Anthony Harmes

Said the following about Learning and Development Team:

“Western Route’s bespoke Learning and Development Team have made shock waves throughout the route and beyond. Since evolving from the Teams Improving Maintenance project, they have designed and delivered in collaboration with our HR team, the new Great People Manager Course to over 200 people and counting. This training has become not only the flagship leadership course for Western but has echoed to other routes resulting in the delivery of 5 courses to LNE and 1 course to Scotland. This is testament to the team’s success, passion and drive to help support our Strategic Priority of Great People Great Culture. Feedback from this programme continues to be outstanding with countless colleagues stating that this has been the most effective and enjoyable training they have received throughout their career.

As well as leadership training, they have delivered a combined amount of over 450 hours of 1-1 coaching to colleagues form all levels of the business. The team have become one of the only in-house people development teams in our organisation currently and have therefore evolved into an integral and dependable asset to our people and culture.

They have helped deliver the Route induction programme for new starters, apprentices and graduates, contributed to the provision of Everyone Learning training to over 2000 people and are even pivotal to our bi-annual NR/GWR Alliance conference with their inspirational and motivating facilitation skills, demonstrating their ability to work with the most senior staff in our part of the business and helping to deepen and strengthen the alliance with our main Train Operating Company.

During the most recent of these events they brought together many guest speakers from other areas of the industry to help us learn from experience and enhance our positive and determined approach to the December Timetable change, focusing on the specific outcome of truly Delighting our Customers.

Another significant milestone is the implementation of the Mental Health First Aid programme, in which they have trained over 150 staff, improving our approach and behaviours regarding mental health and creating the environment where mental health is a very normal part of our everyday conversations. This programme has again been echoed further around the business and is seen as the benchmark for others to follow. Other programmes include Injury Awareness and Prevention – helping to minimise physical injuries for our frontline staff, Safe Driver Coaching – focusing on the behavioural side to improving driver safety and finally the design of a new People Development Programme aimed at bringing our Operations and Maintenance staff closer together.

All this has been achieved by no more than 5 extremely driven, passionate and dedicated staff whose aim is simply to help our people. Our success as a company is dependent on our individuals and teams to be motivated, capable and resilient every day, and our own Learning and Development Team have significantly enhanced our efforts to make Western Route a great place to work.

Their key achievements at a glance:

- Great People Manager – Approx. 200 Managers trained (by Nov 2019)

- Great People Manager (Other Routes) – Delivered 5 GPM Courses to LNE and one course planned for Scotland

- Everyone Learning – 2000 People trained to date

- Mental Health First Aid – 140 Mental Health First Aiders Trained this year (as at Sept 2019)

- Mental Health First Aid for Great Western Railway – Approx. 28 GWR Staff trained as Mental Health First Aiders Trained this year (as at Sept 2019)

- Individual Coaching – 453 Hours of coaching delivered so far this year

- Graduate Induction – 1st Graduate Specific induction delivered in September

- New Starter Induction – Collaboration with HR to facilitate 4 Inductions this year

- Apprentice Induction – 1st Apprentice specific Induction delivered in early 2019 with 32 apprentices

- Alliance Leadership Forum – Facilitated and helped deliver 2 Alliance Leadership Events with approx... 150 people at each event

- Asset Management Conference – 2 Asset Management Conferences facilitated with approx.. 120 people each time

- Advanced Driver Coaching – Attended Advanced Driver Training Course to allow the provision of Safe Driver Coaching for the Route / Region

- Injury Awareness & Prevention – Trailed and 4 sessions ran so far this year

- Mental Health Programme nominated for National Rail Awards

- Apprentice Induction Programme nominated for an award“