CRSA, a major UK rail employer, faced the complex challenge of not only managing fatigue and working regulations but also effectively handling contracted agency staff and efficiently distributing shifts to suppliers. This multifaceted challenge demanded a robust solution, and CRSA found their answer in Signal, a comprehensive workforce management platform.

The Challenge

CRSA's requirements were as diverse as they were critical:

• Fatigue and Working Regulations: CRSA needed a system that could efficiently manage fatigue and working regulations while ensuring compliance.
• Agency Staff Management: The ability to manage contracted agency staff and effectively distribute shifts to suppliers was essential for CRSA's operations.
• Employee Contracts: Employee contracts played a pivotal role in ensuring compliance with regulations. CRSA needed a system that could adapt to various employee regulations, including weekend work, night shifts, and minimum and maximum hours.
• Task Code Allocation: Depending on the employee type (contractor or permanent), task codes needed to be allocated based on the specific project they were working on. This allocation was critical for accurately attributing time and costs to project task codes during the digital timesheet sign-off process.

Key Solution Features

Signal's feature set addressed CRSA's diverse requirements seamlessly:

• Travel Time & Working Time: Signal calculates door-to-door travel time from workers' home locations to trackside, accommodating other accommodation addresses and hotels. Stabling points were incorporated to cater to track machine operators and drivers.
• Intelligent Shift Import: Signal learns from previous import files, enabling the rapid creation of extensive shift lists. Shifts can be imported from tables in emails or from existing systems.
• Master Vendor: Signal offers comprehensive second-tier supplier management, allowing main contractors to share shifts with agencies, and agencies to share shifts with second-tier suppliers.
• Real-Time Fatigue: Signal automatically calculates fatigue in real-time for both planned and actual hours, instantly alerting management and workers to potential concerns.
• Actual Start & Finish Times: Capture actual finish times from workers via mobile, GPS, or manual entry, and seamlessly export actual data from timesheets straight to payroll.
• Digital Timesheets on Any Device: Access timesheets on any device, complete with digital signatures, GPS stamps, and an efficient authorization process. Signal can automatically generate PDF timesheets based on any template design.

The Solution

Signal emerged as the ideal solution for CRSA, allowing them to efficiently manage employee rosters in conjunction with their fleet of machines while automatically calculating travel time and fatigue. The system enabled the swift import of shifts from project plans, ensuring quick filling while keeping worker profiles updated. Additionally, a digital timesheet solution streamlined much of the timesheet-to-payroll process, further enhancing efficiency.

Task Code Management - Signal introduced a new 'Task Code' management module into their standard product. This module enabled the assignment of task codes to the project hierarchy and employee types (contractors or permanent staff). Employees could conveniently select the relevant task code from a generated list when completing the digital timesheet process, ensuring accurate project attribution.

Enhanced Employee Contracts and Regulations - Signal extended its contract builder to accommodate even more granular employee conditions, ensuring adherence to complex regulations and contract terms.

Enhanced Automatic S30 Shift Import & S30 Export - CRSA required a streamlined way to import shifts from their S30 reports en masse. Signal introduced a new 'Quantity' option that allowed them to add additional resource quantities to the roster in a single click. Additionally, CRSA needed an efficient way to export all shifts for a given week into an 'S30 Report' distributed to various depots, a task made effortless with Signal.

Competency Management - Signal's advanced competency management module offered the flexibility to extract competencies from Sentinel or create custom competencies with dependencies and individual fatigue rules. CRSA adopted Signal as their competency management system of choice, enabling seamless workforce management, rostering, fatigue tracking, timesheet management, and reporting within a single unified system.

Conclusion

The integration of Signal into CRSA's operations not only simplified workforce management but also significantly improved efficiency, compliance, and fatigue monitoring. By leveraging Signal's diverse features, CRSA successfully met their complex rostering requirements, resulting in substantial time savings and enhanced workforce management capabilities.