Matthew Gee

Said the following about People Development Team People Development Team:

“I am nominating the People Development Team for this award, because quite simply, they are the best. The team look after the induction, training, development and educational needs of all personnel within GTR's Network Operations Team. This team are the control function and are spread over various locations. Primarily based at Three Bridges ROC, they look after the needs of staff outpaced at London Victoria, Kings Cross, Derby ROC and York ROC. The combined departmental team is some 130 people.

The team is led by Tim McCarthy, our People Development Manager, and Tim manages Nina Pretorius our Operations Training Manager and Danielle Burton our Training and Development Manager. Ben Cowdell is with the team as an apprentice.

They have recently introduced a completely new competence management system for our Operations and Customer Experience teams, transferring all data and upgrading from a standard to a state of the art system. This took a lot of work and dedication to seamlessly get this in place between the assessment cycles, without disruption. This was successfully achieved. This piece of work also included procuring and planning in attendance for some of the team to increase the numbers and availability of qualified A1 assessors.

Together, they are particularly successful at bringing in new starters for the control office. They have an efficient system in place that guides the new entrant every step of the way, from interview, to welcome pack, company then departmental induction, then a bespoke training plan which is developed based around their background and knowledge, and the job role they are appointed to, through the continuous assessment process (every week whilst training) and then practical learning, where the staff member is placed away from the ROC to learn about the geography or area equipment that are using or managing once passed competent.

They have great success in re-training members of the team in any areas that require it, having been alerted to it through either the assessment process or their continuous improvement work with the Network Operations Performance team, corrective action plans are created, agreed with the person and then a mentor is appointed to see the person through to successful conclusion.

The team are particularly talented at and dedicated towards bringing in new people under two schemes. GTR Network Operations brings in some 30 or more school pupils on work experience, usually for a week in duration, through the early summer period. The team also manage from end to end, the recruitment of three apprentices each year, from recruitment, to a rotational placement within each of our sub-departments for each of them, through to, as is usually the case a permanent post within Network Operations or elsewhere within the business.

Continuous briefing and training is part of their remit and to achieve this, they compile and deliver Operational Development Days that all of the Network Operations team attend. There is a new cycle every six weeks, and this day is to allow learning and development away from the normal workplace. This includes a business update from HQ, a session on safety, a session on health and wellbeing and also normally a guest speaker on a pertinent topic from the within the business or industry. The training days are really appreciated by the team members and there are often suggestions from them about topics they would like to be covered. It is no small task to find, organise and deliver 8 hours worth of content every six weeks, and present it every week for six weeks.

The team arrange health and wellbeing days at Three Bridges ROC where often experts are on hand to talk to anyone who needs it about health and wellbeing matters and these days also provides healthy lunches for those on duty.

We as a business are very lucky to have such a dedicated team in Tim, Nina and Danielle and as their manager I am fortunate and grateful to have them, they seamlessly and professionally work together and the work they do really does make a huge difference to the Network Operations team, and ultimately, GTR's customers. I could not be more proud of them and wish them every success in this award process, they truly deserve to be recognised.“