  rail  companies  in  this  study.  The 
overview is far from complete, but is meant to indicate a sample of such measures and their 
effectiveness. 

Table 6.1  Overview measures Reintegration7 

Example 

Reintegration 

Organisa-

tion 

NS 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Support of a specialised agency is offered to help employ-

ees in return-to-work situation find jobs in- and outside NS. 

No clear result. 

7 For detailed overview of each of these measures, please consult Annex 1. 

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Example 

MOVE-project 

Organisa-

tion 

NS 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Short-term career assessment to help re-focus employee 

to new tasks and roles. 

Reintegration 

ProRail 

Training  courses  to  develop  sustainable  employability. 

Craftmanship can help ability to work with technology. 

Alpha  Cells  as  reintegration 

SNCF 

Job carving applied to create new jobs and supported with 

means 

Other sectors 

Dirigo project 

coaching helps integration. No relation with technology. 

Sweden, 

Vocational rehabilitation interventions also need a societal 

Försäkring-

approach  to  be  able  to  offer  clients  opportunities  for  job 

skassan 

training and real jobs 

The table shows that the rail companies do spend attention to return-to-work programmes. In 
most cases, the companies try to find new jobs for their employees, inside or outside of the 
company. The most developed approach are the Alpha Cells at SNCF that use a job carving 
approach to create new jobs for work incapacitated employees. Such measure does not im-
mediately deal with technological change. The example of the Dirigo-project is added to this 
list as a point of reference. It shows the example of return-to-work effort in the Swedish context. 
Even if the project is not very helpful for the rail sector per se, it does show what most of the 
return-to-work interventions have in common: that is the combination of different on-the-per-
son measures (motivational interviews), supportive supervisor support and work redesign. As 
in many other of these return-to-work research, the interventions need to have a broad coop-
eration of stakeholders to hold any (if any) success (Vogel et al., 2017. 

6.3 

Assessment 

Table 6.2 connects the measures to the skill gaps under research. 

Table 6.2  Linking transfer mechanisms to the skill gap 

Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes 

Reintegration 

Programmes lead to rising risk situations that need managing  Prevention? Lifelong learning perspective 

It is clear from this table, that prevention should be the main focus in dealing with rising risk 
situations at work. For as far as interventions between countries can be understood, it is im-
portant to understand the strong differences between social security regulations and what the 
costs are for companies. In the Netherlands, companies are fully responsible for all sickness 
and remedial costs in the first two year of absenteeism of an employee. This is much longer 
than  in  other  countries.  The  goal  of  the  Dutch  legislation  is  to  shift  the  (societal)  burden  of 
absenteeism to employers. Employers should be incentivized to do more in terms of preven-
tion and support to sick employees. One also needs to understand the multitude of interven-
tions possible, depending on the physical factors, mental factors and social factors that need 
to be taken into account. Interventions can be directed at management behaviour, co-worker 
behaviour, task-redesign etc. There are a multitude of commercial approaches and it is not 
always clear what works. The Alpha Cells seem to be an effective approach, but more sys-
tematic research would be needed to see what works. Current research is not that optimistic 
about return-to-work interventions (Vogel et al., 2017). 

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Reintegration is not a first measure that can help companies deal with technological change. 
At best, it is focused a helping employees find employment in newly developed jobs, but these 
jobs will rather be at the fringes of operation and not so much in core technology areas. 

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7 

Transfer from Less Represented Target Groups 

7.1 

Definition 

A last measure to improve the transfer of workforce for rail organisations is to make sure that 
the number of persons from all labour market segments are at least represented in personnel 
at the level of their presence in the labour market. A first reason for organisations to do this, is 
to avoid being blamed and shamed for possibly discriminating specific groups in society. 
Drivers for such policies can be legislation, but also more mundane reasons such as: putting 
the organisation at a disadvantage of other organisations that profit from such extra supply of 
talent; profiting from the extra possibilities that more diversity gives to an organisation. The 
extra  benefits  seen  in  a  more  diverse  population  is  currently  integrated  into  the  concept  of 
more inclusive management. Inclusive management means that companies are explicitly tar-
geting a more diverse population because of these extra benefits. These benefits can be other 
skills and talents, the ability to better deal with the outside world itself, the possibility of better 
understanding  of  technology  and  processes  that  companies  now  miss  if  their  personnel  is 
homogeneous. One example of this last advantage is that companies can create better value 
systems to deal with the changing society. 
Diversity is seen in many different ways: gender equality, inclusion of individuals coming from 
priority  neighbourhoods,  focusing  on  LBGTQI-communities,  integrating  colleagues  with  a 
multi-cultural background. 

7.2 

Overview 

Table 7.1 includes several interventions to improve access to less represented groups by the 
rail  companies  in  this  study.  The  overview  is  far  from  complete,  but  is  meant  to  indicate  a 
sample of such measures and their effectiveness. The reference point is current research on 
the benefits of inclusive management. 

Table 7.1  Overview measures attracting from less represented groups8 

Organi-

Example 

sation 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

90  sustainable  jobs  in  opera-

NS 

These jobs are meant to satisfy the general policy of the com-

tional organisation. 

pany. It also helps to satisfy the legal obligations of the com-

pany for support to less able persons. The measure aims at a 

broad set of jobs. There is no link to technological change. 

Diversity and Inclusion at NS. 

NS 

The recruitment of multicultural talent is focused on technical 

talent. This helps with the expected rise in technical jobs. 

Access 

to 

less  represented 

SNCF 

More diversity could be helpful for technical jobs. 

groups 

Diversity  and  inclusive  man-

ProRail 

This measure is part of a plan to deal with the demographic 

agement 

shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market short-

ages. 

Recruiting  groups  less  repre-

DB 

This measure is part of a plan to deal with the demographic 

sented groups 

shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market short-

ages. 

8 For detailed overview of each of these measures, please consult Annex 1. 

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Example 

sation 

Lessons for technological skill gap 

Diversity & Inclusion initiatives  NR 

This measure is part of a plan to deal with the demographic 

Organi-

shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market short-

ages. 

Armed Forces into Rail 

Increasing  the  number  of  per-

NR 

NR 

A lot of military have the technical expertise that NR needs. 

This measure is part of a plan to deal with the demographic 

sons with a disability working in 

shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market short-

Network Rail 

Other sectors 

ages. 

Inclusive policies in scientific lit-

- 

Women and other groups at a distance in technical jobs need 

erature  (see  Annex  1  for  full 

better contexts. 

list) 

› 

NR defines on its website in the strongest terms what the components of an inclusive man-
agement approach should be. NR sees ‘diversity’ as the commitment to recognise and respect 
differences between people while valuing the contribution everyone can make to our business. 
‘Inclusion’ means creating safe and welcoming workplaces with fair cultures that encourage 
innovative and fresh  ways  of thinking, and allow people  to speak up, especially to suggest 
where  things  could  be  done  better.  Diversity  is  about  getting  a  mix  and  inclusion  is  about 
making sure that mix works well. In this policy at NR, the components are: 
› 

Access and inclusion - this covers activities that create a more open and safer working 
environment, from the way NR designs stations and facilities to the support for potential 
applicants  and  new  members  of  staff.  Components  are:  the  Inclusive  Leadership  Pro-
gramme, Flexible working, Employee networks, Diversity Champions and Equality Reps, 
Anti-bullying and harassment campaign, Everyone Week; 
Behaviours  and  benchmarking  -  this  includes  those  activities  that  support  an  inclusive 
and fair culture, and enhance interactions so that our safety and performance improve. A 
first objective is to positively influence the career choices of the next generation and those 
who don’t traditionally apply so that NR attracts applications from a wider range of poten-
tial employees. Examples of programme activities are: Early engagement, Work experi-
ence, The Apprenticeship programme, The Graduate programme, Work placements. 
A second objective  is to use open, transparent and  merit-based processes to  appoint, 
promote  and  retain  the  best  people  who  bring  a  diverse  range  of  opinions,  ideas  and 
experiences.  Examples  of  programme  activities  are:  The  Disability  Confident  Scheme, 
Diversity in Leadership, Inclusive training and development, Positive action. 
A  third  objective  is  to  manage  individuals  and  teams  fairly  in  a  way  that  is  customer-
driven,  collaborative,  accountable  and  challenging.  Examples  of  programme  activities 
are:  Reasonable  adjustments,  Transparent  pay  Inclusive  premises  and  facilities,  Line 
manager guides, Living wage; 

›  Collaboration - this encompasses those activities that promote working with others across 

our business and the rail industry. 

The actions are therefore the use of a different language in communication (for example the 
way DB tests its labour market communication for any bias), offering other support to different 
groups (for example DB offers housing to underprivileged groups), ‘mixité’ (for example, SNCF 
ensures that not only more women are in male jobs, but also the reverse: more men in women 
jobs). All of these elements are reflected in personnel composition, in campaigns and other 
measures. The major point that all companies stress is that the targeted equality in manage-
ment is still far away. 

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For an underpinning of the importance of inclusive policies, also to help bridge the skills gaps 
rail  companies  will  experience,  some  insights  from research  are  helpful.  Research  suggest 
that inclusive management is a key strategy for effectively managing diversity (Moon, 2018). 
Workforce diversity needs cultures and structures that are in support. It is important to under-
stand that, for example, gender issues are not only an individual decision. It is insufficient to 
simply motivate women to choose a career in engineering. To establish inclusive management 
concepts in technology-oriented organizations, it is needed to see that gender issues and re-
lated responsibilities should be seen as part of a professional leadership competence. Organ-
izations aren't gender neutral but are producing and reproducing gender codes within all areas 
of organizational practices (Hanappi-Egger & Warmuth, 2010). A second set of studies identi-
fies the possibilities to make value driven organisations. It is possible for organisations to make 
work values central to the employment relationship of any worker. For younger worker, this is 
done by asking them to explain what "success" or "efficiency" means to them in their work. 
This provides a window into the values-based reasoning underpinning younger workers' work-
related attitudes and behaviour (Winter & Jackson, 2014). 

7.3 

Assessment 

Table 7.2 connects the measures to the skill gaps under research. 

Table 7.2  Linking transfer mechanisms to the skill gap 

Skill gaps and challenges S2R innovation programmes  Access to less represented groups 

Programmes require mastering fast changing personnel 

Diversity as an asset 

composition 

Programmes support a new corporate culture: changing 

Diversity is pre-condition for new culture 

social, communication and organisational skills 

Access to less represented groups is not only a ‘numbers’ opportunity, but a real opportunity 
to improve the technology base of an organisation. The different measures used by the rail 
organisations show that they have been capable of getting access to new talent and to balance 
their capabilities to what societies want from these organisations. The precise benefit of inclu-
sive management will probably not be measurable, but the positive impacts are clear in terms 
of less turnover of groups with valuable knowledge for rail organisations. 

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8 

Conclusions and Recommendations 

8.1 

Introduction 

The previous six chapters have looked more deeply at each of the transfer of knowledge and 
workforce measures. Examples from rail and other companies have been investigated to see 
to what degree these measures can deal with the skill gaps identified in report D2. To come 
to recommendations for the rail sector, the following steps are still needed: 
›  How does the transfer of knowledge mechanism relate to the content and requirements 

for trainings? 

›  How does the transfer of workforce mechanism relate to the content and requirements 

for alternative learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and life-long learning? 

›  What  should  sectors  try  to  come-up  with  as  approach,  using  the  six  measures? What 

further development is then needed? 

8.2 

How does the transfer of knowledge mechanism relate to the content and requirements 
for trainings? 

The  S2R  IPs  will  lead  to  changes  in  processes  and  technologies  in  the  different  countries. 
These technological developments inevitably require an adaptation of vocational training pro-
grammes, on-the-job training systems and higher education. The following tables give a sum-
mary of what the measures would mean for these three types of education and training used 
in the rail and other sectors. The results from previous chapters are used to deduct require-
ments for each of these types of training, taking into account the skills gaps that needs to be 
solved. 

Table 8.1  Vocational training and requirements from the analysis 

Knowledge 

transfer 

Vocational training 

NGL 

•  TechniekFabriek (TF): stronger collaboration needed between education and companies 

is a prerequisite for using new learning approaches. The approach is very much practice 

driven approach and much more an alignment between education and companies, in con-

tent and exchange of teaching personnel. TF helps for major technological challenge as 

new train systems etc. The collaboration is also needed to ensure sufficient supply of stu-

dents.  The  methodology  helps  to  secure  that  students  learn  skills  required  by  industry. 

NGL offers competence-based learning (CBL), but the TF shows that CBL should be de-

veloped together with the companies (and their training departments). 

•  Digital passport/skills fitness test as starting point (DB): assessing current knowledge and 

required development. Can be applied in apprenticeships systems too. 

•  RBC: starting from the current practice to redefine skill requirements, also basis building 

stone for new apprenticeships training. 

Access to 

•  Most digital instruments looked at are developed for company practice. It is important to 

virtual 

learning 

acquaint students early on with their future work environments. Possibly integrate special 

modules for all these tools in training on Moodle, apps etc. 

•  The  TechniekFabriek  as  a  model  seems  to  allow  for  good  connection  between  virtual 

learning and new requirements in the rail industry. 

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Knowledge 

transfer 

Vocational training 

Access to 

Participation of rail in development of apprenticeships should be continued (Network Rail). 

education 

Difficulty  in  most  countries  remains  the  issue  of  developing  courses  in  educational 

institutions (NL) and in-house training schemes (UK, Fr, GER). 

Table 8.2  On-the-job training and requirements from the analysis 

Knowledge 

transfer 

On-the-job training 

NGL 

•  Digital  passport/skills  fitness  test  as  starting  point  (SNCF,  DB):  assessing  current 

knowledge and required development is helpful. Link up with approaches such as the UK 

SkillsID-approach. 

•  RBC: starting from the current practice to redefine skill requirements, but also leading to 

requirements for new trainings (focus on building blocks rather on full solutions). RBC can 

help to better align elearning-modules. 

•  Skill-swapping:  only  experimental  method,  but  probably  promising  venue  for  on-the-job 

training, certainly in a world in which collaboration between network partners will only rise 

and cross-organisational skills are crucial. 

•  New  simulator  based  training  allow  for  integration  of  components  of  blended  learning 

(learning nuggets, gamification, team based, learning on demand). 

Access to 

•  eLearning and Learning management systems are prerequisite for NGL to have any effect. 

virtual 

learning 

Monitoring of development in knowledge and competences is needed. App-systems are 

requirement to learn in workplaces. 

•  Most  eLearning  systems  are  still  limited  in  their  reach.  Rail  organisations  seem  to  limit 

development  to  safety  related  and  general  shareable  knowledge.  Unclear  is  why  more 

technical topics could not be integrated. 

•  Simulation systems have developed quite fast: companies will need to find collaborations 

with schools to offer access to these systems. 

Access to 

•  Apprenticeships  allow  for  link  with  on-the-job  training.  This  is  however  limited  to  those 

education 

countries that have a tradition in this (UK, GER). 

•  Learning  from  other  sectors  can  help  pose  right  questions:  main  question  is  how  train 

drivers will fare with ATO. Maritime experience shows that integrated job profiles do not 

seem  to  work.  Possibly  more  research  into  this  topic.  Maritime  invests  in  more 

specialization of captains, much along lines of airline pilots. 

Table 8.3  Formal training and requirements from the analysis 

Knowledge 

transfer 

Formal training 

NGL 

Collaboration between different education institutions has been possible for ‘higher appren-

ticeship’ freight logistics. However, unclear why companies do not buy in such more practical 

approach to academic excellence. Are companies are interested in this kind of ‘higher ap-

prenticeship’? 

Access to 

•  Simulation systems are now more developed and allow rail systems management. Focus 

virtual 

learning 

should be on reducing learning time and possibly more experimentation to reduce intro-

duction time for new technologies. 

•  Academic institutions, for as far they have rail technology as a degree, are well equipped 

with virtual learning tools. The issue is to get more rail technology in the curricula. 

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Knowledge 

transfer 

Formal training 

Access to 

•  Adopting courses to newest technology (ATO) is something that could be shared. Invest-

education 

ments in training are substantial (Birmingham). 

•  Cooperation of Network Rail in the National Technical Colleges helps to co-direct the con-

tent of the programmes. Rail academies provide more training grounds for academics too. 

•  Major  railways  stay  connected  to  Technical  Universities  via  professorships.  Maybe  this 

should be expanded to Human Capital research too. 

These transfer of knowledge mechanisms help VET, on-the-job training and academic educa-
tion to prepare themselves for the future skill gaps that will arise. From the above analysis, it 
is important to take the following points into consideration: 
› 

To understand the role of VET-systems in the different countries, it is important to bear in 
mind the institutional differences between the countries participating in the research. One 
of the differences lie in the availability of apprenticeship systems. Apprenticeships com-
bine  alternating  periods  at  the  workplace  and  in  training  institutions  and  they  are  well 
suited to provide young people with an entry point into the labour market and supply en-
terprises with skilled workers. In the Netherlands, the traditional apprenticeship system 
has been replaced by a school based education and a dual-track (work-learning). This is 
something  quite  different  in  comparison  with  the  other  three  countries.  Only  the  dual 
learning track (work-learning, BBL) is comparable to the other countries. Another differ-
ence between the Netherlands and the other countries is the obligation of the VET-system 
to make sure that candidates finish with a qualification. In most countries, 50% of candi-
dates never obtain such a qualification (Eurofound, 2018). The fact that 100% of Dutch 
students will end up with a qualification is certainly helpful for the students, but the fear is 
that educational institutions may be under pressure to give away these certificates. The 
changes discussed in the Dutch system (i.c. TechniekFabriek) have to do with the dis-
tance  that  had  grown  between  the  education  system  and  the  companies.  Companies 
have a clear interest to help improve the educational effort. This is certainly the case in 
the UK with the introduction of the new apprenticeship system and the changes at the 
academic level. Network Rail (and other rail partners) are heavily engaged in defining the 
profiles and the terms for funding, etc.; 
Another  important  new  element,  according  to  the  investigation,  is  the  attention  of  the 
companies to assess the ICT-knowledge that colleagues have. It should be a personal 
interest of everyone to know where they stand, but also to have reliable tooling to assess 
this knowledge and competence. It would be a good thing to share the German validated 
test and to develop this also for the VET and higher education systems; 
A  major  novelty  is  also  the  fact  that  assessing  the  technological  knowledge  in  a  job, 
should be done with the current jobs and not so much from the drawing board. This ap-
proach however will not tell what knowledge and competences are needed in the future 
but can be used to assess what is needed once the changes are taking place. This ap-
proach also means that it is somewhat hard to give a precise content on the VET, on-the-
job and academic programmes. 
The flip-side of this observation is that the identification of the precise content of training 
programmes may be a futile exercise: having a flexible system to assess changes when 
they are there may be more important than trying to guess what will happen in the future. 
This requires however a close cooperation with the VET-system, unless of course com-
panies do everything in-house. The risk of only working in-house is the continued institu-
tional separation of VET and companies; 
At the  academic level,  it seems as if the technological change  is insufficiently tackled. 
Educational institutions (for example NewCastle University) has developed in cooperation 

› 

› 

› 

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a more practical programme based on NGL-rules, but the need does not seem to be there 
among rail companies; 
The future will bring skill gaps as identified in the report D2. The question is how far in the 
future this will be, and according to some accounts, they may be further than calculated. 
The impact on training is that it may be more adequate to have methods (assessments, 
tests, procedures to develop trainings) in place to deal with the change once it is there, 
rather than to plan in great detail training contents; 
The maritime sector shows that it is better to let practice to lead the content (example: 
integrating or splitting up jobs on ships). There are great many ideas of what will happen 
to different occupations, but it is important that companies experiment and inform educa-
tion what their needs are; 
Virtual  learning is already  well-embedded  in the rail sector. Most parties elect blended 
learning approaches. However, more attention to new simulation approaches may be the 
future to model technology changes. This will be more necessary for ‘management sys-
tems’ (managing a multitude of partner actions, rather than single driving trainer). For the 
educational system, more access to such systems may  only  be realisable through the 
companies. Partnerships should be built on this; 
eLearning seems only to be used for a limited number of topics. More analysis needed 
for this, but otherwise: more investment needed. 

› 

› 

› 

› 

8.3 

How does the transfer of workforce mechanism relate to the content and requirements 
for alternative learning systems, the needs of various skill levels and life-long learning? 

Tables  8.4-8.6  focus  on  ‘transfer  of  workforce’ mechanism  and  how  they  take  into  account 
alternative learning systems, needs of various skill levels and lifelong learning aspects of skills 
segments of the workforce. 

Table 8.4  Alternative learning systems and requirements from the analysis 

Workforce 

transfer 

Alternative learning systems 

Attractiveness 

Rebranding of a sector (NS, SNCF, DB) may have unintended impacts at the vocational 

to new entrants 

level. If a sector is seen as something else as ‘rail’, it may influence youth going to VET-

schools. But it may also have positive effects on parents to think their kinds have better 

opportunities. It is important that campaigns and ‘rebranding’ is supported by alternative 

learning systems, i.e. aligned with the new culture and content that the sector wants to 

portray. 

Reintegration 

Alternative learning systems may be helpful to achieve reintegration or return-to-work: 

traditional systems are linked to traditional relations. Systems should build on ‘support 

and confidence-building’.  

Less repre-

Probably,  approaches  to  change  the  culture  in  companies  needs  to  start  in  the 

sented target 

educational system. A new brand of a sector needs to start in educational programmes. 

groups 

Alternative learning should not reproduce ‘old’ gendering and non-inclusive culture.  

Table 8.5  Needs of various skill levels and requirements from the analysis 

Workforce 

transfer 

Needs of various skill levels 

Attractiveness 

Campaigns  and  rebranding  may  be  biased  toward  people  with  higher  education.  It  is 

to new entrants 

important that all target groups of skill level are included in the messages.  

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Workforce 

transfer 

Needs of various skill levels 

Reintegration 

Interventions  for  return-to-work  need  to  be  directed  at  all  skill  levels.  Effectiveness  of 

Alpha Cells proves it is suitable for this purpose.  

Less repre-

These less represented target groups need to have opportunities in jobs at all skill levels. 

sented target 

Currently, mainly management levels are too homogeneous.  

groups 

Table 8.6  Lifelong learning aspects of skills segments of the workforce and requirements from the analysis 

Workforce 

transfer 

Lifelong learning aspects of skills segments of the workforce 

Attractiveness 

Rebranding and campaigning among new entrants may profit from showing the possibil-

to new entrants 

ities of lifelong learning in the rail jobs. It is needed to adopt policies to make that a reality.  

Reintegration 

Lifelong learning programmes are a main prevention measure to make sure that persons 

do not get stuck into jobs with no future. These programmes help people coming back to 

develop a new perspective and limit the possibility of relapsing. 

Less repre-

Groups less represented may need different learning trajectories to remain in jobs. These 

sented target 

lifelong learning approaches need to take different trajectories into account.  

groups 

These transfer of workforce mechanisms are needed to help the rail sector with new personnel 
in the future. From the above analysis, it is important to take the following points into consid-
eration: 
› 

Alternative learning systems and lifelong learning approaches should reflect the culture 
that companies want to install. They should take into account the issues with former sys-
tems and consciously correct for these tendencies (for example gendering). When devel-
oping these systems, follow earlier recommendations: equip for the future, try not to guess 
the future; 

›  Workforce transfer mechanisms may be biased towards specific skill levels. It is important 

› 

that all systems are checked for bias toward specific skill levels; 
Lifelong learning needs to be developed in such a way that different trajectories are pos-
sible with different groups. 

8.4 

What should the rail sector try to come-up with as approach, using the six measures? 
What further development is then needed? 

1.  Continue with closer relationship between VET and company needs. Learn from the dif-
ferent countries about VET. The in-house training system with apprenticeships and grad-
uate programmes in France, UK and Germany is recommendable, but is expensive for 
the companies. The need remains high for the sector to discuss with governments costs 
of in-house training and the great need for new recruits. 
2.  Share validated tests for assessing ICT-competencies. 
3.  Share information about assessing competences in current jobs to speed-up future roles 

and technology demands. 

4.  Keep an openness from companies to the VET- and academic system, even if most of 
the competence assessment and development of training seems to be an in-house effort. 
Keep investing into education too, not only in the company trainings. The maritime sector 
has shown that underinvesting in VET education has stalled development in companies. 

5.  Learn from practice, less from paper. 

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6.  More  support  from  companies  for  higher  (academic)  apprenticeships.  A  round-table 

needed for this. 

7.  Experiment more with skill-swapping schemes. 
8.  Built partnerships on new management simulation applications. 
9.  Develop alternative learning systems and lifelong learning approaches from the perspec-
tive of new groups or from the perspective and interests of less represented groups. This 
means that these systems should be flexible to account for the needs of these groups 
(and to attract these groups). 

10.  Reintegration needs to be used as a measure at all skill levels. Learning systems should 

be developed such that reintegrated employees can re-develop their career. 

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Annex 1  Overview  of  measures 

implemented  by 

companies 

1. 

Next Generation Learning: Examples from practice 

Measure: SNCF Policy NGL 
›  Organisation: SNCF. 
›  Goal: SNCF is one of the major rail companies in Europe. This also entails that SNCF 
makes major investments in training and education. The company has a long tradition in 
training and educating its workers. For example, a lot of the training investment is con-
ducted within the 15 internal rail training centres. As with most rail organisations in Eu-
rope, these centres have been used to deploy very standard class room based training 
approaches. Over the past years, this approach has been strongly adapted to more and 
more individualizing training and education. The goal is to use blended learning methods, 
modularised teachings, regularly (compartmentalized) assessments of competences, e-
learning as elements of the NGL.  Pre-assessments of competences of employees are 
important to direct the courses and the coaching. Learning from real practice is core to 
the whole approach: students need to pick up their questions from practice. This NGL is 
also present in the training and education of non-academic positions in SNCF. For exam-
ple, train drivers are trained to be able to use a broader skills-set than in the past. Next to 
the traditional approach to focus on learning to follow the rules, all in a framework of more 
safety, a lot of attention is directed at helping train drivers to be aware of their customers 
and to communicate about what is going during the voyage. 
The whole development of NGL leads in SNCF to a new competences model. Not one 
method is best, but there is an insistence on blended learning. All the components of this 
NGL are now building blocks for a learning management system (LMS) that should help 
trainers  and  trainees  develop  better  integration  into  SNCF-processes  and  into  more 
adapted careers. The LMS helps to re-engineer the  whole training methodology  within 
SNCF. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current practice. 
Impact: The new approach is very much at the core of the 15 training centres. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: SNCF is much focused at better identifying the de-
velopment of the professions and the required skills. For example, the profession of the 
train  driver  will see a total  new  working context  when ATO will be deployed. The train 
driver will be less a driver of the train, but more a surveyor of all what is happening on a 
train. This requires more focus on development of cognitive and awareness skills of the 
train  driver.  Train  drivers  need  to  constantly  ask  themselves  if  they  have  all  the  infor-
mation for making correct decisions and to understand what to do to solve any doubt they 
have. 
SNCF encourages its personnel to broaden their skills sets and promotes adequate train-
ing. In particular SNCF invests in the development of digital culture and skills. It is neces-
sary to have the resources prepared for the constant evolution in this area. All employees 
of SNCF are encouraged to acquire a digital passport that shows if their digital skills are 
up-to-date. This passport helps each individual worker to discuss with the employer new 
training or even new jobs. 
Source: interview SNCF. 

› 
› 
› 
› 

› 

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Measure: RailNewcastle 
›  Organisation: Newcastle University. 
›  Goal: RailNewcastle at Newcastle University, UK, has implemented an innovative inten-
sive programme in rail logistics co-funded by Lifelong Learning Program of the European 
Commission. This is an example of Next Generation Learning approach. The purpose of 
the intensive programme is to help nine higher education institutions to work together in 
developing  an  innovative  course  that  promotes  a  multidisciplinary  approach  (students 
from  different  backgrounds)  in  rail  freight  logistics  and  combines  various  teaching  and 
learning techniques (lectures, discussions, research projects, technical visits, workshops, 
seminars, etc.) (Fraszczyk et al., 2012). Also RailNewcastle offered an innovative curric-
ula  for  an  MSc  in  Rail  Freight  and  Logistics  which  employed  a  flexible  mobility-based 
hybrid model integrating subjects, teaching and learning methods from European Univer-
sities (UNEW, DICEA, VTU and HAW-Ingolstadt) (Marinov & Fraszczyk, 2014). 
Target jobs: Academic level logistics. 
Timing: Current practice 
Impact: Due to lack of a bare-minimum number of students enrolling for the one-year long 
MSc courses, it was suspended. The experience of running the course suggests that the 
railway companies are less keen to send their employees for such higher education. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: No lessons yet. 
Source: NewRail. 

› 
› 
› 

› 
› 

Measure: Role Based Capability training - Network Rail 
›  Organisation: Network Rail. 
›  Goal:  As part of the NGL,  the Role Based Capability  (RBC) approach  at NR (Network 
Rail) is one of the best examples how the learning and training has become individualized 
and personalized. The approach is mainly linked to the engineering roles needed to main-
tain the railway network in the UK. Technological change is an important driver for devel-
oping new approaches to maintaining and developing competence of engineers. 
The technical strategy of NR, much in line with what S2R sees as the technological future, 
depends on what the current engineering capability of NR is. It is important to keep track 
of and maintain the workforce to develop stronger capabilities. NR Training has devel-
oped the RBC programme to do just that. RBC has been tested in a proof of concept with 
the role of Section Planners in Wales. The objective of ‘Role Based Capability’ (RBC) is 
to provide an innovative competence and development system which develops a person’s 
whole capability so that they: 
•  Discharge their accountabilities within any relevant Means of Control (MoC), 
• 
• 

Are developed for their next role, prior to promotion, 
Practice required corporate behaviours: Challenging; Customer Driven; Collabora-
tive; and Accountable. 

Ultimately the aim is to develop the confidence to challenge unsafe activity and can work 
more collaboratively in order to improve overall performance. Its components include An-
nual Capability Conversation, Action Learning and the Skills Assessment Scheme (SAS). 
The SAS uses a risk based assessment scheme to assess how much training is needed 
and under which regime such training should be conducted. 

›  Methodology: The RBC should lead to new training approaches and therefore starts with 
a  new  analysis  of  roles  key  functions  within  NR  to  understand  the  training  needs.  NR 

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needed to reassess existing capabilities within NR and to show what needs to be rede-
veloped as cognitive and behavioural competence, and engineering skills. Several steps 
are taken in the RBC-approach following the principles of ADDIE9: 
• 

Analysis: there is a lot of emphasis on analysis. The start is a reverse engineering 
of how NR currently  trains  people in roles and then identifying  what the core ele-
ments in role are. The role competence/skills requirement are reverse engineered 
and this delivers the learning needs. NR builds task scalars of what a sectional plan-
ner does and then defines the requirements for training. Learning material is identi-
fied using a systems perspective learning on what a planner does when thinking of 
the job from ‘design to destruction’. A lot of work is put into that framework. A Pro-
fessional Competence Matrix is used: competences of a person are mapped to roles. 
This helps to identify gaps and link training need to these personal gaps. 

•  Design phase: a learner journey is used to understand how a generation Y-person 
would learn. The learning is very much individualized and modularised: a lot of effort 
is  invested  into  instruments  for  this  individual  learning  (e.g.,  with  a  Moodle).  This 
starts then with an initiation assessment on the Moodle. An outcome is the kind of 
mentoring and coaching support needed. The modular training makes elements of 
the training transferable to other roles if the skill/competence need is identified. 

Target jobs: Currently, 18 roles have been prioritized for the RBC. 
Timing: Current practice 
Impact: To develop these new profiles, NR has used the experts in each of their respec-
tive fields: this means that engineers have been made available to co-develop the profiles. 
The  proof  of  concept  of  RBC  was  piloted  in Wales.  The  RBC  has  been  developed  by 
using visits, questionnaires and assessments. The process started with what the all the 
good practices were in the job of the Section Planners in the Wales route. Questionnaires 
were answered by about 70% of participants to identify what they needed to be doing in 
their job. All of the skills sets were mapped, all of the training material, methods, modules 
and how to deliver the training. For assessing if a worker is able to perform the roles of a 
section planner, a manager can assess current capabilities up to a level-3. Above this, 
experts  need  to  be  engaged  to  evaluate  if  someone  can  perform  the  roles.  The  RBC 
program is currently not funded to deliver the training either internally or externally. The 
programme results (the course/training material) could be made available to training pro-
viders when an internal NR customer (Route) funds the training. Network Rail Training 
(NRT) will aim to offer the training to internal NR customers in the first instance. There is 
currently a disconnect in NRT’s ability to deliver training versus the potential customer 
need - i.e. not enough training resource to deliver “face2face” training hence alternative 
training solutions are also being developed by NRT. 
The  major  NR-routes  (sub-organisations  of  NR)  are  going  to  be  the  customer  for  NR 
Training.  The  routes  will  have  the  funding  and  NR  Training  needs  to  sell  itself  to  the 
routes. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The technology change is one of the drivers to start 
redeveloping the training needs at NR. As far as the methodology is applied to more jobs, 
NR will have a strong methodology to better attune competences and skills to the new 
technological requirements. 
Source: Interview Network Rail. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

9   ADDIE is an instructional systems design (ISD) framework that many instructional designers and training 
developers  use  to  develop  courses.  The  name  is  an  acronym  for  the  five  phases  it  defines  for  building 

training and performance support tools: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation. 

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Measure: TechniekFabriek at Nedtrain 
›  Organisation: NedTrain (now: NS Operation, a subsidiary of NS). 
›  Goal: The TechniekFabriek (TechnologyFactory) consists of a partnership between 4 Re-
gional Education Centres (ROCs (VET); secondary schools) spread across the country, 
focusing on seven training directions (mbo levels 2-3-4; secondary professional level de-
grees)  and  linked  to  nine  NS  learning  locations.  In  2017,  some  500  participants  were 
involved in the learning activities. First action to develop the TechniekFabriek started in 
2011. The reasons for setting up TechniekFabriek 2011 were a large outflow non-aca-
demic professional (mbo) staff in a tight labour market, the economic situation at that time 
and the fact that students from the ROCs did not meet requirements. In previous years 
there was little attention to basic knowledge and skills, which led to delays in getting new 
personnel to work. An employee engagement study in 2010 showed that employee sat-
isfaction with respect to training was low. Other factors were also driving the development 
of a new training approach: the intake of new material (train) types (Flirt, SNG, ICNG) 
required broader and different (basic) knowledge and skills from employees; changes in 
legal requirements requested at least mbo-2 diploma required on the labour market; the 
outflow of personnel at NS was greater than the inflow, which meant that shortages were 
expected. More importantly, pupils who came in from the ROCs as (apprentice) mechanic 
at NedTrain were not directly employable, they did not meet the requirements. There was 
a need for quality improvement and central control. 
In the period 2012-2015, in addition to TechniekFabriek for inflow of non-academic tech-
nically  trained  students,  three  other  training  programs  were  also  set  up: Web  on  Rail, 
Starway, Qualified Working R & D for current employees. The mbo-programs were con-
ceived as a broad  programme, consisting of train technology and other technology re-
quirements. The tasks conducted by professionals in the train environment are the build-
ing blocks and formed the common thread in the training: 
• 

Trainings are focused on technical content (Mechatronics), business context and on 
attitude & behaviour. Each learning trajectory in a ROC provided job guarantee for 
each student as a junior mechanic; 

•  Web on the Track (WOS): another Mechatronics training; 
•  Qualified working R & O: aimed at mechanics, electro-technicians, painters and ma-

chining experts; 
Starway for service technician electrical engineering and fitters; 
Learning trajectories are only mbo training, without NS courses. 

• 
• 
In all models the step to Next Gen Learning was taken, making sure that professional 
practice  should  be  the  start  of  learning  according  to  the  70-20-10  format.  All  training 
should be done in a hybrid learning environment: "Learning to work, working to learn", 
you learn mainly by doing. A hybrid learning environment is a training in which a school 
is connected to the professional practice, with the real job of a mechanic as the starting 
point for learning. The approach is seen as an integral, collective approach to learning: 
learning = working = learning, and this is the basis for a (workplace) learning organization. 
Next Gen is not the standard yet: the courses for mechanics such as 'Web on the Track' 
and 'Qualified working R & D current employees' follow an education method that is still 
mainly  focused  on  the  class  room.  In  projects,  there  is  increasing  attention  for  adjust-
ments towards the hybrid learning environment. 
The advantages of this new approach are: 
• 

Practice and theory are brought together as close as possible; learning trajectories 
are carried out in the context of Operation; 
The TechniekFabriek manages the ROCs partnership, the Learning Center, Opera-
tion, QHSE. The intention is to unburden the NS Operations by reducing roles for 

• 

› 

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operation and reducing costs through structural programs with ROCs. The following 
figure shows the vision of the NS; 

Figure A1.1  NS-Next Generation Learning philosophy: basic principles 

• 

• 

The  whole  approach  also  leads  to  a  different  professionalisation  of  teachers  and 
practice.  It  is  necessary  to  continue  this  mind  shift  in  training.  Teachers,  learning 
guides, practical training, the TechniekFabriek, and practical  instructors  in Opera-
tion, each have their own expertise, and together they form a logical whole for stu-
dents. The coaching takes place from a coaching role, conveying company perspec-
tive and expectations. The practical didactics provide other competences and skills 
than just instruction. 
Inflow,  throughflow  and  tailor-made  secondary  education  is  created  by  putting  to-
gether arrangements based on professional tasks. 

Target  jobs:  Mechanic  jobs,  maintenance,  electrotechnicians,  painters,  but  mainly  for 
youth at a distance of the labour market. 
Timing: 2011 and on-going. 
Impact: In the past years, some 1,000 employees qualified following this new approach. 
Success  and  promotion  rates  are  very  large.  There  are  now  35  trainers  and  about  35 
employees from the operation involved in the training. The whole is supported by a sub-
sidy from the government (+600,000 Euros in 2016). With this flexibility, the withdrawal 
of personnel to the operation, and thus the costs, is minimized. 
Lessons for technological  skills gap: The approach has helped  Nedtrain to improve  its 
schooling system for specialists to deal  with  the  new  materials and ICT-revolution it  is 
confronted with. 
Source: NS-interview; internal documents. 

› 

› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Next Gen Learning (NGL): the degree of individualization of training and the 
skills fitness-test 
›  Organisation: DB. 
›  Goal: In NGL, DB Training has concentrated on better understanding how learning in the 
work situation takes place, how digital tooling needs to be connected to other approaches. 

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KnowledgetransferMaking knowledgefrompracticeexplicitAssignments andsimulationsLearningduring workSchool perspectivePerspective from practiceConstructedRealisticParticipationAcquired 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Training contents have been modularized to fit this understanding. This has led to some 
innovative strategies. The training situation at DB is that DB is a huge company with many 
divisions and occupations. At the same time, in the German rail world, one must be aware 
that a lot of people do not have access to email, tablets, etc. These people will not be 
ready for totally digital content. This context is important to understand the specific ap-
proach of NGL at DB Training. DB Training has refocused its training services drastically 
over the past years towards more individualized trainings, using the combination of dif-
ferent kinds of digital and non-digital methods. The approach to NGL at DB Training con-
sists of several parts: 
•  Designing to needs: the development of new trainings always starts with identifying 
the  characteristics  of  a  target  group  for  which  a  training  is  needed.  What  is  their 
access to education, how can they learn, how does the hardware look alike? The 
second  important thing  is that  in  training DB Training tries to avoid to have users 
learn the things they do not need. Learning not necessary things is a show-stopper: 
users are easily irritated by over-supply of content. NGL needs to be real learning, 
and needs to be applied.  This means that the training needs to touch the 80%  of 
daily business: the training content needs to improve the daily performance, the rest 
is of the training content needs to come in on the job work. For this, the starting point 
is identifying small tasks that are trained, and these are put in the flow of the training. 
For example: yearly re-certification for Train Drivers (Rangiere) is a requirement and 
this needs to be done with a training. This new training solely focuses on new content 
since the last training the drivers have had. Then they follow electronic testing (easy 
process). The rest of the (required) knowledge about safety, etc. is assumed to be 
there. This allows a limited time of 3-4 hours training package for train drivers. If you 
pass the training, the certificate (yearly license) is added to your personnel file; 
•  Demand-driven training: DB Training offers a catalogue of possible trainings. People 
interested  can  choose.  Such  trainings  are  always  max.  50  min,  and  offered  on  a 
learning  platform.  Within  Central  DB  (excluding  DB  Schenker),  there  are  some 
220,000 employees. Some 120,000 of them have an account on this catalogue. The 
plan is that the whole of DB will have access to the catalogue in 2019. The trainings 
in the catalogue are planned and modularized. Everyone can apply for any training, 
as long as their manager agrees with the costs. 

To find the right training, DB Training has invented a specific ‘fitness test’ that helps iden-
tify skill gaps. The procedures is that an employee can conduct the test and receive a 
personal feedback, with no other feedback to anyone (also not to the manager). An em-
ployee needs to complete 40-50 questions (randomized). The test indicates which gap 
exists and indicates which courses help to close the gap. The training can be long, short, 
connected  to  certification,  etc.  In  80%  of  the  training,  a  blended  training  (face-to-face, 
digital) approach  is used.  This whole  approach allows that the training selection is not 
affected by topics that are not needed. 
Target jobs: All jobs within DB. 
Timing: Current approach. 
Impact: DB Training focuses on having the trainings as much aligned with the required 
competences. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The skills fitness test allows persons to better identify 
which training they need. The fitness test has made that training content is broken up into 
different content parts. In the past, bigger content parts were offered: but this is an ex-
pensive approach. Now, knowledge parts are broken up to a modular level. To under-
stand what the need is of an employee, he or she needs to complete all relevant ques-
tions. The newness of this approach is that skills are connected to training content.  

› 
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› 

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The training methodology is currently applied to 3 domains: digitalization, operational ex-
cellence, and enabling people. These domains cover 150 different contents. Behind the 
content, there is an extensive skills matrix. Employees can complete three fitness checks 
with each 50 questions. The novelty of the DB Training approach is to identify the skill 
matrix  and  to  put  it  into  the  system,  connected  to  training  contents.  This  connection 
changes every second. 
The challenge in NGL is not so much the content, but the set-up between the skill, the 
training content, and the training method. The method depends on the learning target, 
you need to use the best approach. DB Training wants to grow this system in the next 
years. 
The importance of this system is that it allows to be connected to the major changes in 
jobs, connected to technological change. Employees, for example train drivers, are cur-
rently recruited, knowing that these jobs will disappear in the future. These employees 
can be made aware of these changes and helped to prepare for the transition in the future. 
Source: Interview at DB Training. 

› 

2. 

Next Generation Learning: Learning from other sectors 

Measure: NGL in the process industries: operator training simulators 
›  Organisation: Honeywell Process Solutions, ON, Canada. 
›  Goal: the goal of the methodology is to use operator training simulation to develop oper-
ator competency. For the process industries, the main goal is to have people trained fast 
and right. This has become difficult because of faster technology changes (new control 
rooms look different with those of ten years ago), but also by changes in personnel com-
position and with changing expectations of younger worker. An extra complication for the 
process industries is the fact that many unsafe situations cannot be replicated in a training 
situation. For the process industries, simulation is an important methodology to use. The 
maturing of technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality and photographic tech-
niques provide new opportunities to replicate real life situation. The main issue with op-
erator training simulator systems is that of the 3 functional components in such a system 
(the process simulation, the operator’s control environment, the tools and content used 
by instructors to deliver training), the training model is in need of improvement. Honeywell 
has developed a new technology to better describe the pre-training needs for basic pro-
cess and control knowledge. 
Through a combination of new technologies (virtual, augmented, distance) and a compe-
tency management approach, organizations can enhance students' learning experience 
in the contexts of new recruiting and of continuous professional development. The use of 
KPI-based feedback is essential to help identify performance gaps and provide opportu-
nities for active interventions. Gamification techniques and traditional challenge and re-
sponse scenarios provide a richer experience for teacher and student alike. 
Target jobs: Process operators. 
Timing: Current. 
Impact: The operator training simulator allow to train dangerous situations without have 
to  be  in  the  situation.  The  technology  has  been  fitted  to  the  new  learning  and  training 
methodologies. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The new required skills can be broken down in the 
right  components  and  can  be  trained  in  shorter  time  and  in  a  more  adequate  training 
approach. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

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› 

Source: Roffel et al. 2016, 2017; Honeywell Process Solutions website10. 

3. 

Virtual Learning: Examples from practice 

Measure: Moodle e-learning system at Network Rail 
›  Organisation: Network Rail. 
›  Goal: Network Rail had replaced its Oracle based Virtual learning system by a Moodle 
eLearning Platform. Non-NR users still have access to the Oracle based elearning system 
to complete NR eLearning and online assessments. Next to these virtual environments, 
most of the training of NR remains class room based or on ‘made-up systems’ (mock-
ups). 
The Virtual learning system11 collects a series of personal data to evaluate the progress 
of  training:  eLearning  training  courses  (including  enrolment,  completion  status,  test 
scores); User activity (details of first access and most recent access); Role in Training 
Centre (e.g., trainee or Training Manager); Training events and types of events which the 
user has permission to access. 
Individual users have the ability to update the personal data in their own profile. Personal 
data can also be updated by the individual organisations which manage their employee’s 
details. Network Rail ensures that Personal data will not be transferred outside the Euro-
pean Economic Area and will not be shared with any third parties except Atlassian. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Available on the internet. 
Impact: There are some 55+ courses available on the system. This is only a small part of 
the total amount of trainings available at NR (>800). 
Lessons for technological skills gap: From the Network Rail Training catalogue, it seems 
that no courses are available to support technological competences. These competences 
are mainly trained in the classical class room setting. 
Source: Interview Network Rail. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Digital tools - SNCF 
›  Organisation: SNCF. 
›  Goal:  Employees  are  supported  by  several  digital  tools.  Operators  can  use  their 
smartphone  to  diagnose  operational  situation.  The  smartphones  help  employees  with 
right course of action since 2014. SNCF is insistent on its suppliers to deliver all products 
and services  with  digital  tooling.  Interesting sources  can  be  found  at:  https://www.digi-
tal.sncf.com/ressources. 
SNCF has been using digital tools over a long period of time to train employees. One of 
the first examples are the ‘train driving simulators’. SNCF continues developing other dig-
ital tools to support training. 
The company uses 3D- and augmented reality to help personnel to appropriate the envi-
ronment, the gestures and actions. In maintenance and traffic management jobs, for ex-
ample, such training modules are readily available. Such tools are aimed to reconstruct 
real-life working situations and help operators acquire the right skills and behaviours. Op-
erators not only learn the content of the task, but also to understand impact of actions. 
Another example is that employees are supported by several digital tools. Operators can 
use their smartphone to diagnose operational situations, have access to the documenta-
tion and safe the result of their action. 

10  https://www.honeywellprocess.com/en-US/Pages/search-results.aspx?k=roffel&start1=1. 
11  https://elearning.networkrail.co.uk/login/index.php. 

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SNCF is currently experimenting with digital matching tools to evaluate the competences 
of its employees. Employees are motivated to use these matching tools. They need to 
report their motivations for tasks, benefit from personality tests, etc., all information re-
quired  to  build  a  personal  profile.  This  profile  is  used  to  help  compare  the  abilities  of 
employees with their current job requirements, but also with other job profiles. The profiles 
help the employee to start thinking about their career path and the development of their 
competences . The matching tool uses algorithms developed by suppliers. Trade unions 
have been engaged in the development of these tools. The whole tooling is supportive of 
the employability of SNCF’s workers. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current. 
Impact: Not available, but the digital-website acknowledge an enormous user base of the 
digital tools (SharePoint, social media, Yammer). 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The tooling has however not yet been used to pre-
pare employees for future technological changes. Prospective tools are difficult to build. 
Source: interview SNCF. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: App Mijn Vakmanschap 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: An App available to all technical personnel of NS. The App ‘My profession’ offers 
all the information needed for each operator, extracting relevant information from the rel-
evant technical area. The App is installed on all mobile phones delivered to NS-personnel. 
It offers news messages, the possibility to check major manuals, offers videos to describe 
materials used. The app allows for push-messages to employees to help them keep their 
knowledge up-to-date. 
Target jobs: Train drivers and main train attendant. 
Timing: Current. 
Impact: All (relevant) personnel uses the app. The app is now available to 4,000 employ-
ees. Evaluations are only available in a couple of months. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: App allows to collect manuals, guides, regulations. 
Supportive information is readily accessible for any operator. 
Source: NS interview. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: eLearning, MyLearningPortal and simulation at NS 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: The use of eLearning as an instrument to support training needs within the organi-
sation. The tool is used for a great number of jobs, so just only the major principles of the 
current approach are described. NS uses a Learning Portal (MyLearningPortal) to offer 
e-learning modules. Examples are management training, other professions. Candidates 
need  to  register  through  the  MyLearningPortal  to  follow  an  e-learning  training.  On  the 
basis  of  various  pillars  offered  in  the  learning  portal,  a  learning  process  is  developed. 
Training courses are structured in such a way that they allow to achieve different levels 
of the intended learning outcome. Within each module, tasks are then developed that are 
important in the development. In practice, the following steps can be taken: 
The participant registers for an intake, after approval by the manager; 
• 
The participant is linked to his/her learning path in 'My Learning Portal' (including the 
• 
specific parts of his/her work area); 

•  During the intake, agreements are made about which modules of the learning trajec-

tory are being followed and at what time. On the basis of: 
-  Existing experience and expertise; 
-  Priorities in the work; 

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• 
• 

-  Compulsory parts (for example in the context of License to Operate/competent); 
Each module starts with a digital self-scan; 
Each module contains a range of learning interventions with the emphasis on 'learn-
ing in the workplace'; 
Supporting information is offered on local webpages. 

• 
This means that learning trajectories consist of a combination of (1) business-guided as-
signments,  (2)  learning  centre/business-supervised  trajectories  and  (3)  self-study.  The 
first component consists of practical situations, workplace assignments, practical days, 
discussions; the second consists of training/teaching days and simulation days; and the 
third consists of e-learning. E-learning consists of following all offered modules and video 
instructions.  Such  modules  for  self-learning  consist  of  ‘learningsnacks’  (short  videos), 
manuals, assignments, PowerPoints and self-tests. Self-tests help to monitor progress. 
Depending on the qualification trained, students can apply for Acquired Learning Qualifi-
cation (Dutch: EVC) or certification by external certification centres.  
Depending on the needs of the organization, a strict procedure is used to develop new 
modules and training courses. 
The simulation-part in some trainings, is inserted depending on the topic that needs to be 
trained. For example, for the ERTMS-qualifications, train drivers are trained on simulators 
at the training centre in Amersfoort. 
E-learning is also used in blended courses. For example, using TrainTool to develop spe-
cific safety communication skills and to secure sufficient retraining. Certification and test-
ing is part of such blended learning. 
Target jobs: Any job. 
Timing: Current practice. 
Impact: The procedure to develop such trainings and tools is strictly monitored. The pay-
back time is clear, so no over-supply exists. The impact of each learning intervention is 
measured with the Phillips Evaluation Model (5 levels) and NPS (Net Promotor Score). 
Scores are confidential. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Depending on the issue, new modules can be of-
fered. 
Source: NS interview. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

4. 

Virtual education in other sectors 

Measure: Simulation of Sea Traffic Management 
›  Organisation: STM. 
›  Goal: Sea Traffic Management connects and updates the maritime world in real time, with 
efficient information exchange. Through data exchange among selected parties such as 
ships, service providers and shipping companies, STM is creating a  new paradigm for 
maritime information sharing offering tomorrow´s digital infrastructure for shipping. STM-
services allow personnel on-board and on shore to make decisions based on real-time 
information.  These  services  enable  more  just-in-time  arrivals,  right  steaming,  reduced 
administrative burden and decreased risk related to human factors. Example of services 
are: Route optimisation services; Ship to ship route exchange; Enhanced Monitoring; Port 
Call Synchronisation; Winter Navigation. STM´s aim is to create a safer, more efficient 
and  environmentally  friendly  maritime  sector.  Sea  Traffic  Management  will  overcome 
many of the challenges of communication and information sharing between stakeholders 
in the maritime transport industry. It will create significant added value for  the maritime 
transport chain, in particular for ship owners and cargo owners. 
The project also has a collaboration between 11 schools and 30 ship bridges, to make 

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the  simulation  a  multi-person  event.  The  simulated  environment  allows  for  shipping 
‘against’ a multitude of partners with data-exchange between shores and ships. The train-
ing situation allows for comparison between real-life practice with the simulations. Train-
ees get to have better training on the simulators. 
Target jobs: Sea farers, port management. 
Timing: Project runs up to 2030. 
Impact: The three-week training within the STCW-rules allows to reduce parts of the 365 
required training, from 60 days to 3 weeks. The training also allow to compensate for the 
shortage in apprenticeships that the educational system requires. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The project learnt from the Air Traffic Management 
System-project.  The  project  is  mainly  about  the  changes  in  operational  performance 
within the ports and shipping lanes, based on better communication technologies. The 
project has calculated the benefits for the network, the practice will only be visible in 2030. 
For the operators, the change will mainly be from reporting jobs to actually dealing with 
information and enlarged decision making. Situational awareness is crucial. 
Source: Website http://stmvalidation.eu/about-stm/. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Virtual tools in Maritime Education Training 
›  Organisation: Several. 
›  Goal: Virtual tools in Maritime Education Training have been evaluated in a great number 

of articles. The main results of these studies are: 
• 

• 

The maritime  sector  has  a  strong  tradition  in  developing  virtual  tools  for  learning. 
Given the fact that seafarers need to update their knowledge in at-distance-settings, 
a lot of experience has been accumulated over time of learning experiences; 
The set-up of trainings and simulations need careful attention. Not only pedagogical 
principles  are  important  (source),  also  the  instructions  and  debriefing  need  to  be 
well-developed to enhance students’ professional competences. Technical and non-
technical skills can and need to be evaluated at the same time (Sellberg et al., 2017); 
•  With the maritime industry's mindset focused on competency development of ship-
board personnel through practical training, the value of virtual systems may not be 
fully  realized.  VLEs  and CCS  brings the advantage  of exposing the students to  a 
higher level of computing skills that can be transferred relatively directly to new tech-
nologies used in the maritime and shipping industry plus having the benefit of provid-
ing instruction in a flexible manner with varying time and location autonomies (Mu-
hammed & Yutuc, 2014). 

The maritime industry tends to underinvest in the new learning tools, relying on improving 
performance of the sector in the current period, that may be temporary effect, and possi-
ble short-term negative effect of investment costs for instruments such as MOOCs. The 
advice is to count of the probable future benefits of such tools (Muhammed & Yutuc, 2016; 
Beckett et al., 2014). 
Target jobs: Sea farers, port management. 
Timing: Current research. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Tools are usable for technical skills. 
Source: See authors. 

› 
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5. 

Access to education: Examples from practices 

Measure: Newcastle College Rail Academy 
›  Organisation: University of Newcastle. 
›  Goal: The Newcastle College Rail Academy offers a unique training environment to help 
the rail sector meet its skill shortages by providing a range of specialist training dedicated 
to rail infrastructure. The purpose-built facility contains a number of real working environ-
ments with industry standard equipment and resources to train technicians and engineers 
for signalling, telecommunications, electrification and plant, P-way and safety critical op-
erations all under one roof. The courses are specifically focused on employers to deal 
with skill shortages and specific training needs. 
Target jobs: Technicians and engineers for signalling, telecommunications, electrification 
and plant, P-way and safety critical operations, at professional and academic levels. 
Timing: 2018. 
Impact: The courses are focused on new and current personnel of rail companies. It al-
lows companies to get access to new talent. 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  Specialist  knowledge  supplied  to  counter  major 
changes. 
Source: Website. 

› 
› 

› 

› 

› 

Measure: University of Birmingham Rail Academy 
›  Organisation: Birmingham University. 
›  Goal: At the University level education, Birmingham University offers the following under-
graduate degree courses (Civil and Railway Engineering BEng; Civil and Railway Engi-
neering  Meng;  Electrical  and  Railway  Engineering  BEng;  Electrical  and  Railway  Engi-
neering Meng) and Postgraduate degree courses (Railway Systems Engineering and In-
tegration  Masters/MSc/Diploma/Certificate;  Railway  Safety  and  Control  Systems  Mas-
ters/MSc/Diploma/Certificate; Railway Systems Integration MRes; Scholarships in Master 
of Research in Railway Systems Integration; PhD opportunities in the department of Civil 
Engineering; PhD opportunities in the department of Electronic, Electrical and Systems 
Engineering).  The  university  offers  continuous  professional  development,  for  example 
new  in  2018:  a  course  on  principles  of  railway  control  systems  (basis  for  professional 
signalling engineer status). 
Target jobs: Broad range of engineering jobs. 
Timing: Continuous programme. 
Impact: Courses are adapted to needs. New course is focused on EU-developments, but 
also ATO-operations, etc. Unclear how many students are following courses. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Programmes are adapted to needs of industry. ATO 
is in focus. 
Source: Website. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Graduate studies at Network Rail 
›  Organisation: Network Rail. 
›  Goal: As part of the Apprentice levy more training will be undertaken at UK Government 
Levels 4,5,6 and 7 in Network Rail. Network Rail operates a number of Graduate Training 
Schemes, recruiting graduates from university post award. Network Rail offers a range of 
programmes that meet national standards and are accredited by a university, college or 
professional body. Network Rail provide job-related training at all levels, including: Mas-
ters  degrees;  Bachelor  degrees;  Professional  Diplomas;  Higher  National  Diplomas 
(HND);  Higher  National  Certificates  (HNC);  National  Vocational  Qualifications  (NVQ). 

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Network Rail (NR) offers two overarching routes for graduates and, after joining, gradu-
ates are able to follow any number of different career paths. The first is an engineering 
study  at  Network  Rail. Within  engineering,  NR  has  three  specific  schemes:  Civil  Engi-
neering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. The empha-
sis  on  the  Engineering  graduate  training  scheme  is  to  support  graduates  professional 
development to work towards achieving Eur Eng., I.Eng or C.Eng with their PEI as soon 
as possible. The second is Business management at Network Rail. In business manage-
ment, NR has a number of different schemes available: Finance, General Management, 
Health, Safety and Environment, Human Resources, IT and Business Services, Project 
Management, Property and Supply Chain management. The Engineering graduate train-
ing scheme has prerequisite requirements of a graduate obtaining a Professional Engi-
neering  Institution  (PEI)  accredited  Engineering  degree  at  2:2  or  above.  Network  Rail 
manages more engineering projects and employs more specialists than any other British 
organisation. NR do not necessarily fund these graduates during their Degree education 
but  the  Engineering  graduate  training  scheme  (2  years)  follows  a  program  that  allows 
graduates  to  obtain  relevant  experience  from  around  the  business  with  supporting 
courses  &  training.  Interestingly,  the  graduate  programmes  also  include  welcome  bo-
nuses to new candidates. 
Target jobs: All jobs in the network technology, channelled through 11 graduate schemes. 
Timing: Continuous programme. 
Impact: The programme is an in-house programme and tries to attract new talent. The 
number of graduates has risen over time from 89 in 2014/15 to 160 in 2017/18 and to 153 
to 2018/19. Aligned to this programme is the action to develop a skills agenda and to plan 
the workforce in a strategic way. NR is engaging the technical universities and is working 
with the Government’ actions for technical education. Effort has been made by NR to offer 
training material (specialist campaigns for Level crossings for example) but not to under-
take formal training in schools. NR are influential in curriculum development for University 
Technical Colleges that they engage with, including the setting and assessing of projects, 
as well as leading on a number of apprenticeship standards in terms of content and de-
livery. NR is the Panel Chair for the Institute of Apprenticeships (part of the Department 
for Education), leading across the Transport & Logistics sector involved with the future 
technical-levels for colleges as well as apprenticeship standards to give them parity of 
esteem. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The graduate programmes are aligned with the tech-
nical needs of NR. Employers influence the content of the programmes. 
Source: Website, yearly reports. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Collaboration agreements with Secondary (VET) Schools in the Netherlands 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: NS develops agreements with secondary education facilities to attract new students 
and perform specific trainings. In such an agreement, NS tries to align the interest of the 
educational facility with their own interests and to shift trainings to the vocational educa-
tional institutions. This is not always easy to accomplish. Achieving such an alignment 
brings substantial savings for NS. The educational institutions do however have its own 
policies. This may affect the outcome of the education. Students may finish their educa-
tion  without  sufficient  qualifications.  Important  in  this  respect  that  these  collaborations 
arise in the context of new Dutch legislation that obliges VET-institutions to ensure stu-
dents finish with a diploma. For companies such as NS, it is important that the quality of 
the training given by these institutions responds to the needs of NS. 
Target jobs: E.g., train drivers, service machinist. 
Timing: 2017-18. 

› 
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› 

› 

› 

Impact: Costs for training a student is very high for NS. Having the schools take care of 
the training is a great benefit for NS. NS sees the collaboration as quite effective. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Trainings are directed at specific occupations. Qual-
ity of the training is important to achieve the skills needed. 
Source: NS interview. 

Measure: Collaboration in Dutch rail sector for secondary education 
›  Organisation: Railcenter and VET-schools. 
›  Goal:  In  regular  education,  rail-related  training  is  very  weakly  represented.  Due  to  the 
relatively small size of the need for personnel, it is not worthwhile for a VET-school (ROC) 
to set up a track-oriented vocational training. The volume of students is just too low. The 
only exceptions are the secondary school training (mbo) for train drivers that now runs at 
three VET-schools and the TechniekFabriek. The visibility of the rail sector in mainstream 
education and therefore as a potential employer is low. The objective is to create a better 
cooperation between educational institutions (VET) and rail companies for schooling that 
is  more  aligned  with  the  interests  of  the  companies.  Different  secondary  professional 
schools provide training for a set of railway related jobs. The most important training is 
that for train drivers. Other actions are: 
•  Minor Introduction Rail Technology: ROC Midden Nederland and Railcenter; 

TechniekFabriek: NS and the ROCs of Twente and Amsterdam work together to train 
students to be mechanics (mbo level 2). The students follow a total of 2 years in-
house training at NS, during which they engage in practical learning. They receive 
professional training, a bursary in the first year, a salary in the second year and a 
100% employment guarantee upon receiving their diploma; 

•  Choice  for  Rail  Technology  part:  Collaboration  between  different  companies  and 

• 

several schools; 
Experience days: An important action is to provide sufficient contact between com-
panies with possible interested youth. These actions are also oriented at non-tech-
nical higher secondary schools (Artcadia, Imagine your future: 135 schools). 

Target jobs: Professional technology jobs and train driving. 
Timing: Continuous action. 
Impact: The  initiatives have been quite successful  in attracting sufficient  new students 
and reaching a great number of students with the campaigns. The trainings are different 
from the past, ensuring more in-company experience for students. A discussion point is 
the  alignment  of  the  trainings  with  the  requirements  from  the  educational  system 
(CREBO; SBB-certification). In October 2018, the Introduction Rail Technology optional 
part starts at ROC Midden Nederland. This optional component (counterpart of the minor 
but at secondary vocational level) was set up by Railcenter together with the contractors. 
There are 25 places offered and 30 young people have applied. The training takes place 
at Railcenter and at the companies. The pupils even go on a night shift with a mechanic. 
This allows a good picture of the work and hopefully leads in the future to an application 
at one of the companies in the railway sector. Sector-specific training would obviously be 
great, but there is insufficient volume for specific technical training. Only for train drivers, 
given the size of the target group, is it worthwhile to set up a regular vocational training 
program. In addition to this vocational training, NS also trains drivers themselves. 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  Mainly  focused  on  enlarging  the  supply  of  newly 
trained  students.  The  better  connection  with  companies  during  the  schooling  helps  to 
make the students more aware of the technological challenges ahead, as an incentive 
and as a benchmark to test their knowledge. The trainings provide new technical talent 
to the sector. 
Source: Interview Railcenter; https://www.s-bb.nl/node/61404/spoorbouw. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

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Measure: Minor Rail technology at UAS Utrecht 
›  Organisation: University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (HU Utrecht). 
›  Goal: In regular education, rail-related training is very weakly represented. As with VET-
schools,  it  is  not  worthwhile  for  a  Bachelor-education  (Hogeschool)  to  set  up  a  track-
oriented vocational training. The volume of students is just too low. The visibility of the 
rail sector in mainstream education and therefore as a potential employer is low. In order 
to increase visibility, a Rail minor track technology has been set up together with Utrecht 
University of Applied Sciences. The minor now runs for the sixth year, in which teaching 
is  mainly  done  by  specialists  from  the  sector.  The  companies  supporting  the  training, 
sponsor a visit of students to major international train fairs such as Innotrans. Companies 
such as Strukton provide students with a clothing package (helmet, safety shoes, jacket, 
etc.). 
Target jobs: All jobs, at least bachelor-level. 
Timing: Start September 2018. 
Impact: This year, more than 20 pupils will follow the minor. The success of the minor for 
the railway sector is demonstrated by the fact that over 60% of the previous participants 
work in the railway sector. 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  The  trainings  provide  new  technical  talent  to  the 
sector. 
Source: “ProRail (2018). ProRail aangesloten bij Trainbow.  
(www.prorail.nl/inhoud/prorail-aangesloten-bij-trainbow).” 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

› 

Measure: Apprenticeship and training schemes at Network Rail 
›  Organisation: Network Rail. 
›  Goal: Include on-the-job training in companies and apprenticeship programme. Network 
Rail’s (UK)12 operates 26 modern training centres across the UK. Network Rail strongly 
believe that it’s vital to get each individual’s training programme just right. That’s why they 
have set up own state-of-the art training and development centres, with almost all training 
and developments delivered by own people (i.e. in-house). 
Target jobs: 
Example - Railway maintenance training 
Network Rail maintenance workers inspect the condition of track, fences, structures, elec-
trification plant and signal equipment on the railway, then make any necessary repairs. 
Network  Rail  runs  11  maintenance  training  centres  across  the  UK,  with  currently  110 
trainers who are all former maintenance workers themselves. All of those attending train-
ing learn how to work safely, and then take specialist courses for their specific roles. 
Example - Training of signallers 
Before  starting  work,  each  of  the  signallers  completes  a  12  week  training  course.  It’s 
mostly classroom-based training and education but with some real signal box experience. 
For this, Network Rail have two training centres in Watford and Leeds, where signallers 
get  the  most  up-to-date  training,  including  computer-based  materials  and  signal  panel 
simulators. 
Timing: 2018. 
Impact: The number of trainees is now at 814 apprentices in 2018/19, including 145 fe-
male  apprentice  starts.  Since  2005,  there  have  been  more  than  3,000  apprentices  of 
which 75% haver remained at NR. The idea is expand the range of trainings to higher 
degree level programmes. 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  Growing  supply  of  technically  schooled  students, 
aligned with company interests. 

› 
› 

› 

12  https://www.networkrail.co.uk/careers/training-and-development/. 

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› 

Source: Interview Network Rail, yearly reports. 

Measure: Apprenticeship at Arriva13 
›  Organisation: Arriva. 
›  Goal: At Arriva over 60,000 colleagues working in many cities, towns and regions. They 
do all kinds of jobs, in a variety of settings. Every Arriva employee is part of a global team 
of people. Together, they provide a range of high quality, good value transport solutions 
based on finding new ways to improve our customers’ journeys, while reducing the impact 
of transport on the environment. Arriva has roles for drivers, engineers and conductors 
as  well  as  finance,  commercial  and  human  resources  positions  within  our  local  busi-
nesses or at our headquarters. Arriva offers development programmes from the very start 
of the employees’ career. The Arriva apprentices work across its business while receiving 
specialised training. The apprentices are guided and mentored by senior specialists (i.e. 
in-house training) and get to know the company from the ground up. At the end of the 
apprenticeship, they will gain a recognised qualification and have the opportunity to con-
tinue your career at Arriva. Typically, apprenticeships at Arriva last between 1 and 4 years 
and focus on technical and operational areas such as: Stations, Fleet, Engineering, Plan-
ning,  Finance,  Ticketing,  Office  administration,  Bus  driving.  The  Arriva  Graduate  Pro-
gramme is a 18 month scheme developed to attract and develop future leaders. 
During  the  Programme,  Arriva’s  graduates  will  have  to  attend  international  graduate 
events and training modules, work on assignments with fellow graduates, and have the 
opportunity to meet Arriva’s senior managers. They will receive coaching, career support 
and have a personal mentor who will track their development. They will also become part 
of the Graduate Club, which is an international network of Arriva Graduates. 
Target jobs: All jobs within Arriva. 
Timing: 2018. 
Impact: Arriva claims that if someone is an ambitious and a good performer, the graduate 
growth  opportunities  are  limitless  at  Arriva.  Arriva  is  as  good  as  the  people  who  work 
here. Arriva is proud of having committed team and believe that together they are always 
focused on the future. Numbers are unclear. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: In line with new apprenticeship in development in 
UK. 
Source: Website Arriva. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: General policy at SNCF 
›  Organisation: SNCF. 
›  Goal: For SNCF, there is not really a great attention to this kind of measure in this sense 
that SNCF already possesses a broad scale of trainings and educations, fully operated 
from SNCF side. Any student can find SNCF-backed training needed to work at the or-
ganisation. Further, SNCF follows the French legislation for certification and job profiles. 
The company foresees that certification of acquired skills may become an important in-
strument in the future. Employees are offered new approaches to get their skills and com-
petences valued and recognized. This procedure has been developed and is under im-
plementation. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: Not clear, no figures available. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: No information available. 
Source: Interview. 

› 
› 
› 
› 
› 

13  www.arriva.co.uk. 

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Measure: Apprenticeships and other access to education measures at DB 
›  Organisation: DB. 
›  Goal: On a yearly base, some 3,800 new colleagues start in an apprenticeship. These 
apprenticeships are in all domains: business, sales, in railway related jobs. New candi-
dates, school leavers follow a 2-3 years programme. The programme is different for dif-
ferent jobs: it can be 8 weeks work, then to school for 6 weeks, and at the end tests in 
schools; in other systems there a 3 days’ work and 2 days’ schools. The schooling costs 
in these systems are for DB. An apprentice receives about a monthly income of 1,000 
Euros per month at the age of 16 years. 
DB has links with most universities. In the technical areas, DB has several “Stiftung Pro-
fessors”  to  create  cooperation  with  the  universities.  Such  cooperation  also  exist  with 
schools.  DB  does  not  have  a  corporate  university.  There  is  mainly  cooperation  at  the 
course level. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: Not clear, no figures available. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: No information available. 
Source: Interview. 

› 
› 
› 
› 
› 

6. 

Access to education: Examples from other sectors 

Measure: Access to education in Maritime sector 
›  Organisation: Maritime sector. 
›  Goal:  The  Maritime  sector  is  an  interesting  comparison  sector  for  the  rail  sector.  The 
sector provides the opportunity to become a captain or marine officer in different types of 
situation (freight, passenger). The sector is confronted with many of the same questions 
the rail sector is confronted with. For the seafaring companies, the question is which kind 
of trainings are needed for the future and how to develop new models of cooperation with 
the educational sector to develop more access to education. 
This  sector  is  international  and  uses  international  agreements  (STCW  convention)  to 
align maritime education and training (MET) requirements. The International Convention 
on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW)14, 1978, 
as amended, sets the standards of competence for seafarers internationally. For maritime 
training institutes worldwide, International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has developed a 
series of model courses which provide suggested syllabi, course timetables and learning 
objectives to assist instructors develop training programmes to meet the STCW Conven-
tion standards for seafarers. The STCW Convention requires that training leading to the 
issue  of  a  certificate  is  'approved'.  The  IMO  does  not  approve  any  training  courses  or 
institutes. This is a privilege and responsibility of Member Governments who are Parties 
to  the  STCW  Convention.  These  international  norms are  seen  as  a  way  to  streamline 
educational requirements. However, each country defines their own norms, even if the 
standard is international. MET systems still rely on the minimum standards laid down by 
STCW convention to achieve the required standards for competency and qualification of 
seafarers. Furthermore, the STCW convention does not designate the suitable teaching 
methodology for different subjects to achieve the required competencies and skills. Na-
tional maritime education and training (MET) systems differ in academic level, content, 
duration  of  study  programmes  and  consequence  of  school  and  sea  time  during  these 
programmes. Otherwise, EU countries' national MET systems should be in compliance 

14  http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/HumanElement/TrainingCertification/Pages/Default.aspx. 

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not only with STCW convention requirements, but and with legislation of European edu-
cational area (Senčila, 2015). The evaluation of competencies of seafarers still heavily 
relies on written and oral examinations. New technologies such as simulators, but also 
distant examinations are small part of their assessment systems. Training components in 
the STCW are partly mandatory (part A) and partly recommended (part B).   
Even  with  this  framework,  the  content  of  the  trainings  has  been  adapted  over  time  in 
discussion  between  the  educational  institutions  and  the  companies.  One  option  in  the 
past years has been the integration of the ‘bridge tasks’ and the ‘engineering room tasks’. 
The idea was that the bridge task would be that limited, that it would be better to integrate 
the two above tasks. The major shipping lines have dropped the demand for these inte-
grated training. Rather, the two tasks require further specialization. Next to the deck (nav-
igation) officer and marine engineering officer, the role of marine electro-technical officer 
has been separated in the engineering department. Each of these functions is becoming 
more complex in this sense that past knowledge still remains quite important (for example: 
astro-navigation  for  desk  officers)  and  that  new  knowledge  is  added  to  this  existing 
knowledge. Officers require understanding of data management, but also of human re-
sources  and  social-communicative  skills  to  be  able  to  cope  with  international  crews.

The maritime sector is confronted with a set of new issues. A first issue is who has to pay 
for the trainings (Belev et al., 2018). Shipowners are still required to pay, but they limit 
their effort to the mandatory part. The quality of training is also seen as questionable. The 
local Port State Control and administrations are the main actors to inspect and provide 
assistance  in ensuring that the crew`s qualification complies  with IMO`s requirements. 
The sector is also confronted with technological change and new requirements to seafar-
ing crews. Autonomous Seafaring  is seen as  a future possibility. In the meantime, the 
growing demand for skilled and competent seafarers requires relevant delivery of quali-
tative training  and education. The sector is however experiencing serious recruiting is-
sues and problems with the quality of training of seafarers, sometimes leading to acci-
dents and disasters (Kassar, 2016). Traditional seafarer training has always focused on 
the  acquisition  and  use  of  practical  skills.  The  global  trend  in  maritime  education  and 
training is increasingly to link an essentially vocational education that provides specific 
and restricted competence outcomes with more general or deeper academic components 
leading to an academic qualification (Emad, 2017). Improving the current paradigms un-
der which seafarers are trained will provide a more sustainable career path for seafarers 
as well as compensate for the poorer human resource practices among some shipping 
industry employers, identified as one of the key reasons for the difficulty in retaining ship 
officers onboard ships. 
All  of  these  issues  have  increased  the  necessity  for  shipowners  to  collaborate  more 
closely with the educational system. In the Netherlands for example, this has led to sev-
eral initiatives. A first is that the educational bachelor institutions (four institutions) have 
started collaboration in 2014 with the employers association and trade union on a new 
occupational profile and new educational content for the marine officer. A second initiative 
is the development of the Maritime Academy, a collaborative training initiative between 
major maritime  companies  (mainly  machine  builders),  offering  internal  training  for  em-
ployees. Tailored trainings are offered when the market is not able to supply the required 
training. This academy offers opportunities to employees of companies active within the 
Maritime Academy to follow training in other companies. A third initiative is the co-devel-
opment of the new marine officer training within the Dutch education institutions as de-
scribed above. 
Target jobs: Marine officers, desk officers, engineering officers. 
Timing: Current. 

› 
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› 

› 

› 

Impact: Actions have led to maintenance of labour market position in different countries, 
but around new occupational profiles. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The maritime sector has discussed the integration 
of different tasks within the marine officer job, but has decided to stop the integration. The 
sector  is  investing  in  more  specialization  of  the  separate  tasks  to  deal  with  the  rising 
complexity within the separate tasks. 
Source: See references. SWZ Maritime, Vol 138, May 2017 (special on the future of mar-
itime education). 

Measure  Access  to  education:  Sign-on-bonuses  in  Aviation  Business  &  Piloting  di-
ploma’s 
›  Organisation: European Flight Academy (EFA). 
›  Goal: EFA takes care of the flight training to  become a pilot.  Each major airline in the 
world  has  its  own  training  centre,  EFA  is  the  training  centre  for  Lufthansa  Group.  The 
training  for  a  pilot  is  a  bachelor  level  training  and  consists  of  a  combination  technical, 
economics and management aspects. A large part is practical training. The recruitment 
demands are considerable. The demand for such training is high, but the costs to follow 
the  training  are  also  expensive  (approx..  125,000  Euros  for  a  full  training,  and  other 
costs). The market for air pilots has been fluctuating considerably over the past years.15 
To attract new candidates, Lufthansa uses sign-on-bonuses (in 2018: 20,000 Euros16) to 
attract  new  candidates.  More  and  more,  airlines  are  offering  new  procedures  to  get  a 
diploma. Next to bonuses, other airlines are offering ‘ab initio’ programmes in which they 
pay for the training and offer the pilot a job at the end. Pilots need to repay afterwards in 
lower salaries. The training market for pilots is also privatized: there are a lot of providers, 
but over the past years it has been clear that the market is concentrating, mainly along 
the lines of the great carriers. Smaller providers have difficulty to cope with high costs 
and strong regulations. 
Target jobs: Bachelor of Science in Aviation Business and Piloting. 
Timing: Yearly training. 
Impact: The different measures have different impacts. The market demands for pilots 
seems  to  be  rising  considerably  (for  example  because  of  rise  of  flights  and  impact  of 
China on demand). The measures allow airlines to keep up to 80% of students. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The requirements for pilots have not considerably 
changed over the years, having to already deal with highly automated situations. Still, the 
requirements of flying show that autonomous flying is still far away. 
Source: Website http://www.htwsaar.de/wiwi/studium/studienangebot/ab. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

7. 

Attracting new entrants: Example from practice 

Measure: Labour Market Communication “Touch Campaign” NS 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: A new campaign is conducted to create consideration and interest in people who 
do  not  immediately  think  of  NS  as  an  employer.  The  target  group  is  highly  educated 
(bachelor, academic level), 25-45 years of age. Showing that any younger person may in 
the future work for the NS, having an innovative job with societal relevance. An example 

15  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-singapore-airshow-pilots/airlines-flight-schools-try-to-lure-pilots-with-

cheaper-or-free-training-idUSKBN1FT0JJ. 

16  https://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/nieuws/categorie/2/airlines/lufthansa-aviation-training-bonus-voor-

nederlandse-piloten. 

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of a message is that 100% of trains are working on electricity from wind energy. Trains 
are futuristic objects with more than 20,000 sensors that can be monitored at a distance. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: March-April 2018. 
Impact:  The  market  analysis  shows  that  the  perspective  of  future  employees  has 
changed.  NS  is  now  seen  as  an  employer  for  highly  educated  technical  and  ICT-em-
ployer. Important is that the campaign is repeated in the future to achieve more impact 
on the profile of NS as an employer. More repetition of the campaign is needed, since 
this was a first campaign in ten years. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Not specific for technology jobs. But profiling NS as 
a technological advanced company helps target technicians and ICT-specialist. 
Source: NS-interview. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: attractiveness for new candidates at SNCF 
›  Organisation: SNCF. 
›  Goal: SNCF is very well aware to have a positive image in French society. It is working 
very hard to further develop this image so it can attract new generations of employees. 
SNCF has been using the benefits of digitalization in these actions. Social media and tv-
spots are a main instrument to communicate job offers and vacancies. Everything is done 
to make it easier to find jobs at SNCF. These  instruments are also used for employer 
branding of SNCF as a ‘top employer’. The image of working in the sector has been thor-
oughly modernized. A digital tool is also developed to make applying for a job a positive 
experience  for  the  candidate.  The  website  of  SNCF  even  also  engages  candidates  to 
develop apps for SNCF. See earlier comments. 
Target jobs: All. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: No information available. 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  Modernization  is  needed  to  attract  technology-fo-
cused candidates. 
Source: Interview SNCF; website. 

› 
› 
› 
› 

› 

Measure: Rising demands for recruiting at DB 
›  Organisation: DB. 
›  Goal: DB Recruiting aims at all labour market groups: a core focus is on pupils for new 
talent, but the perspective is broader: 40% of recruits are needed as apprentices, 40% as 
blue collar workers, 10% as new talent, 10% from universities. In all jobs (also dispatching 
and train drivers; all qualification levels; all train technologies), the need is important. The 
need may be different according to regions. For example: the Southern provinces of Ger-
many require a lot of effort in any job, mainly because the competition with the automotive 
sector is important. An important focus is on IT-groups (programming, cyber, etc.).   
The goal of the recruiting is to secure the manning of all posts, with the highest possible 
quality  of  persons,  who  also  adhere  to  the  DB  philosophy.  The  recruiting  process  has 
changed considerably over the past years. The following points characterize the recruiting 
process: 
•  Next to professionalizing the recruiting process at DB, the second action is make the 
sector more attractive for future workers. This is not only an effort by DB, but also a 
railway broad effort. For example, for Women in Rail, DB works with competitors on 
small initiatives such as producing videos, portraying all company in the rail sector; 
A third element of the strategy  is to educate new recruits. Apprenticeships are an 
important channel. In the recruiting, all tools are used. For blue collar workers, even 

• 

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• 

Virtual Reality is used to give pupils a more embedded experience of what jobs may 
be in the company. Pupils only rarely know what jobs are at DB; 
The main aim in recruiting strategy is not so much more technical jobs, because all 
jobs  are  experiencing  shortages.  The  demand  for  IT-personnel  clearly  is  the  top-
demand for the DB Recruitment. DB experiences a lot of competition for such per-
sons; 

•  DB needs to remain very close to the markets for blue collar workers. Academics 
are ready to move for their job, school leavers do not want to move. The recruiting 
effort is clearly different; 

•  DB looks quite a lot abroad for new talent. For example, Romanian train drivers (20) 
were recruited for the Munich area. The main issue with international recruiting is the 
requirement to have at least C1-level command of the German language. The high 
demands and safety requirements of work in  the rail sector require a good under-
standing of the language. All communication in DB is in German. 

In recruiting, DB test new recruits on seven DB-values and skills. Every DB-worker needs 
to have these skills: customer focus, thinking and acting economically; preparedness to 
change;  communication  and  cooperation  ability;  feeling  of  responsibility;  intercultural 
competences; feeling for leadership; strategic sensitivity. Also being open to new tech-
nology is important here. This is a general request from all parts of DB. 
Target jobs: All. 
Timing: current policy. 
Impact: The environment for new employees is positive. Some 7 to 10,000 are recruited 
per year. This means that in the period 2012-2018, a third of the total personnel at DB 
has  been  renewed.  This  makes  the  organisational  environment  very  attractive  to  new 
recruits. Career moves are more readily available. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The recruiting strategy is multi-dimensional and com-
plex to fit the requirements of the labour markets and the needs of DB. 
Source: Interview. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Employer and Sector Branding at DB 
›  Organisation: DB. 
›  Goal: The image of DB on the labour market has changed, intentionally. Since 2012, DB 
has worked on a new employer branding campaign. Everyone in Germany knows DB, 
but not  everyone  has DB  as an  employer  in mind. The campaign (‘Kein Job  wie jeder 
andere’) showed all the possibilities for employment at DB. There are more than 500 job 
types. DB follows the improvement in image in the media rankings (e.g., Universum rank-
ings). In all market segments, DB has improved its profile. The goal is to get just under 
the top-10 of employers. Currently, for pupils, DB is on place 13. In other target groups, 
a same improvement is visible. DB profiles itself also in the IT sector as an alternative for 
other IT-employers. IT experts are for example invited at events in Frankfurt (visit at the 
Silver Tower). The DB-CEO addresses these specialists directly. On a yearly basis, there 
are some 600 DB-events directed at different target groups. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: Visible in the Universum rankings. DB has improved its image over time, also as 
an IT-employer. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Carefully developing the brand helps to get access 
to target groups on the labour market. 
Source: Interview, Universum-website. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

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Measure: Redeployment and intersectoral mobility of personnel at DB 
›  Organisation: DB. 
›  Goal: DB has experience with transfer of personnel when services are won from or are 
lost to competition. DB has a collective agreement that guarantees that nobody of DB will 
lose a job. This employment guarantee in the DB Group, does not guarantee work at the 
same place. The employees are even free to switch to the competitors of DB. This is the 
case DB loses a service contract to competitors. Employees are allowed to switch to the 
competitor (Eisenbahntechnische Rundschau, 2013). However, the company is currently 
more focused on trying to attract more personnel. On a yearly base, more than 22,000 
persons need to be recruited: this is as much as most of the operators in the different EU-
countries. DB even tries to take over personnel from other sectors:  e.g., 2,000  people 
from Deutsche Telekom were planned to be made redundant. DB has  worked hard to 
recruit these persons for their own operations. These specialists are important for in the 
rail market.  
DB also focuses on candidates from other sectors for recruitment “Quereinstieger”. The 
main requirement is that some vocational training has been acquired and that the workers 
are healthy. Such new workers need to follow a 2-3 years path in which a 9 month tech-
nical training on the job. At the end of this period, an exam is required. This channel is 
used for train attendants and drivers. On a yearly base, a couple of hundreds of persons 
are recruited for all fields of DB. This approach gives opportunities to aged workers from 
other sectors, even above 50 years. DB needs train drivers in all age groups. DB plays 
the entire personnel marketing keyboard, addresses the target group individually via re-
gional newspapers and digital media and tries to get in personal contact quickly. For ex-
ample, the ICE is used for job interviews; potential train attendants can thus conduct their 
job interview in the future work environment. This makes the interview an exciting expe-
rience and a spark for the job, and the company can more easily skip during the applica-
tion phase. In order to address new groups of applicants, Deutsche Bahn also uses its 
own  employees  as  testimonials.  Trainees  as  well  as  newcomers  report  on  their  job  in 
various locations as part of recruiting action days. Social media and events can be ad-
dressed  for  cross-promotion  suitable  groups  of  applicants  on  topic-specific  content.  In 
this way you get access to technology-affine people who can be invited to special events 
in the company (Neumann, 201817). 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: See recruiting strategy. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Measures allow to keep technical talent deployed in 
the sector. 
Source: Interview DB, articles, websites. 

› 
› 
› 
› 

› 

Measure: Labour market campaigns at NR 
›  Organisation: NR. 
›  Goal: NR invests in different campaigns to improve the attractiveness of the rail sector 
and work at NR: overhaul campaigns; employer branding is used to improve the compet-
itive  position versus other  sectors, as for example the consulting sector. The aim is to 
enhance the image of engineering with university students etc.; nurturing campaigns are 
used to make persons more interested to work in the sector in several steps. Such cam-
paigns are next to campaigns or actions conducted by Department of Transport, NSARE 
or other actors in the sector. 

17  https://www.personalwirtschaft.de/recruiting/artikel/deutsche-bahn-denkmuster-beim-recruiting-

aufbrechen-durch-quereinsteiger.html. 

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Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: On-going. 
Impact: Not reported. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: No information available. 
Source: interview NR. 

Measure: Redeployment of personnel and intersectoral mobility at NR 
›  Organisation: NR. 
›  Goal:  Redeployment  of  personnel  is  regulated  by  legislation,  in  the  TUPE-regulation. 
TUPE  refers  to  the  "Transfer  of  Undertakings  (Protection  of  Employment)  Regulations 
2006" as amended by the "Collective Redundancies and Transfer of Undertakings (Pro-
tection of Employment) (Amendment) Regulations 2014". The TUPE rules apply to or-
ganisations of all sizes and protect employees' rights when the organisation or service 
they work for transfers to a new employer. TUPE has impacts for the employer who is 
making the transfer and the employer who is taking on the transfer. When TUPE applies, 
the employees of the outgoing employer automatically become employees of the incom-
ing employer at the point of transfer. They carry with them their continuous service from 
the outgoing employer, and should continue to enjoy the same terms and conditions of 
employment with the incoming employer. Following a transfer, employers often find they 
have employees  with different terms and conditions  working alongside each other and 
wish  to  change/harmonise  terms  and  conditions.  However,  TUPE  protects  against 
change/harmonisation for an indefinite period if the sole or principal reason for the change 
is  the  transfer.  Any  such  changes  will  be  void  (website  ACAS).  NR  complies  with  the 
TUPE-regulation. The regulation was in effect when one of the main construction compa-
nies (Carillion) went out of business. People have been transferred to Amey and UK Pow-
erlines Group, other suppliers of NR, on the basis of a business case. 
The RBC platform (see NGL) allows to train external persons to the requirements of NR. 
The system is now focused to get an initial assessment for the current workforce. External 
recruiting will be needed to deal with the demand. A strategic planning of personnel is not 
yet possible with the RBC, but it does make the personnel supply more flexible. Internal 
and  external  competences  can  be  better  balanced,  persons  can  be  better  informed.  It 
helps to better align with external training providers and develop strategic relationships. 
Target jobs: No specific group. 
Timing: Current legislation. 
Impact: Only when redeployment and intersectoral mobility are required. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Smooth transition of personnel is a prerequisite to 
keep technical talent within the sector. 
Source: Interview NR, Railway Gazette. 

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8. 

Attracting new entrants: Learning from other sectors 

Measure: Technology Pact in The Netherlands 
›  Organisation: Network of partners in NL. 
›  Goal: As of 2013, the education community, business sector and government have been 
jointly developing the Technology Pact in an effort to structurally improve alignment be-
tween education and the technology job market, and reduce the shortage of technically 
trained staff. 
This Technology Pact is now updated in order to adequately respond to new technological 
developments.  Its  ambitions,  however,  remain  the  same:  developing  a  structural  ap-
proach to ensure a well-trained workforce with enough smart and capable technicians for 

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the jobs of today and tomorrow. There is still considerable scope for improvement in terms 
of the number of preparatory secondary vocational education and secondary vocational 
education pupils opting for a technical degree programme and the number of girls enrol-
ling in technical programmes. The number of technical jobs in the Netherlands is expected 
to grow by a total of approximately 400,000 in the period until 2020. Companies will ex-
perience labour market shortages for professions such as: electricians, CNC operators, 
technical calculators, maintenance engineers, specialist language programmers and pro-
cess operators. The updated Pact will focus more on actions at the regional level. 
The goals of the campaigns are to discover technical and technological talent at an early 
stage, attracting expert lecturers in order to provide inspirational basic education. This is 
included  in  six  actions:  1.  Ensure  that  all  primary  schools  offer  their  pupils  Science  & 
Technology education on a structural basis by 2020, with a prominent emphasis on digital 
skills. 2. Help primary education teachers improve their skills in the area of Science & 
Technology  education.  3.  Strengthen  public-private  partnerships  in  support  of  primary 
and secondary education. 4. Ensure greater intake and retention of secondary education 
pupils opting for an exact sciences profile, and effectively apply career orientation and 
counselling programmes. 5. Improve the alignment between secondary education, voca-
tional education and higher education. 6. Stimulate the professionalisation of current lec-
turers and increase the number of lecturers with educational Master’s degrees in the sec-
ondary education system.   
Secondly, the goal is to train technical professionals for the future with four more actions: 
7. Active collaboration between the education community and business sector in terms of 
the training and education of lecturers at vocational education institutions. 8. Ensure more 
sustainable public-private partnerships within the vocational education sector. 9. Ensure 
effective alignment between the available range of education programmes, the regional 
business community and secondary and vocational education institutions, as well as suf-
ficient  suitable  work  placement  positions/apprenticeships  (for  both  boys  and  girls).  10. 
Ensure effective alignment between higher education institutions and the business com-
munity and within the higher education community itself, with a greater focus on interna-
tional and technical talent.   
The last goal is to retain technical professionals and talent for the technology sector with 
two more actions: 11. Promote collaboration between regional and industry sector net-
works,  and  offer  better  access  to  labour  market  information.  12.  Make  optimal  use  of 
technically-skilled  staff  and  their  talents  and  retain  them  for  individual  companies,  the 
overall industry sector and technology itself by investing in sustainable employability. 
Target jobs: Attracting new talent to tech sector; maintaining tech-educated to remain in 
technology jobs, but also ICT-jobs. 
Timing: Programme started in 2013, and will continue to 2020. 
Impact: The Technology Pact keeps monitor data on the development of the number of 
technicians. The number of people working in technical professions has increased over 
the years and the number of unemployed technicians has become minimal. However, it 
is unclear whether these developments would have occurred without campaigns because 
the developments are parallel to the general developments on the Dutch labour market. 
In addition, it appears that in the figures the number of young people in technical jobs has 
not really increased, but that the older workers continue to work longer. Despite the ab-
solute increase in the number of young technicians, there is a stronger aging of technically 
skilled workers. This phenomenon also occurs among IT professionals. Here the group 
consists of almost three quarters of higher educated people. The growth of the group of 
higher  educated  people  was  also  25  percentage  points  over  the  period  studied;  the 
growth among younger IT professionals is much lower. 

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Lessons for technological skills gap: The example shows that it is difficult for even a well-
funded and very broad programme to show its net-effectiveness. The number of techni-
cians has risen, but maybe not the elite the programme was intended for. 
Source: https://www.techniekpact.nl/nationaal-techniekpact-2020. 

9. 

Reintegration 

Measure: Reintegration at NS 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: For reintegration policy, NS adheres to the requirements of the Dutch Gatekeeper 
Act (Wet Poortwachter) in the Netherlands, that specifies in detail how reintegration of 
previously  absent  personnel  should  be  conducted.  In  addition  to  this,  NS  focuses  on 
providing facilities to employees, during their sickness period, to find new jobs in- or out-
side of the NS organisation. A specialized agency Fourstar helps with this. Even if the 
provisions are far-reaching, the use of these provisions seems to be lower than expected. 
For the reintegration itself, some seven types of measures or interventions are offered: 
life  style  (4  programmes),  psychic  complaints  (2  programmes),  physical  complaints  (1 
programme), long-term or chronic complaints (1 measure), future of job (2 programmes), 
daily issues in life (4 programmes), other issues/health complaints (3 programmes). 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Standard policy. 
Impact: Not available. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: One measure is specifically focused on job content 
and job change: “Career advice - Move NS”. 
Source:  “NS.  (2018)  Fitwijzer.  Overzicht  aanbod  hulp  bij  gezondheid,  vitaliteit  &  werk-
plezier.” 

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Measure: Move NS 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: Move NS is a part of the reintegration policy of NS. Employees can always request 
a career path consultation. The start is a conversation with a Move NS-expert in a ‘short 
term career assessment’. The direct manager does not have to have a role in this  first 
consultation. If a career development plan has been requested, the direct line manager 
needs to give an  approval. It  is possible  to receive a  voucher for such  a  development 
process. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Standard policy. 
Impact: Not available. 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  The  measure  is  focused  on  job  content  and  job 
change, but does not necessarily only have to do with technology. 
Source:  “NS.  (2018)  Fitwijzer.  Overzicht  aanbod  hulp  bij  gezondheid,  vitaliteit  &  werk-
plezier.” 

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Measure: Reintegration at ProRail 
›  Organisation: ProRail. 
›  Goal: Absenteeism is low at ProRail. Furthermore, the company follows the rules of the 
Dutch Gatekeeper Act. Insofar as there is action in the area of absenteeism, this concerns 
case managers who support line managers in the implementation of the Act. New func-
tions can be offered both inside and outside ProRail. 
A more important policy in this respect is sustainable employability. The company offers 

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a palette of interventions with which everyone can strengthen themselves. The menu is 
focused on four areas: physical, mental, mobility, craftsmanship: 
•  Mobility:  career  counselling,  mediation  (in  the  event  of  redundancy),  career  tests, 

personal coaching, earlier retirement, experience places; 

•  Craftsmanship: EVC (handful), external training, individual training advice, internal 

training; 

Most  courses  are  done  externally  (see  above).  There  is  a  practice  lab  where  you  are 
trained on conversation techniques, individual resistance, etc. There are team develop-
ment programs. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Standard policy. 
Impact: Not available. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: The measures are focused on job content and job 
change, but does not necessarily only have to do with technology. 
Source: Interview. 

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Measure: Alpha Cells as reintegration means at SNCF 
›  Organisation: SNCF. 
›  Goal:  The  reintegration  of  employees  after  sickness  is  regulated  by  labour  law.  SNCF 
abides by the law. Because SNCF is such a big company, it is always possible to offer 
new employment to reintegrating personnel. SNCF has dedicated systems to follow-up 
the conditions of absentee employees. Multi-disciplined teams follow an employee and 
offer solutions and help to re-integrate into work. 
The same broad approach is used to help employees who risk to come into obsolete jobs. 
A first step is to make sure that a prospective view on the employment situation is used. 
The digital passport, discussed in another section, helps as an instrument to show what 
an employee is capable of doing. 
For those employees who have a major difficulty in reinserting into their former occupa-
tions,  SNCF  created  internal  entities  so-called  “Alpha  Cells”.  These  multi-disciplined 
teams create a safe environment for employees to rethink their career and work. These 
teams started as an experiment in 2015, and seem to be very successful in helping em-
ployees reintegrate into new job positions. The cells were created in a collaboration with 
an external consultancy. Several factors are responsible for an upsurge in the number of 
employees in difficulty, also at SNCF: lengthening the professional life, hardship, pres-
sure in the organisation on the background of increased productivity search, difficulty of 
adaptation of some employees to technological developments, and personal problems. 
At the same time, even as the number of vulnerable employees increases, the number of 
jobs likely to be offered as an alternative (gardening, security guard, IT, etc.) is decreas-
ing. SNCF sees approximately 200 employees per year in this situation of work incapac-
ity. The company wanted to have a sustainable solution for these colleagues. The inter-
vention  developed  with the Alpha Cells is to tackle the loss of confidence  and to offer 
these employees worthy and useful activities, which often exist in companies but are car-
ried out at the margin by other employees for whom these activities are not core business. 
Target jobs: All. 
Timing: Current policy since 2015. 
Impact:  Since  the  beginning  of  2017,  320  weak  employees  have  joined  one  of  the  19 
"Alpha" cells set up by the group. By September, 70 had already left the system to re-
enter a new profession. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Technology developments is one of the causes for 
people not being able to reintegrate. The new intervention mainly helps people in other 
jobs. 

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Source:  Interview  and  https://www.focusrh.com/strategie-rh/mobilite-interne-fidelisation-
des-salaries/avec-alpha-la-sncf-remet-sur-les-rails-les-salaries-les-plus-fragiles-
30238.html. 

10. 

Reintegration: Learning from other sectors 

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Measure: The Dirigo-project 
›  Organisation: - 
›  Goal: The process of returning to work after long-term sick leave can sometimes be com-
plex. Many factors, (e.g., cooperation between different authorities and the individual as 
well as individual factors such as health, emotional well-being and self-efficacy) may have 
an impact on an individual's ability to work. The aim of this study was to investigate clients' 
experiences with an individually tailored vocational rehabilitation, the Swedish Dirigo pro-
ject (funded by ESF), and encounters with professionals working on it. The Dirigo project 
was based on collaboration between rehabilitation authorities, individually tailored inter-
ventions and a motivational interviewing approach. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: - 
Impact: The analysis showed overall positive experience of methods and encounters with 
professionals in a vocational rehabilitation project. The positive experiences were based 
on four key factors: 1. Opportunities for receiving various dimensions of support. 2. Good 
overall treatment by  the professionals.  3.  Satisfaction  with the  working methods of the 
project, and 4. Opportunities for personal development. The main result showed that the 
clients had an overall  positive experience of a vocational rehabilitation project and en-
counters  with  professionals  who  used  motivational  interviewing  as  a  communication 
method. The overall positive experience indicated that their interactions with the different 
professionals may have affected their self-efficacy in general and in relation to transition 
to work 
Lessons  for  technological  skills  gap:  The  knowledge  is  essential  for  the  professionals 
working in the area of vocational rehabilitation. However, vocational rehabilitation inter-
ventions  also  need  a  societal  approach  to  be  able  to  offer clients  opportunities  for  job 
training and real jobs. 
Source: Andersén, Å., Ståhl, C., Anderzén, I., Kristiansson, P., Larsson, K. (2017) Posi-
tive experiences of a vocational rehabilitation intervention for individuals on long-term sick 
leave, the Dirigo project: A qualitative study. BMC Public Health, 17(1), art. no. 790. 

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11. 

Attracting from less represented groups: Examples from practice 

Measure: 90 sustainable jobs in operational organisation (disability) 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: To recruit persons with a disability to work in the NS-operation. The main reasons 
is that these workers are highly motivated to work for the organisation. Job carving is the 
method to adapt jobs to the ability of persons. Use will be made of tax exemptions, sub-
sidies and wage measures. The NS is attentive that these jobs should not ‘repress’ the 
existing recruiting  policy. For this reason, the new jobs are only temporary, unless the 
candidate appears to fit a certain job quite well. These jobs are also counted as part of 
the  legal  obligation  to  provide  for  sustainable  jobs.  If  needed,  new  candidates  can  be 
supported by a job coach. 

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Target jobs: Planner, project manager, warehousing, customer contacts, repair, train driv-
ers, SAM, waste disposal. 
Timing: Decision in 2017. 
Impact: A growth plan is foreseen: 2018 = 90; 2019 = 180; 2020 = 200 jobs (140 FTE in 
year 2020). Of this total, some 90 are in operation ( 41, 41, 9). This represents a wage 
cost (loonwaarde) of 1,7 M€ per year. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: These jobs are meant to satisfy the general policy of 
the company. It also helps to satisfy the legal obligations of the company for support to 
less able persons. The measure aims at a broad set of jobs. There is no link to techno-
logical change. 
Source: “NS (2017). Stappenplan Duurzame Baan Operatie 13 juli 2018 herziene versie 
2018.” 

Measure: Diversity and Inclusion at NS 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: NS wants its personnel to be a reflection of society. This is partly because of com-
pany objectives, collective agreement 2015-2017, but also a legal requirement (Partici-
pation and Quotum Law; National Collective Agreement; legal obligation for 3% quotum). 
These measures are a new direction for the diversity policy within NS, in this sense that 
in the period 2007-2012 the focus was on reducing the gender gap, in the period 2012-
2016  the  aim  was  to  let  the  company  be  a  reflection  (Fair  share)  of  society.  The  new 
policy runs under the heading of ‘inclusive working culture’. 
Target jobs: Only for multicultural talent, the focus is on technical jobs. 
Timing: Decision in 2017. 
Impact: Diversity targets for women, young (<36), LBGTQI and multicultural background 
in lower task groups, have all been reached, accept for the management levels. The only 
target that has not been reached is for persons with a labour market issue (Social Return 
on Investment) (1. Persons with a disability; 2. Highly educated multicultural talents in-
cluding refugees): 
• 

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• 

• 

For gender: 33% of personnel is female, sufficient women in pipeline senior man-
agement, 34% senior managers are women, ICT is 23%, company awards for policy, 
LGBTQI in labour market communication. Policy consisted of ‘charter ‘Talent to the 
top’’, targets and learning interventions; 
For persons with a disability: Target is 200 persons. In the past, on average, some 
60 persons currently working at NS fall under the legal definitions. Some 50 sustain-
able jobs have been created. For some 35 NS-persons, such sustainable jobs have 
been created after a reintegration period. Procedures have been developed to sup-
port managers. For the future, some 200 sustainable jobs will be created (see above: 
sustainable jobs). SROI-agreements with suppliers; 
For multicultural talent: In 2016, some 10% of new candidates fit into this category. 
90% of refugees working at NS have found permanent employment at NS (60%) or 
with other companies (30%). Company measures have been adapted to better suit 
this  group.  New  measures  are  explicitly  focused  on  ten  jobs  with  second-
ary/professional/academic training in technology. Managers are evaluated  on their 
performance in this respect. 

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Lessons for technological skills gap: The recruitment of multicultural talent is focused on 
technical talent. This helps with the expected rise in technical jobs. 
Source: “NS (2017). Presentatie Diversiteit en Inclusie tbv RvB 13 juni 2017.” 

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Measure: Strengthening the presence of multicultural talent at NS 
›  Organisation: NS. 
›  Goal: The policy is aimed at four goals: (1) creating inclusive working environments; (2) 
strengthening the multicultural presence; (3) visibility of the NS as employer; (4) to meas-
ure the impact of interventions. The actions are focused on more growth, changing man-
agement behaviours, strengthening self-action by this talent, and positioning the NS as 
an attractive employer. 
Target jobs: The targets are mainly in distribution in management and lower level posi-
tions. New recruitment should be at 5% multicultural talent, internal growth also at 5% at 
managerial levels; 10% in positions for non-management jobs. The emphasis is on (sen-
ior) operational management. NS wants to have a larger share of employees with a dif-
ferent cultural background everywhere, including Technology and ICT. But the specific 
focus comes from two things: 
1.  NS already  has a  lot of nationalities on  the shop floor: NS  does pretty  well there. 
However, NS sees no or limited flow to middle and senior management positions. 
NS would like to change that so that NS has representation of multicultural talent in 
all layers; 

2.  The other reason is that visibility (inside and outside) of multicultural talent is also 
determined by our senior management. That is why NS also focus on attracting mul-
ticultural talent in (visible) senior management positions. 

Timing: Start implementation plan June 2018. 
Impact: Currently, there is sufficient employment for multicultural talent at NS (nearly 3% 
of personnel), but there seems to be too little recognition and opportunities for these per-
sons. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: this measure is part of a plan to deal with the demo-
graphic shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market shortages. 
Source: “NS. (2018). Gewoon doen! Plan van aanpak groei van aandeel hogeropgeleid 
multicultureel talent.” 

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Measure: Access to less represented groups at SNCF 
›  Organisation: SNCF. 
›  Goal: SNCF has a long tradition in finding access to less represented groups for its posi-
tions.  Specific  actions  have  been  developed  to  feminize  the  workforce,  give  access  to 
disabled persons, allowing military and professional sportsmen/women find a place in the 
organisation, and to suppress any discrimination. Concerning women, the objective is not 
only to feminize the organisation, but also to work on a ‘healthy mix’ (‘mixité’). In jobs that 
are viewed as women jobs, the strategy is to ensure that men also occupy such tasks. A 
lot of attention is directed at attracting girls (Girls’ day; company visits) and young women 
to work at SNCF. A part of this effort is also to attract female engineers. 
Another important action for SNCF is the policy to attract younger workers from ‘priority 
neighbourhoods’. This is done through the recruiting forums aimed at ‘equality and com-
petence’. Some twenty percent of new recruits are coming from these neighbourhoods. 
Target jobs: All. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: 21% of current recruits are women (+1% in comparison to 2016); 21% of recruits 
come from ‘quartiers prioritaires’. 3,000 employees have been engaged in a serious game 
about diversity. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: More diversity could be helpful for technical jobs. 
Source: Interview, yearly report 2018. 

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Measure: Diversity and inclusive management at ProRail 
›  Organisation: ProRail. 
›  Goal: ProRail mainly  wants to  have  a  workforce that is  a realistic reflection of  society, 
such as culture, gender and age. A programme manager diversity has been appointed. 
The manager is currently working on a vision determination at the moment (new theme 
for  ProRail).  More  structurally,  the  focus  is  on  inclusive  employership:  employees  with 
different backgrounds must be able to find their place at ProRail. Now the male/female 
distribution  is  about  60/40.  There  are  no  specific  ambitions  in  this  area  yet.  However, 
there are steps to take for more women at the top.   
There are separate initiatives (but due to the appointment of the program manager diver-
sity there will be a structured program): 
• 

Attracting people at a distance from the labour market (disability or limitation): They 
are put to work above formative; 
Asylum seekers: Here are some separate initiatives; 
ProRail has become member of Trainbow to support more diversity among the em-
ployees. This action has already got support from Trainbow NS since 2009. 

• 
• 

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Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Start September 2018. 
Impact: There seemed to be too little recognition and opportunities for these colleagues. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: This measure is part of a plan to deal with the de-
mographic shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market shortages. 
Source: “ProRail (2018). ProRail aangesloten bij Trainbow.  
(www.prorail.nl/inhoud/prorail-aangesloten-bij-trainbow).” 

Measure: Recruiting groups less represented groups at DB 
›  Organisation: DB. 
›  Goal: Diversity is an important strategy for DB. DB strives that women workers and other 
less  represented  groups  get  a  more  important  place  in  the  company.  For  women,  the 
strategy is to make them more involved in the company. It is clear that such involvement 
depends  on  role  models  in  the  company:  in  any  campaign,  all  profiles  that  are  shown 
need to show roles for women. DB has an internal network of women workers. Currently 
there is a network of 850 women cooperating to create more impact in DB. They have 
meetings on a lot of topics (for example: soft skills). The network is supported by visits 
from the highest management levels.  
DB also looks at recruiting labour market minorities. DB analyses the presence of immi-
grant workers in certain regions and adapts its communication to suit the needs of these 
groups. For example, to recruit Turkish candidates in the Frankfurt area, the marketing is 
focused on the parents to attract new pupils. For the S-Bahn in Stuttgart, Croatian train 
drivers have been targeted for employment. These workers are sought for “Quereinstieg” 
(cross-border mobility)  into jobs. If needed, DB supports recruitment with  housing pro-
jects. In Munich, housing prices are extremely high and this prohibits finding new employ-
ees.  In  this  case,  Romanian  train  drivers  (20  persons)  were  supported  with  a  housing 
project. 
DB also looks at groups at a distance of the labour market. The Chance Plus-programme 
has been directed at pupils who have left school without a diploma. DB gives these can-
didates a second chance. This is a sort of apprenticeship. Such candidates develop work 
experience (on a yearly base: some hundreds). The jobs are cleaning of buildings, etc. 
These persons work in job with high turnover rates. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 

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Impact: Company targets are reached. Currently, some 23% of the workforce is female. 
In 2020 this should be 25% . At the management level, this is 19,2% . In 2020, this also 
has to reach 20%. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: This measure is part of a plan to deal with the de-
mographic shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market shortages. 
Source: Interview. 

Measure: Diversity & Inclusion initiatives at NR 
›  Organisation: Network Rail. 
›  Objective: The objective of NR is to make NR-personnel reflect the society NR is working 
in. NR aims by becoming a more open, diverse and inclusive organisation to deliver a 
safe, accessible railway for everyone. NR expects the number of people using the railway 
to double over the next 25 years. To meet this challenge, remain cost-competitive and 
deliver for our customers, NR needs a diverse workforce with innovative ideas and crea-
tive solutions, as well as a culture where everyone feels able to perform. The diversity 
and inclusion strategy sets out how NR will deliver a safer, more accessible and improved 
service for our customers and passengers, and how Network Rail becomes a better place 
to work for everyone. Diversity and inclusion are seen as powerful tools to help improve 
performance. NR has several themes in which progress is followed and measured. Within 
each theme NR has out specific objectives based on the latest research, good practice 
and the benefits NR wants to deliver. NR has an award-winning, industry-acclaimed di-
versity  and  inclusion  team.  The  main  parts  of  the  strategy  are  Everyone  strategy  and 
Spaces and Places for Everyone strategy.   
The objective of NR is to have women in 20% of all roles and functions of NR by 2020. 
To achieve this objective a whole set of measures has been developed: system of cham-
pions, business is training, positive discrimination, guarantee that all women candidates 
will be invited for job interview. The progress is followed with a specially developed dash-
board, monitoring recruitment, trainings, progress, leavers, maternity, flexible working re-
quests. NR has worked with Deloitte to design a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) 
that tell NR if the work it is doing is progressing against our objectives. The KPIs are listed 
on the website. The KPIs are measured using an online dashboard and national and local 
scorecards;  they  will  be  privately  and  then  publicly  assured.  The  following  actions  are 
important: 
• 

Job  Descriptions  are  rendered  more  gender  neutral.  Gender  interview  panels  are 
used for new recruits; 
Early engagement of young women with stress on STEM-competences. A separate 
action is on girls with STEM; 

• 

•  NR has analysed where it loses talent over time. That is why NR is profiling itself as 
a “returner place”: women that have gone out, but are coming back into the work-
force. For NR, this means to have a forecast of jobs that are going to be available 
when these persons are returning. This requires more forward planning; 

•  NR takes care to campaign about the possibilities for women at NR. The women’s 
initiative  is  focused  on  delivering  roles  model  for  women.  NR  is  not  working  with 
“Women in Tech”. For NR, the focus is on women and rail/women and transport, not 
specifically women in technology; 
There are several positive action plans directed at women: NR wants to understand 
how  to  you  keep  women  within  the  organisation.  A  buddy  system  (paternity)  has 
been developed specifically for this goal. 

• 

Another one of the measures is monitoring the ethnicity of that all persons working at NR. 
The programme NR conducts for this has been evaluated as Best Employer for Race in 
2017. In the 2017 McGregor-Smith Review of race in the workplace it is showcased to be 

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best  practice  on  race  equality  in  UK  workplaces.  Successful  organisations  had  to  evi-
dence that they are putting leadership on race into place within their organisations, cre-
ating inclusive workplace cultures and taking action in at least one of three areas - lead-
ership, progression and recruitment. They also had to be able to demonstrate the impact 
of  these  policies  on  BAME  employees.  A  first  reward  was  in  2014.  NR  runs  six  other 
employee  networks in connection to diversity:  LGTB, multi-flavour network, ethnic net-
works,  etc.  In  total,  some  2,800  persons  are  connected  to  these  network.  Actions  are 
organized to develop soft skills for these networks (for example how to challenge wrong 
behaviour), to use Yammer networks, etc.   
For  inclusive  policies,  NR  develops  discussion  networks,  but  also  inclusive  leadership 
networks. A lot of action is done on employees who act as carers. These persons expe-
rience a myriad set of problems. They (the ‘sandwich group’) require enormous flexibility: 
they need to support their parents and at the same time they need to take care of their 
children. This forces these persons to make career breaks. NR wants to support these 
groups. 
NR needs to comply to national legislation (Equality Act 2010) when changing anything 
in its services or organisation. NR needs to conduct diversity impact assessments to show 
that for any change that affects the distribution of changes, is mitigated with adequate 
measures. Like a risk assessment process, a DIA is a tool that helps any programmes, 
policies, and projects - and the way that services are designed, built and operated  - to 
work well for employees and passengers. It anticipates the likely effects of the work on 
the characteristics protected by the Equality Act: age; disability; gender; gender reassign-
ment; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sexual orientation; and marriage 
and  civil  partnerships  -  in  short,  everyone.  Once  any  potential  negative  impacts  have 
been identified, the DIA can be used to plan ways to remove or mitigate these, where 
possible. DIAs can also be used to promote best practice (website NR). 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 
Impact: Some 17% of the workforce is female. In 2020 this should be 20%. Women now 
represent nearly 25 per cent of both the Board and Executive Committee. The appren-
ticeships  are  now  50/50  men/women.  NR  collaborates  with  a  number  of  charities  who 
offer benchmarking to help us measure our performance against other organisations and 
sectors so that NR can become a leader in diversity and inclusion for the rail industry. NR 
were ranked 237 (out of 325) in Stonewall’s 2014 Workplace Equality Index which looks 
at how inclusive organisations are for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LBGT) employees 
and potential employees. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: This measure is part of a plan to deal with the de-
mographic shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market shortages. 
Sources: NR-website. 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

Measure: Armed Forces into Rail (NR) 
›  Objective: Network Rail has a long history of supporting the Armed Forces. In particular, 
NR is committed to helping Ex-Forces personnel reintegrate into successful civilian ca-
reers whilst supporting the already established Reservist community. In 2015, the British 
Armed Forces Military Covenant was signed. For this, NR was honoured by the Ministry 
of Defence with the Employers Recognition Scheme Silver award back in 2016 and the 
Employers Recognition Scheme Gold award in October 2017. NR works closely with the 
Career Transition Partnership and the Officers Association to ensure everyone making 
the move is fully supported. 
Target jobs: All jobs. 
Timing: Current policy. 

› 
› 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

› 
› 

› 

Impact: - 
Lessons for technological skills gap: A lot of military have the technical expertise that NR 
needs. 
Sources: NR-website. 

Measure: Increasing the number of persons with a disability working in Network Rail. 
›  Objectives: The objective of NR is to improve less represented groups as for example 
disabled persons to get a job at NR. A lot of attention is directed at persons with a disa-
bility, but a lot of persons have not declared their disability. One of the measures is that 
all persons with a disability not only will have a job interview when applying for a job, but 
they will also have a training at NR. 
Application: In 2016 NR scored 55 per cent against the Business Disability Forum’s Dis-
ability Standard and have been given a clear set of recommendations for how to improve 
our performance in this area. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: This measure is part of a plan to deal with the de-
mographic shift in the organisation and to deal with labour market shortages. 
Sources: NR-website. 

› 

› 

› 

12. 

Attracting  from  less  represented  groups:  Learning  from  other 
sectors 

Measure: Inclusive policies in scientific literature 
›  Organisation: - 
›  Goal: Workforce diversity has been depicted as a double-edged sword that leads to both 
positive and negative work-related outcomes. Inclusive management not only strength-
ens the positive relationship between racial diversity and innovative  behaviour but also 
attenuates  the  positive  relationship  between  gender  diversity  and  turnover  behaviour. 
These findings suggest that inclusive management is a key strategy for effectively man-
aging diversity (Moon, 2018). The question then is what makes workforce diversity the 
work. 
A first set of studies focuses on gender diversity. The analysis of the low retention rates 
of highly-educated female engineers in their chosen professions in science, engineering 
and technology is helpful to understand that workforce diversity, gender issues is not only 
an individual decision. It is insufficient to simply motivate women to choose a career in 
engineering. To retain women in such sectors, the current gender-biased organizational 
cultures and structures have first to be changed (Hanappi-Egger, 2012). 
Most  approaches  tend  to  focus  on  the  deficits  of  women  rather  than  on  the  structural 
exclusion. It seems to be a topic of very personal engagement and consequently it is seen 
as an issue women have to deal with. To establish inclusive management concepts in 
technology-oriented organizations, it is needed also work on the structural side of organ-
isations and policies. This means that gender issues and related responsibilities should 
be seen as part of a professional leadership competence. Organizations aren't despite 
the long lasting presumption gender neutral but are producing and reproducing gender 
codes  within all areas of organizational practices.  Consequently,  indirect  inclusion and 
exclusion  mechanisms  are  created  leading  to  the  fact  that  some  selective  groups  are 
attracted and others not (Hanappi-Egger & Warmuth, 2010). 
A second set identifies the possibilities to make value driven organisations. It is possible 
for  organisations  to  make  work  values  central  to  the  employment  relationship  of  any 
worker. For  younger  worker, this is done by asking them to explain  what "success" or 
"efficiency" means to them in their work. This provides a window into the values-based 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

› 
› 
› 

› 

› 

reasoning underpinning younger workers' work-related attitudes and behaviour (Winter & 
Jackson, 2014). 
Target jobs: All (technical) jobs. 
Timing: - 
Impact:  Not  taking  inclusiveness  into  account  leads  to  more  women  leaving  organisa-
tions. 
Lessons for technological skills gap: Women and other groups at a distance in technical 
jobs need better contexts. 
Sources: 
•  Moon, K.-K. (2018). Examining the Relationships Between Diversity and Work Be-
haviors in U.S. Federal Agencies: Does Inclusive Management Make a Difference? 
Review 
(DOI: 
10.1177/0734371X16660157). 

of  Public  Personnel  Administration, 

218-247. 

38(2), 

•  Hanappi-Egger, E., & Warmuth, G.-S. (2010). Gender-neutral or gender-blind? on 
the meaning of structural barriers in computer science and engineering. Joint Inter-
national IGIP-SEFI Annual Conference 2010. 

•  Hanappi-Egger, E. (2012). Shall I stay or shall I go? On the role of diversity manage-
ment  for  women's  retention  in  SET  professions.  Equality,  Diversity  and  Inclusion, 
31(2), 144-157. (DOI: 10.1108/02610151211202790). 

•  Winter, R.P., & Jackson, B.A. (2014). Expanding the Younger Worker Employment 
Relationship:  Insights  From  Values-Based  Organizations.  Human  Resource  Man-
agement, 53(2), 311-328. (DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21600). 

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Annex 2  Surveys 

1. 

Eurofound ECS 2013 

Table A2.1  Results from the Eurofound ECS survey 2013. Comparison of the  Rail sectors Manufacture of 

railway  locomotives/rolling  stock;  construction  of  (underground)  railways;  Freight  &  Passenger 

(interurban) rail transport (3,020+4,212+4,910+4,920) - as a whole - versus all other sectors 

A public sector organisation is either wholly owned by the public authorities 

or they have own more than 50%. Is your establishment part of ... 

· The private sector 

· The public sector 

·N 

Is the establishment at this address a single independent company/organi-

zation with no further branch-offices, production units or sales units else-

where in [country]? 

· A single independent company/organization 

· One of a number of different establishments 

·N 

Establishmenty size 

· 10 to 19 employees 

· 20 to 49 employees 

· 50 to 249 employees 

· 250 to 499 employees 

· 500 or more employees 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

72.4%▼ 

93.2%▲ 

27.6%▲ 

6.8%▼ 

91 

26,898 

71.0% 

29.0% 

91 

77.2% 

22.8% 

26,990 

21.7%▼ 

42.5%▲ 

36.2% 

41.7% 

28.4%▲ 

13.4%▼ 

4.6%▲ 

9.2%▲ 

91 

1.2%▼ 

1.2%▼ 

26,990 

Since the beginning of 2010 has this establishment introduced any new or 

47.3% 

40.7% 

significantly changed products or services (either internally or externally)? 

[% yes] 

·N 

87 

Since the beginning of 2010, has this establishment introduced any new or 

41.1% 

significantly  changed  processes,  either  for  producing  goods  or  supplying 

26,727 

35.6% 

services? [% yes] 

·N 

87 

26,654 

Since the beginning of 2010, has this establishment introduced any organi-

52.4%▲ 

32.4%▼ 

zational change? [% yes] 

·N 

91 

How many employees work in this establishment? [Mean] [Range: 10−59800] 

239▲ 

·N 

Since the beginning of 2010, has the total number of employees in this es-

tablishment increased, decreased or stayed about the same? 

· Increased 

· Decreased 

· Stayed about the same 

·N 

90 

24.1% 

29.7% 

46.2% 

91 

26,720 

48,0▼ 

26,880 

28.4% 

24.5% 

47.1% 

26,883 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Percentage of employees are female? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

Percentage of employees are older than 50 years of age? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

Percentage of employees have a university degree? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

Approximately what percentage of employees work in jobs which require at 

least one year of on the job learning in order for the person to become pro-

ficient in his/her task? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

0.1% 

3.8% 

51.2%▲ 

25.8%▼ 

24.6% 

22.0% 

20.3% 

23.9% 

1.8%▼ 

15.2%▲ 

0%▼ 

0.4% 

60 

9.7%▲ 

1.5% 

18,390 

2.3%▼ 

14.6%▲ 

28.3%▼ 

41.2%▲ 

43.5%▲ 

26.3%▼ 

22.7%▲ 

12.5%▼ 

3.3% 

0% 

0% 

69 

4.1% 

1.1% 

0.2% 

18,463 

22.2% 

31.6% 

26.3% 

36.4% 

37.6%▲ 

13.5%▼ 

1.5%▼ 

8.5%▲ 

4.7% 

0%▼ 

2.4% 

65 

6.2% 

6.6%▲ 

2.6% 

19,067 

28.4%▼ 

40.7%▲ 

17.0% 

10.1% 

10.5% 

9.7% 

17.2%▲ 

8.2%▼ 

7.2% 

2.6% 

17.3% 

84 

5.4% 

7.0% 

18.4% 

24,223 

72.5% 

26,939 

46.1% 

26,797 

19.6% 

Departments based on function : sales, production, administration, research 

78.6% 

etc.  -  Does  this  establishment  have  any  of  the  following  types  of  depart-

ments? [% yes] 

·N 

91 

Departments dealing with different types of products or service - Does this 

43.0% 

establishment have any of the following types of departments? [% yes] 

·N 

90 

Departments dealing with specific geographical areas, regions etc.  - Does 

15.0% 

this establishment have any of the following types of departments? [% yes] 

·N 

91 

26,887 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Who normally decides on the planning and execution of the daily work tasks 

of the employees at this establishment? 

· The employee undertaking the tasks 

· Managers or supervisors 

· Both employees and managers or supervisors 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

0.3%▼ 

6.4%▲ 

46.9% 

53.9% 

52.8%▲ 

39.6%▼ 

91 

26,919 

61.7% 

Do  employees  in  this  establishment  document  and  keep  records  of  their 

70.2% 

good  work  practices  or  lessons  learned,  with  the  purpose  to  share  these 

with other employees? [% yes] 

·N 

83 

26,386 

A team is a group of people working together with a  shared responsibility 

88.2%▲ 

73.2%▼ 

for the execution of allocated tasks, within or across units of the establish-

ment. Do you have any teams fitting this definition in your establishment? 

[% yes] 

·N 

With regard to the employees doing teamwork, do most of them work in a 

single  team  or  do  most  of  them  work  in  more  than  one  team  at  the  same 

time? 

· Most of them work in a single team 

· Most of them work in more than one team 

·N 

Do the team members decide among themselves by whom the tasks are to 

be performed, or is there usually a superior distributing the tasks within the 

team? 

· Team members decide among themselves 

· Tasks are distributed by a superior 

·N 

Do any of the employees at this establishment rotate tasks with other em-

ployees? 

· Yes, most do 

· Yes, some do 

· No, none do 

90 

26,891 

61.9% 

38.1% 

79 

56.7% 

43.3% 

19,550 

10.2%▼ 

26.9%▲ 

89.8%▲ 

73.1%▼ 

77 

19,388 

24.0% 

22.8% 

32.4%▼ 

43.8%▲ 

40.9%▲ 

28.5%▼ 

· No, the high level of required skills or expertise prevents employees from rotating 

2.7% 

4.9% 

tasks 

·N 

In the past 12 months, what percentage of employees received paid time-off 

from their normal duties to undertake training, either off or on your prem-

ises? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

91 

26,843 

25.5% 

13.5% 

9.4% 

32.7% 

18.9% 

15.4% 

18.6%▲ 

8.4%▼ 

3.2% 

3.5% 

4.1% 

4.5% 

26.4%▲ 

16.1%▼ 

80 

23,687 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

In the past 12 months, what percentage of employees have received on the 

job training? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

20.3% 

16.4% 

29.9% 

14.0% 

7.0%▼ 

14.9%▲ 

11.2% 

5.6% 

6.8% 

9.9% 

4.4% 

4.7% 

32.6%▲ 

22.2%▼ 

85 

Increase  awareness  on  health  and  safety  issues  and  hazard  prevention 

87.1% 

measures - Did the training for your staff have any  of the following objec-

tives...? [% yes] 

·N 

77 

Improve and extend the skills used in their current jobs - Did the training for 

86.6% 

your staff have any of the following objectives...? [% yes] 

·N 

74 

Provide the skills needed for employees to take on a different job position - 

61.1% 

Did the training for your staff have any of the following objectives...? [% yes] 

·N 

77 

To enable employees to rotate tasks with colleagues  - Did the training for 

41.4% 

your staff have any of the following objectives...? [% yes] 

23,958 

78.4% 

23,031 

89.4% 

23,015 

51.2% 

22,961 

51.7% 

·N 

76 

22,937 

Approximately what percentage of employees have a performance appraisal 

or evaluation interview at least once a year? 

· None at all 

· Less than 20% 

· 20% to 39% 

· 40% to 59% 

· 60% to 79% 

· 80% to 99% 

· All 

·N 

21.5% 

2.4% 

10.3% 

6.6% 

0.1% 

5.6% 

53.5% 

89 

The majority of employees who had a temporary contract got a further con-

89.1% 

tract  afterwards  -  Do  you  agree  or  disagree  with  the  following  statements 

about the human resource management strategy in this establishment? [% 

31.0% 

4.4% 

6.2% 

6.0% 

2.8% 

4.4% 

45.2% 

26,160 

87.5% 

(strongly) agree] 

·N 

75 

22,171 

Employees are hired with the intention to employ them for a long time - Do 

91.1%▼ 

96.8%▲ 

you  agree  or  disagree  with  the  following  statements  about  the  human  re-

source management strategy in this establishment? [% (strongly) agree] 

·N 

91 

When  recruiting  the  management  usually  look  first  whether  there  are  any 

86.4% 

suitable  internal  candidates  -  Do  you  agree  or  disagree  with  the  following 

statements about the human resource management strategy in this estab-

26,664 

85.5% 

lishment? [% (strongly) agree] 

·N 

89 

25,341 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Difficulties in finding employees with the required skills - Does the manage-

41.3% 

39.3% 

ment  encounter  any  of  the  following  problems  at  this  establishment  cur-

rently? [% yes] 

·N 

88 

26,803 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

2. 

EU-OSHA ESENER-2 2014 

Table A2.2  Results from the EU-OSHA ESENER-2 survey 2014. Comparison of the Rail sectors Manufacture 

of railway locomotives/rolling stock; construction of (underground) railways; Freight & Passenger 

(interurban) rail transport (3,020+4,212+4,910+4,920) - as a whole - versus all other sectors 

What proportion of the employees is aged 55 years or older? 

· None at all 

· Less than a quarter 

· A quarter to half or 

· More than half of your workforce 

·N 

Does this establishment belong to the public sector? [% yes] 

·N 

Is the following risk factor present or not in your establishment (regardless 

of whether it is currently under control and regardless of the number of em-

ployees it affects.) 

types of risks: tiring or painful positions [% yes] 

·N 

types of risks: lifting or moving people or heavy loads [% yes] 

·N 

types of risks: loud noise [% yes] 

·N 

types of risks: repetitive hand or arm movements [% yes] 

·N 

types of risks: heat, cold or draught [% yes] 

·N 

types of risks: risk of accidents with machines [% yes] 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

0.7%▼ 

25.8%▲ 

38.2% 

52.7% 

50.3%▲ 

17.5%▼ 

10.7%▲ 

4.1%▼ 

40 

40,161 

37.8%▲ 

15.0%▼ 

40 

40,315 

77.2%▲ 

55.8%▼ 

40 

51.9% 

40 

40,415 

47.3% 

40,461 

55.8%▲ 

29.7%▼ 

40 

55.0% 

40 

40,461 

51.9% 

40,381 

65.4%▲ 

35.9%▼ 

40 

40,414 

69.3%▲ 

48.3%▼ 

40 

40,496 

types of risks: risk of accidents with vehicles in the course of work [% yes] 

88.0%▲ 

45.5%▼ 

·N 

types of risks: chemical or biological substances [% yes] 

·N 

types of risks: increased risk of slips, trips and falls [% yes] 

·N 

40 

39.7% 

40 

40,453 

38.0% 

40,489 

61.5%▲ 

36.2%▼ 

40 

40,448 

There  may 

also  be  health 

risks 

resulting 

from 

the  way 

work  is  organised,  from  social  relations  at  work  or  from  the  economic 

situation. Is each of the following risks present in this establishment? 

psycho-social risks: time pressure [% yes] 

·N 

psycho-social risks: poor communication or cooperation [% yes] 

75.8%▲ 

42.5%▼ 

38 

18.3% 

40,363 

16.7% 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

·N 

psycho-social risks: employees' lack of influence [% yes] 

·N 

psycho-social risks: job insecurity [% yes] 

·N 

psycho-social risks: difficult customers [% yes] 

·N 

psycho-social risks: long or irregular working hours [% yes] 

·N 

psycho-social risks: discrimination [% yes] 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

40 

6.2% 

38 

23.9% 

40 

48.1% 

40 

27.5% 

40 

2.7% 

40 

40,377 

13.4% 

40,044 

15.6% 

40,213 

57.5% 

40,369 

22.7% 

40,476 

2.2% 

40,496 

Do you regularly carry out workplace risk assessments? [% yes] 

91.8%▲ 

77.2%▼ 

·N 

IF YES: 

40 

40,130 

routinely evaluated: safety of machines [% yes] 

·N 

89.7% 

37 

[in group of establishments where risk factor is present] routinely evaluated: 

99.2% 

dangerous chemical or biological substances [% yes] 

·N 

routinely evaluated: work postures, physical working demands [% yes] 

·N 

routinely evaluated: exposure to noise, vibration, heat or cold [% yes] 

·N 

routinely evaluated: supervisor-employee relationships [% yes] 

·N 

14 

74.3% 

37 

75.7% 

37 

61.1% 

37 

routinely evaluated: organisational aspects such as work schedules [% yes] 

77.0% 

·N 

29 

Reasons for addressing health and safety: fulfilling legal obligation 

85.1% 

30,520 

90.1% 

13,026 

75.7% 

30,594 

62.9% 

30,585 

54.8% 

30,260 

66.3% 

30,535 

· Major reason 

· Minor reason 

· Not a reason 

·N 

Reasons for addressing health and safety: meeting  expectations from em-

ployees 

· Major reason 

· Minor reason 

· Not a reason 

·N 

Reasons for addressing health and safety: increasing productivity 

· Major reason 

· Minor reason 

· Not a reason 

·N 

Reasons for addressing health and safety: organisation's reputation 

· Major reason 

· Minor reason 

· Not a reason 

·N 

88.6% 

86.2% 

2.0% 

9.4% 

40 

9.2% 

4.6% 

40,169 

75.6% 

22.4% 

2.0% 

40 

79.6% 

15.2% 

5.2% 

40,097 

44.0%▼ 

64.9%▲ 

44.9%▲ 

22.0%▼ 

11.1% 

40 

13.1% 

39,898 

70.7% 

21.8% 

7.4% 

40 

77.3% 

15.2% 

7.6% 

40,295 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Reasons  for  addressing  health  and  safety:  avoiding  fines  from  the  labour 

inspectorate 

· Major reason 

· Minor reason 

· Not a reason 

·N 

Difficulties in addressing health and safety: lack of time or staff 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Difficulties in addressing health and safety: lack of money 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Difficulties in addressing health and safety: lack of awareness among staff 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Difficulties in addressing health and safety: lack of awareness among man-

agement 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Difficulties  in  addressing  health  and  safety:  lack  of  expertise  or  specialist 

support 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Difficulties in addressing health and safety: paperwork 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Difficulties in addressing health and safety: complexity of legal obligations 

· Major difficulty 

· Minor difficulty 

· Not a difficulty 

·N 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

63.9%▼ 

78.8%▲ 

18.9% 

13.7% 

17.2%▲ 

7.5%▼ 

40 

40,122 

39.4%▲ 

25.7%▼ 

12.6%▼ 

32.3%▲ 

48.0% 

40 

42.0% 

40,266 

8.0%▼ 

22.9%▲ 

25.5% 

29.4% 

66.5%▲ 

47.7%▼ 

40 

40,093 

15.0% 

49.9% 

35.1% 

40 

17.8% 

35.5% 

46.7% 

40,326 

13.0% 

12.3% 

46.1%▲ 

25.6%▼ 

40.9%▼ 

62.1%▲ 

40 

40,284 

13.1% 

34.0% 

52.9% 

40 

37.6% 

27.5% 

34.9% 

40 

46.9% 

17.4% 

35.6% 

40 

13.5% 

28.2% 

58.3% 

40,255 

29.0% 

31.5% 

39.5% 

40,234 

40.3% 

29.6% 

30.2% 

39,849 

33.8% 

13,667 

38.5% 

39,740 

In group of establishment with 20 or more employees: Do you have an action 

40.2% 

plan to prevent work-related stress? [% yes] 

·N 

Used measures for psychosocial risks: reorganisation of work [% yes] 

·N 

29 

48.5% 

38 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

Used measures for psychosocial risks: confidential counselling for employ-

23.0% 

36.7% 

ees [% yes] 

·N 

32 

Used measures for psychosocial risks: set-up of a conflict resolution proce-

27.7% 

39,715 

29.7% 

dure [% yes] 

·N 

32 

39,793 

Used  measures  for  psychosocial  risks:  intervention  if  excessively  long  or 

42.9%▲ 

26.1%▼ 

irregular hours are worked [% yes] 

·N 

40 

39,758 

[In the group of establishments that used any of these prevention measures 

89.1%▲ 

64.6%▼ 

for psychosocial risks:] Did the employees have a role in the design and set-

up of measures? [% yes] 

·N 

26 

24,109 

In group of establishments with health risks resulting from the way work is 

organised, social relations at work or the economic situation: 

Reasons making addressing PSR difficult: lack of awareness among staff [% 

25.1% 

26.2% 

yes] 

·N 

36 

Reasons making addressing PSR difficult: lack of  awareness among man-

23.2% 

agement [% yes] 

·N 

36 

Reasons  making  addressing  PSR  difficult:  lack  of  expertise  or  specialist 

25.7% 

support [% yes] 

·N 

33 

Reasons making addressing  PSR difficult: reluctance to talk openly about 

29.1% 

30,300 

17.4% 

30,519 

22.5% 

30,494 

30.3% 

the issue [% yes] 

·N 

36 

30,423 

Do you have sufficient information on how to include psychosocial risks in 

82.2%▲ 

56.4%▼ 

risk assessments? [% yes] 

·N 

29 

[If  risk  of  'Lifting  or  moving  people  or  heavy  loads'  present:]  Preventive 

90.9% 

measures for Muskuloskeletal Disorders (MSD): equipment to help with the 

lifting or moving [% yes] 

·N 

21 

[If risk of 'Repetitive hand or arm movements' present:] preventive measures 

61.2% 

for MSD: rotation of tasks to reduce repetitive movements [% yes] 

·N 

19 

Preventive measures for MSD: encouraging regular breaks for people in un-

79.0% 

38,431 

85.0% 

19,067 

56.7% 

20,731 

70.3% 

comfortable working position [% yes] 

·N 

40 

39,886 

Preventive measures for MSD: provision of ergonomic equipment [% yes] 

92.0%▲ 

73.2%▼ 

·N 

Are the health and safety representatives provided with any training during 

work time? 

· Yes 

· No 

· Yes, but only some of them 

·N 

40 

40,207 

91.0% 

82.2% 

1.7%▼ 

16.9%▲ 

7.3%▲ 

1.0%▼ 

29 

22,976 

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Rail 

All other 

sectors 

sectors 

And what about the employees themselves: On which topics does your es-

tablishment provide them with training: 

training  topics:  proper  use  and  adjustment  of  their  working  equipment  [% 

67.5% 

67.2% 

yes] 

·N 

40 

[if risk of 'Chemical or biological substances in the form of liquids, fumes or 

86.5% 

dust' present:] training topics: use of dangerous substances [% yes] 

·N 

training topics: how to prevent psychosocial risks [% yes] 

·N 

16 

34.6% 

38 

40,053 

84.2% 

15,298 

36.9% 

39,851 

[if risk of 'Lifting or moving people or heavy loads' present:] training topics: 

97.3%▲ 

79.5%▼ 

how to lift and move heavy loads [% yes] 

·N 

training topics: emergency procedures [% yes] 

·N 

Are health and safety issues regularly discussed in staff or team meetings? 

· Yes 

· No 

· In some departments only 

·N 

Rate  the  level  of  absenteeism  in  your  establishment  compared  with  other 

establishments in the sector 

· Very high 

· Quite high 

· About average 

· Quite low 

· Very low 

·N 

21 

71.4% 

40 

69.8% 

30.2% 

0% 

40 

19,068 

81.3% 

40,268 

64.5% 

34.2% 

1.3% 

40,013 

0.7% 

8.4% 

1.2% 

3.4% 

59.3%▲ 

21.7%▼ 

14.0% 

27.0% 

17.6%▼ 

46.6%▲ 

37 

39,124 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Annex 3  Results from the H2020 Skillful project 

Table A3.1  Review  of  railway  training  schemes  and  programmes  in  different  European  countries  identified  by  Skillful 

Country 

Belgium  

(2017) project 

Professional and apprenticeships18 

Academic 

Current training in the rail industry has shown ade-

SKILLFUL (2017, p.15) study identified that only 

quate opportunities for all job categories. Training 

one source of training (for research/teaching as-

opportunities oscillate around professional training 

sistant  -  at  the  operational  level)  is  available 

for most of the job positions.  

(professional training is provided by the Univer-

•  Professional  training  available:  track  inspector; 

sity of Hasselt) in academia. 

timetable planner; train crew; and signalling plan-

College education is not widespread in the Bel-

ner & signalling inspector.  

gian  railway  industry,  only  two  job  positions 

•  VET/CVET:  vehicle  design  engineer,  mainte-

have  college  education  available  (i.e.  mainte-

nance of rail vehicles; job categories of econom-

nance of rail vehicles and administrative assis-

ics and administration 

tant).  

•  Gap:  apprenticeships,  as  none  of  the  courses 

Training  opportunities  oscillate  around  univer-

classified  as  apprenticeships  were  present  in 

sity level training for most of the job positions. 

Belgium.  

Bulgaria  

The  railway  sector  in  Bulgaria  shows  significant 

The  University  of  Transport,  Sofia/Bulgaria  is 

gaps. 

the most dominant university when it comes to 

•  Professional training and apprenticeship availa-

railway education in Bulgaria. The bachelor de-

ble: track inspector, rail vehicle maintainer, train 

gree  in  railway  from  this  university  also  offers 

crew member, signalling inspector, sales assis-

the development of transferrable skills that can 

tant, and admin assistant 

be used in various job positions.  

•  GAP: VET and CVET courses not accessible in 

any work category.  

•  GAP:  lack  of  professional  training  courses  and 

apprenticeships for other jobs.  

The good news is that all of the job positions have 

degree courses. 

France  

•  Professional training: well developed system 

SNCF  has  links  with  15  universities  to  supply 

•  CET/CVET-level: well developed system. 

sufficient candidates for all technical areas.  

Germany  

•  Professional  training:  only  courses  for  the  job 

Significant gaps are identified in college levels. 

categories of track inspector, maintenance of rail 

There is a sufficient amount of university degree 

vehicles, locomotive engineer and train crew.  

courses in Germany (e.g., BSc in railway engi-

•  CET/CVET-level: 

track 

inspectors, 

timetable 

neering  (Technische  Universität  Darmstadt), 

planners, train crew members, signalling inspec-

MSc  in  railway  engineering  (TU  Darmstadt), 

tors, sales assistants and administration manag-

BSc  in  rail  and  public  urban  transport  (Tech-

ers  

nische Universität Dresden, Technische Univer-

•  Gaps: in apprenticeship levels, not present for all 

sität  Berlin)  and  MSc  in  rail  and  public  urban 

work  categories.  There  is  also  a  deficiency  in 

transport 

(Technische  Universität  Dresden, 

professional training and VET & CVET. 

Technische Universität Berlin)). There are also 

courses for the maintenance of rail vehicles, lo-

comotive  engineers,  signalling  inspectors, sale 

assistants and administrative assistants. 

18  CVET = continuing vocational education and training 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Country 

Greece  

Professional and apprenticeships18 
System does not provide comprehensive courses. 

Academic 

SKILLFUL (2017, p. 19) study found that Greece 

There  are  not  enough  courses  specializing  in  the 

only provides one university’s degree course. At 

rail industry. The courses are either very general or 

the strategic level, degree courses are available 

specialized in non-rail areas, for example, the civil 

for all the listed job categories in the study.  

engineering course. 

•  Professional level: training track inspectors and 

research/teaching assistants. 

•  No courses provided for the infrastructure plan-

ner, vehicle design engineer and timetable plan-

ner. 

Ireland  

Inhouse training: Irish Rail, who has a monopoly in 

There are no rail-oriented university degree pro-

terms  of  rail  service  provision,  train  their  drivers 

grammes  in  Ireland.  There  are  only  a  few 

and  crew  members.  This  training  is  provided  in-

courses available in some of the job categories. 

house. No targeted courses in railway engineering 

Instead, students take bachelor degrees in civil 

or operations in Ireland. Generally the people work-

engineering,  with  a  focus  on  transportation. 

ing  in  these  areas  will  have  degrees  in  civil  engi-

There  are  a  number  of  engineering  masters’ 

neering or mechanical engineering and will then be 

courses in Irish universities (University College 

trained by Irish Rail in the specifics of the job. This 

Dublin (UCD), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Na-

is similar for the jobs in rail signalling. 

tional University of Ireland Galway (NUIG) and 

University College Cork, (UCC). These courses 

may not have a focus on rail but there are mod-

ules on transportation and rail within those pro-

grammes, including geotechnical modules with 

relevance to rail. 

Italy  

Italy has a number of courses available to meet the 

Italy has a number of university courses availa-

needs of the Italian rail industry. The rail industry in 

ble to meet the needs of the Italian rail industry: 

Italy  has  very  well  developed  skills  development 

infrastructure planner, vehicle design engineer, 

opportunities.  

timetable  planner  signalling  planner,  sales  di-

•  Professional training: infrastructure planner, ve-

rector, administration manager, group manager, 

hicle design engineer, timetable planner, signal-

managing  director  vehicle's,  managing  director 

ling planner, sales director, administration man-

operations,  managing  director  signalling,  man-

ager,  group  manager;  track  inspector,  mainte-

aging  director  commercial,  managing  director 

nance  of  rail  vehicles,  train  crew,  signalling  in-

administration, dean/director. 

spector,  sales  assistant,  admin  assistant,  re-

Provided  that  these  jobs  do  have  existing 

search/teaching assistant; managing director in-

courses  or  education  opportunities,  the  rail  in-

frastructure,  managing  director  vehicle's,  man-

dustry in Italy has very well developed skills de-

aging director operations, managing director sig-

velopment  opportunities,  with  gaps  in  college 

nalling,  managing  director  commercial,  manag-

education. 

ing director administration, dean/director. 

•  VET/CVET  courses:  administration  manager, 

group  manager,  managing  director  administra-

tion, dean/director. 

•  Gaps: in apprenticeships. 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Country 

Netherlands 

Professional and apprenticeships18 
•  Professional training: training courses are being 

Academic 

Most  university  courses  are  general  in  nature, 

developed for train drivers.  

not  specific  oriented  at  needs  of  rail  organisa-

•  VET/CVET courses: trainings have been devel-

tions.  A  professorship  is  funded  at  Technical 

oped to train mechanics. 

University  of  Delft.  Some  courses  have  been 

•  GAPS:  most  trainings  do  not  supply  sufficient 

started  at  University  of  Applies  Sciences 

candidates for need of rail organisations. These 

Utrecht. At other universities courses started but 

companies need to develop own internal training 

stopped because of insufficient supply of candi-

(for example: with Railcenter). Same applies for 

dates. 

apprenticeships. 

Poland  

In Poland, the main employer of the railway indus-

For  academia,  no  courses  or  trainings  can  be 

try is Polskie Koleje Państwowe Spółka Akcyjna – 

found on any level. 

the  Polish  National  Railway  Company.  Without 

much competition, the PKP S.A. dictate the terms 

and  conditions  of  employment  and  provide  their 

employees with both ongoing and entry-level train-

ing. Details of the training methods are a company 

secret.  All  training  and  courses  on  the  strategic 

level are provided by the PKP S.A. (only at the op-

erational level). 

At the tactical management the situation from the 

strategic level changes slightly. Anyone with a rel-

evant  degree  can  become  an  infrastructure  plan-

ner, but further more precise training is provided by 

the company when hiring a prospective planner. 

There are a few companies that do their own vehi-

cle design, one of which are Pesa Bydgoszcz S.A. 

They  offer  both  professional  training  and  appren-

ticeships. In order to enrol on these courses, can-

didates  must  hold  a  relevant  education  certificate 

and/or have experience. Admittance is awarded on 

the discretion of the company. 

For  operational  level,  the  situation  is  again  domi-

nated  by  the  government-owned  company  PKP 

S.A. Most of the education available at the opera-

tional  level  is  provided  when  accepted  into  the 

company. 

In recent years, Public Railway Technical Second-

ary Schools have regained their popularity. These 

schools expand the educational offerings relevant 

to rail every year. Currently, they  provide courses 

to become a general railway technician and traffic 

controller. As well as vehicle maintenance courses. 

However, all of the courses are fairly flexible, allow-

ing graduates to look for work in other industries as 

well. 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Country 

Portugal  

Professional and apprenticeships18 
•  It  appears  that  Fernave  are  providing  training 

Academic 

The  Instituto  Superior  Técnico  (IST)  in  Lisbon 

courses for signalling planners. operational level, 

provides  at  the  tactical  and  strategic  level  rail 

IST Lisbon and Fernave are providing courses. 

orientated courses. However, it is difficult to find 

•  Inhouse training: The rail company organises in-

any information on the courses available at the 

ternal training for its employees. This process is 

IP academy online. Railway engineering course 

undisclosed  and  not  available  in  the  public  do-

are  suitable  for  infrastructure  managing  direc-

main. 

tors. 

Romania  

There are no courses available at operational man-

In Romanian railway transport, the biggest edu-

agement level. Romania has a satisfactory quantity 

cation  and  training  gaps  can  be  found  in  aca-

of  courses  available  for  tactical  and  operational 

demia. No college level education is present for 

management  levels  in  the  infrastructure  job  cate-

any  job  positions  in  the  railway industry  in  Ro-

gory. There are some gaps in the training available 

mania.  The  only  university  course  available  is 

for managing director infrastructure (only university 

for a research/teaching assistant. Furthermore, 

courses and VET/CVET are available). 

in  administration  the  only  university  courses 

available  are  at  strategic  and  tactical  manage-

ment  level.  There  are  no  administration  assis-

tant  courses  or  economics  courses.  The  only 

courses available are university courses at the 

strategic and tactical management level.  

Slovakia  

•  In-house training Slovak Railways: track inspec-

Courses for rail related jobs at the strategic level 

tors, signalling inspectors; with vocational train-

in  Slovakia  are  offered  by  The  University  of 

ing offered in Trinova, Kosice, Zoelen, Bratislava 

Zilina.  

and Martin. For train crews, there is internal train-

Gaps:  managing  administration  director  and 

ing of private railway operators and state-owned 

dean/director at the strategic level. 

railway  operators.  There  is  also  VET  offered  in 

At the tactical level the only types of education 

many cities across Slovakia. 

and  training  that  are  offered  in  Slovakia  are  at 

•  VET/CVET: all positions are provided (except for 

university 

level 

(University  of  Zilina)  and 

infrastructure  planner  and  group  manager- 

VET/CVET.  All  positions  are  provided  for  (ex-

where  the  only  courses  are  offered  by  UNIZA); 

cept  for  infrastructure  planner  and  group  man-

sales  and  administration  assistants  in  transport 

ager-  where  the  only  courses  are  offered  by 

operation  and  economics, 

logistics  and 

UNIZA). 

transport. 

For  maintenance  of  rail  vehicles  there  is  a 

•  Gap: no professional training or apprenticeships 

course  offered  by  The  University  of  Zilina  and 

at the tactical level in Slovakia. There is no regu-

there  are  apprenticeships  offered  by  Stredná 

larity  for  training  and  education  available  at  the 

odborná škola železničná(SOSZ) Kosice. 

operational level in Slovakia.  

For  the  position  of  research/teaching  assistant 

the  only  course  is  offered  by  The  University  of 

Zilina  –  PhD  Or  MSc  in transport technics  and 

technologies; and transport services. 

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Shift2Rail: CCA - Human Capital: Deliverable D3a: Final Report 

Country 

Spain  

Professional and apprenticeships18 
•  EADIC have a track maintenance and infrastruc-

Academic 

There are quite a few universities providing de-

ture  course  online.  Most  of  the  course  infor-

gree and masters courses for the rail industry in 

mation can be found online easily. 

Spain.  Courses  are  still  missing  in  the  opera-

•  Centro  Formacion  Profesionall  (XABEC)  and 

tions, economics, administration and academia 

ADIF: a course for the maintenance of rail vehi-

sector, which have room for improvement.  

cles. 

•  UPM: a master’s degree in railway infrastruc-

ture  provided  by  Universidad  Politecnica  de 

Madrid (UPM).  

•  UPV:  Universitat  Politecnica  de  Valencia 

(UPV)  is  another  university  that  provide  de-

grees  in  civil  and  territorial  engineering;  rail 

vehicles design; degree in civil and territorial 

engineering;  maintenance  of  technical  facili-

ties and infrastructures.  

•  ADIF/UNED:  Administrador  de  Infraestructu-

ras  Ferroviarias  (ADIF)  and  Universidad 

Nacional  de  Educacion  a  Distancia  (UNED): 

degree  in  engineering  and  railway  mainte-

nance services.  

ICADE-VPF  (Universidad  Pontificia  Business 

School): a masters course in port management 

& intermodal transport.  

Sweden  

Sweden seems to have significant training and ed-

Almost no courses are available at management 

ucation gaps within the railway industry.  

level.  Alongside  some  unclassified  other  types 

•  VET and CVET courses: present.  

of courses and university education for track in-

•  Inhouse training: entry-level and on-going train-

spector. 

ing courses.  

United King-

In the United Kingdom there are many available ed-

There  is  a  gap  at  college  and  university  level, 

dom 

ucational courses and training for people interested 

with just a few organisations offering courses at 

in a career in the rail industry.  

that level, i.e. Newcastle College, University of 

•  VET/CVET:  managing  director  Infrastructure  at 

Birmingham  and  Sheffield  Hallam  University. 

Network Rail.  

Courses offered at higher education for railway 

•  Professional  and  VET  and  CVET  trainings:  for 

careers are very limited in terms of professions 

tactical jobs by NewRail CPD. 

offered to graduate. 

•  Professional, apprenticeship and VET and CVET 

Gaps: no apprenticeships available; no training 

courses: at operational level college courses of-

or  courses  available  for  deans/directors  at  all. 

fered i.e. from Newcastle College; The Railway 

There are not many courses at the tactical level 

Consultancy  LTD  and  Newcastle  University 

available as well, with Newcastle University be-

Short  Courses  (CPD).  Gaps;  in  professional 

ing an exception.  

training.  

•  Gaps:  no  apprenticeships  and  VET  &  CVET 

available: vehicle designer profession; rail vehi-

cle design; at tactical level.  

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