Alison Maher

Said the following about Richard Green:

“Richard’s rule for himself is to ask “Is this my best piece of work?” He’s never one to say “it’ll do!” He strives to deliver his work to the highest of standards be it a one-to-one coaching session, a workshop or simply being supportive to a colleague.

Richard, a GWR Management Development Trainer, has taken the lead in the delivery of Be Safe training in GWR. Being mindful of existing knowledge within GWR and the challenges of release, he worked collaboratively with Angela Prescott, GWR Head of Safety, senior stakeholders across FirstGroup and his management development colleagues to design a relevant, interactive and enjoyable 1-day workshop for all managers and supervisors in GWR.

He has worked tirelessly on the design and delivery of Unconscious Bias training and wellbeing initiatives (Mental Health Awareness and Alcohol and Drugs) for managers. Topics that many would shy away from, Richard rose to the challenge of researching best practice, seeking input from subject matter experts and translated the key themes into interactive, thought-provoking and supportive workshops. These workshops have been very positively received by our managers.

He always makes time to support colleagues who are planning conferences. At both the most recent Leadership Conference and HR Conferences he has offered ideas and suggestions on design to ensure the events are as engaging as possible, also stepping in to help facilitate when needed.

It’s not only at ‘big events’ at which Richard excels.

Despite many demands on his time, Richard fulfils his coaching and mentoring commitments with purpose and passion. He has provided one-to-one support at all levels in GWR, helping individuals to prepare for interview or to tackle a challenging work situation - helping them to be the best they can be.

He made the courageous move from Operational Manager to Management Development Trainer 4 years ago and since then has been relentless in his drive to establish himself as a credible learning professional.

He has been curious to develop and then share new concepts and approaches which will improve the training impact of the team, and the training experience of the learners. In turn, this makes for far more engaging, and therefore effective, learning experiences. Richard has worked hard to gain his CIPD qualification, and has just embarked on the ILM coaching award, focussed on his desire to grow his knowledge and develop his skills for the benefit of others within not only GWR, but also with Group.

Richard is supportive - in the words of Richard’s colleague, Susan Linaker “he is a great person always there when I need to run things by him and to support both myself and Alex. He taught us a lot about the railway when we joined GWR and still does. He is passionate about training and this shines through when he is delivering (he has a cheeky sense of humour too!)

He has a great work ethic and is always looking to refresh and enhance the quality and effectiveness of training events. He is also keen to demonstrate the benefits to the business of learning and development events and when working with customers across GWR he encourages them to articulate the successful outcomes they’re expecting to achieve which in turn provides data to measure the effectiveness of the solution.

Richard is committed to all our customers - Richard is only too aware that his role in developing managers and colleagues (his direct customers) enables them, in turn, to deliver the best customer experiences to our fare-paying customers. In addition, whilst travelling on the network, he’s always quick to volunteer to ‘host’ onboard when there’s a shortage of crew.

He is dedicated to Safety – He has exemplified this through his work on the design and delivery of the Be Safe Training programme for GWR managers and supervisors. Feedback on Richard’s delivery of the course has been nothing but complimentary. He has also sought to gain a deeper understanding of safety within GWR to allow him to deliver this important behavioural change programme to the best of his abilities.

And, it’s not just me who thinks this – here’s some feedback from others!

1. Delivery of Unconscious Bias Training to the Executive Team - “I just wanted to say thank you again for this morning. You did a brilliant job, going through the material with finesse, and delivering with credibility and impact. The materials were really good, and you managed challenge really well.

Having experienced a number of different versions of unconscious bias training sessions, I thought this was really good, and on a par with the one delivered by a Professor of Psychology!” Ruth Busby HR Director

“Richard should be really proud of himself as he was able to deliver it with such confidence. He knew his stuff, managed the room really well, finished dead on time and brought his railway knowledge into the room artfully to give real credibility. An absolutely brilliant job.” Tracey Coleman, Head of Learning and Development

2. Support to Occupational Health and Wellbeing - “Richard is an enthusiastic and passionate advocate for all the wellbeing initiatives and has been instrumental in developing the mental health and drug and alcohol awareness policies, not only that but he keeps up to date with the latest initiatives in these areas and shares this information with people in the business who are interested. His training delivery is very calm and relaxed, and he always creates the right ambience for his audience.” Barbara Davenport, Head of Occupational Health and Wellbeing

3. Support to Head of Safety - “Richard has done an amazing job on pulling together the Be Safe training for GWR. He has spent time understanding the programme and then thinking about how to make it work for our business. Feedback received from the few courses we have run has been good, colleagues have enjoyed debating safe behaviours and undertaking the role play part of the programme. Richard works really hard to engage with everyone which is a key to his success.” Angela Prescott, Head of Safety

4. Richard’s mentor - “It is a delight and a privilege to have been mentoring Richard for the last 12 months. An individual who constantly seeks ways to learn and to improve himself, Richard proactively asked for mentoring support, and has since been relentless in his thirst to learn and has been hungry to transfer his learning to improve and benefit his peers, as well as to inform his training design and delivery for the GWR management population that he is responsible for.

As a mentor, my biggest challenge with Richard is slowing him down long enough to reflect and celebrate his many successes, he always has his eye on the next solution, the next challenge to solve. I have found mentoring Richard incredibly satisfying and learn from every session we spend together.” Sarah DeBrion, t4c“