The RailStaff Awards 2024

Lydia Fairman

Said the following about HR Capability Team STEGDR:

“I'm proud to lead the HR capability team and want to nominate those I have the pleasure of working with (past and present), for all their hard work, drive and determination. The team work within Early engagement and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths), to encourage young people to choose the right subjects at school, to bring them into engineering careers. With a tenacity for solving problems, nothing is too much or too hard for them to deliver. Throughout the Year of Engineering, they worked with RSSB to drive and lead an industry steering group, delivering social media campaigns, working together at the best rail Big Bang science fair we have ever seen, working with Young Rail professionals to reach influencers of young people and developing relationships with museums and educational providers. On international women's day I challenged the team to reach at least 100 girls around the week of International Women's day and they reached nearly 500 by inspiring the business to run 'my skills my life' workshops in schools and our offices. Now delivering 3 major programmes (Primary Engineer, The Robotics Challenge, The Big Bang fair and competition) for 2019-2020, among a huge number of other events and initiatives (including building a dedicated space for STEM in the Milton Keynes office), we will be able to connect our role models with thousands of children, including children in harder to reach schools who don't have the opportunity to participate in events. The team are passionately committed to increasing diversity in the railway and our business and scope out everything they do to be as inclusive as it can be, they are always willing to listen and adapt to make something work. As they work so hard, I wanted to nominate them, as I really feel they need recognition, they go above and beyond in everything they do, they never complain and never say no. Our mantra is 'you can't be what you can't see', and the commitment of the team mean young people making choices that will influence their lives for ever, will have the opportunity to see real people in rail and engineering, and know it could be them in the future.“