The McLeod Rail Way

The McLeod Rail Way

In Melbourne where trains are 98% reliable, you would be forgiven to assume that they simply run on-time by default or that railway infrastructure rarely needs any heavy maintenance.

As Management Consultants to McLeod Rail, one of the top players in the railway infrastructure space, we can testify that the reality could not be further from the truth.

High Pressure, High Stakes

Daily track works are the overwhelming norm, not the exception. Stretches of railroad are constantly needing repair and maintenance, often during rush hour, and almost always with ultra-tight deadlines for the crews.

Deploying machinery and appropriately skilled workers across distant sites, managing multiple maintenance issues on short notice can be a challenge for a company working in any industry. But in the railway industry especially, the risks are exceptionally high, both for the workers on site and the commuters.

Coordinating these complex operations so that they run like clock-work is only beginning. The critical components on these jobs are Quality and Safety. Anything less than doing the perfect job safely could cost hundreds of lives – both of the commuters and the workers.

McLeod Rail operates in this hostile space with grace. Since being acquired in 2009, McLeod rail has implemented and evolved Quality and Safety Management Systems to ensure the highest standards are met in the face of dramatic industry changes.

While we are proud to be partners in McLeod Rail’s success, today we want to celebrate the other ways in which this organisation is exceptional.

Going Beyond Systems

A Quality and Safety System’s efficacy can be augmented when implemented in the right environment. While helping the trains run on time is a stellar achievement in itself, McLeod’s greater success has been evolving the culture of the company against the industry norms.

Traditionally, the railways industry has been male-dominated and afflicted with cultural vestiges of a different age. Where some companies have struggled to shake the old mindsets, the management has upgraded McLeod Rail and set it up to ride into a more progressive age.

For starters, McLeod Rail is a wonderfully diverse company – but not intentionally. The goal was always to look past the external and hone into the core ability and competence of the potential hires. On this count McLeod Rail is un-disappointingly homogeneous.

Trust Inspires Capacity, Not The Other Way Around

A career through McLeod Rail is wonderfully predictable for the genuine worker. Many of the current staff began by pushing a broom around. They show up on time, sweep with gusto and soon find themselves with multiple technical qualifications including safe-working tickets and licenses to operate various heavy-machinery.

Rather than hiring the perfectly qualified employee, McLeod grooms one. Rather than pigeonholing staff into set roles, McLeod invests in their ‘organic’ development. Never mind the great confidence and empowerment the staff feel as they work for McLeod, the strategy serves the company just as well. McLeod often only needs to deploy a small team on a job because between a few employees they have enough skills and qualifications to get it all done.
As though these hiring approaches were not risky enough, McLeod Rail’s HR policies do get even more left-of-field.

Keeping an Eye on the Positives

McLeod Rail keeps in their employment a 70-year old man for the jobs that he CAN do. They see plenty of life left in him.

Where other companies may offer well-meaning donations to charitable organisations at an arm’s length, McLeod Rail has consciously employed individuals with special needs and an injured ex-military veteran because of their capacity to add value to the company.

The critical take-home from the above is not that McLeod Rail makes warm, fuzzy, ‘feminine’ HR decisions. Far from being clouded by emotionalism, its management is able to see through the smoke-screen of outward appearances and finds core value where other companies would not look twice.
And the smart HR decisions keep adding up…

The Groovy Train Rolls On

One of McLeod’s most recent hires is Steve Cook, a GM who leads by example, regularly putting his boots in the mud to work the tracks with his team.
Sitting around the McLeod Rail table at 6.30am for coffee mornings, listening to the stories of how the friendships are blossoming outside work at fishing holidays and biking trips, watching this diverse team in action on the field, it becomes impossible to ignore the thought dawning in my mind – perhaps this partly why the trains in Melbourne are 98% reliable and 92% on-time.

PQMC is proud to serve this incredible team and play a small part in the railway industry.