RMT's success in protecting staff's rights was confirmed when yesterday's Stations & Revenue Council meeting endorsed the outcome of the S&D forum meeting about ‘mystery shopper’ surveys - details here. The company will now send out guidelines to managers (see below). In particular, this means that survey reports should not be displayed on workplace notice boards or sent out by general email.

Please ensure that they are removed from display in your station, and that if there are any instances of reports being posted on notice boards or emailed round your group, you complain to your local management and inform your RMT Stations and Revenue Council reps.

There were two minor points:

• RMT did not agree that a survey report about an individual member of staff should be emailed to the Station Supervisor who was on duty at the time of the survey, as we believe that LUL has been pursuing a policy for several years of transferring managerial duties onto the Supervisors, a policy that we oppose. We registered our disagreement, but will not pursue it at this point as we did not want to delay the new rules about non-display of survey results being sent out to managers.
• The managers’ guidelines state that they cover Staff Information Surveys (SIS), Ticket Advice Surveys (TAS) and Gateline Integrity Testing (GIT). However, RMT reps have so far only discussed SIS in detail with management, so we reserved the right to raise further issues regarding TAS and GIT. These will be discussed at the Revenue Forum.

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Managers’ Guidance for use of Mystery Shopping Data in Stations Performance Management and Information Survey (SIS), Ticket Advice Survey (TAS) and Gateline Intergrity Testing (GIT)

How can Mystery Shopping Data be used in Performance Management?

SIS snapshots are of an individual visit.
From the dates, times and location, an individual or group of staff on duty can be identified.
The results should be shared with the member(s) of staff involved.
Positive feedback should be given where the results are good.
Developmental feedback should be given where the results can be improved, and an improvement plan instigated if necessary.
Managers should validate the data in the report before discussing it with an individual or group of individuals (e.g. was the station open at that time?)

Can Mystery Shopping Data be used to discipline staff?

NO. This would be unfair because staff are not individually targeted for mystery shopping. It is pure chance who the shopper interacts with. Some staff might get surveyed more often than others by chance.
Additionally, London Underground is bound by the Code of Conduct of the Market Research Society, which specifically says that mystery shopping data cannot be used to discipline staff.
However, a mystery shopping result may set off other intervention and monitoring activity by management, the result of which could be used in disciplinary action.

Other restrictions on use of Mystery Shopping Data

SIS snapshot reports and weekly revenue reports are not meant for general circulation or display on staff notice boards, particularly if the data contained in the reports can identify a specific individual.
This restriction does not apply to aggregated data for example, SIS scores for a period or the TAS weekly report. These reports give a general picture of the station and do not point to individuals, dates and times.
A manager may email reports to specific individuals, for example an SIS snapshot may be emailed to a particular Station Supervisor, once the manager has ascertained that they were on duty and therefore supervising the staff on duty at the time of the SIS visit. It is not appropriate to email all staff or supervisors at the station.

Staff’s right to see reports about them

If a member of staff is to be interviewed about a specific snapshot or revenue report, the member of staff should be offered a copy of the report, prior to the interview.

What to do if you or a member of staff has a query about the data or wishes to challenge it.

If a manager or member of staff has a query about the data or wishes to challenge it, the manager should contact the Service Performance Information Team.
The manager should contact the SPI Team on behalf of their staff. The staff should not contact the SPI Team directly.
The SPI Team will investigate further and reply back to the manager.