Union ire with TfL’s various arms often becomes a highly public affair, and in the face of the recession and possible job cuts, recruitment and resourcing issues are increasingly on their radar, creating the potential for conflict.

“I work with them a lot. It is really important, especially now,” Kardam told Recruiter. “Like everybody, we have areas where we have to make redundancies but at the same time we’re recruiting. If I don’t keep an open dialogue with them, they will feel very sceptical and I can understand that.”

TfL has traditionally recruited only internally for certain jobs. “We actually enjoy a really great internal mobility; there is lots of great progression. But there will be times when we have to go external,” she said.

“Two years ago, it wasn’t that much of an issue. As we had to make some redundancies, it has become their [the unions’] number one agenda [item] so what I’ve done is work with them to help them understand what I need to do,” she said.

In the face of a job crunch, she acknowledged, “the unions want things locked down a lot more…so a lot of it has involved me being the front person and having those face to face, eye to eye conversations, saying I’m willing to be held accountable. If I get it wrong, come and talk to me. And we talk very regularly now”, Kardam said. “Sometimes they are not easy conversations, but I’d rather do that and know what’s going to hit us.”

“When the market picks up, when the economy is better, when we’re in a better position, I’m sure we’ll talk to them once a year - but at the moment, it is pretty frequent,” Kardam said.

For more on Kardam, see Profile