Rail HR and skills leaders convene for the ARA Rail People and Culture Conference and the NTC’s Future Rail Skills Forum

Over three days, attendees heard from local and international voices who explored the trends, skills, strategies, and innovations occurring across the rail workforce. Several interactive panel discussions considered practical strategies and initiatives to tackle skills challenges in the Australian rail workforce.

RISSB’s Head of Learning & Development, Matt Garratt, attended both these events along with representatives from across the rail industry, made up of HR professionals, rail policy and workforce development specialists to explore how people and culture are shaping the future of the sector.

“These events defined current and immediate challenges facing the Australian rail workforce,” said Matt, “creating training accepted by rail organisations on the national network for interoperability is an important first step to harmonise skills and training to address labour shortages.”

Kristian Kolding from Oxford Economics Australia set the scene by outlining macro-economic trends based on national infrastructure investment. Growth industries including utilities, defence, mining and, to a smaller extent, data centres will drive competition for skilled workers around the country.

Carolyn Walsh and Dr Natalie Pelham unpacked national rail safety law reform and succinctly captured issues with labour mobility within rail.

“33% of rail workers have roles that spans more than one network,” explained Carolyn, “and each network has its own competency management and training expectations.”

The key challenge is to shift the view towards making decisions that are SFAIRP (so far as is reasonably practicable) consider the network rather than just the organisation, as requiring workers to learn multiple rules and behaviours introduces safety risks.