The RailStaff Awards 2024

Danny Hawkins

Network Rail High Speed

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Nominations for Award for Charity

Jennifer Becket

Said the following about Danny Hawkins:

“Danny’s management of events and stakeholder relations and extensive work with the local community this past year has been outstanding. Danny continually looks for opportunities to bring the local community and the stations together. He hosts local school visits with the BTP to teach children about safety on the railway, he invites them to sing each Christmas to raise money for charity and much more.

Danny has previously won an internal in the South East route for his commitment and hard work with the community.

Stakeholder relations

Danny has met with the Gr@nd in Gravesend (a healthy living organisation) and worked with Southeastern to put a Health and Wellbeing award scheme in place for the stations.

Danny has created and rolled out a Management Development course for staff which has now been extended to our TOCs and the course has had great attendance. He is really helping our workforce realise their potential and he gives them key skills and takeaways for their ongoing development.

Additionally, Danny works closely with the train operations and regularly does ‘back to the floor’ and ‘meet the manager’ days to discuss any concerns staff from any area may have. Danny makes sure that he is always present and ‘mucking in’ with his staff to prevent a divide between management and frontline teams. He strongly believes in the one team approach which he promotes and encourages every day. The result is a very close and supportive team at both Stratford and Ebbsfleet. The teams feel comfortable to go to Danny with problems and suggestions and have the confidence that he will do what he can to support them.

Community engagement and charity work

Danny continues to promote and develop community engagement – he is in contact with local schools and has arranged and planned several visits from classes. He has put together a programme where staff educate the children about the railway, safety and stranger danger. Thanks to his great relationship with the BTP, they have also been happy to take part. His work with the community is especially important, as we had a recent death of a young person on the tracks in the local area.

Danny always looks for ways to give back to the community and last year, he invited schools to ‘Sing Around the Tree at Christmastime’, a local school was given a tour of all the stations - they had such an enjoyable time during Christmas, they named their classes after our stations!

Danny also arranges for the Poppy Appeal to come to the station every year and do collections, Danny makes sure that he is able to personally assist on the stands each year.

Continued engagement with the community and raising money for local charities means Danny uses the great relationships he has to arrange raffles with train cab rides and tours of St Pancras Station (including the roof tour) as prizes.

Event management

Danny assisted with the planning of the World Athletics, West Ham football games and rock concerts. The increased footfall in the stations means he needs to ensure agency staff are hired for assistance and he has written and updates crowd control plans and contingencies. He also puts station contingency plans in place in case of emergency situations like a broken escalator.

All of the above speaks for itself. Danny is a key pillar in the community and within the stations team. He goes above and beyond daily, not just for his staff but for people local to the stations that are happy to engage with the great work he does.

Danny has built a lot of strong relationships both inside the station team and outside of it. Despite being very busy in his day to day job, he always finds time to help local schools or charities meaning they too are benefitting from the events he organises. His team are highly motivated, and all feel that Danny is approachable and a great manager that will always go above and beyond.“