James Kenealey

Said the following about Jane Hepburn:

“Jane Hepburn has over 25 years of experience in the rail industry across a wide variety of roles. After working as a Vital contractor onsite from 2003, she moved into recruitment resourcing before being presented with the opportunity she had always wanted within the industry – to work in the health and safety sector, where she felt she could draw on her previous experience onsite and relate to the contractors to make a real difference to the day-to-day activities of the workforce.

In 2016, Vital launched the Safety Unit. The primary reason for the production of this bespoke solution was to address the issue of delivering safety briefs to a high standard in challenging conditions and locations. The briefings were not having the desired effect required. The design, the result of four months of planning and development, was based on extensive contractor research to understand the needs of the site employees who would be benefitting from it. Not only was this innovation aimed at improving the safety behaviours and culture of our workforce but any operative on any site.

Once the Unit was launched, Jane was elected to be the Safety Unit Manager, tasked with travelling around the country delivering briefs in line with our quarterly target of 95% of the workforce, as well as coordinating its deployment strategy.

As of June 2017, 12 months after the launch, the Safety Unit has travelled almost 20,000 miles with Jane at the wheel – the equivalent of a trip from Lands’ End to John O’Groats and back 12 times – resulting in 1,244 operatives being briefed for clients such as Network Rail and Balfour Beatty. It is testament to Jane’s hard work that so many operatives have benefitted from the improved briefing conditions that the Unit provides in well over 530 individual briefs across the UK.

Jane radiates her enjoyment and enthusiasm for her role, something that is tangible to all contractors who are briefed by her. She enjoys the travelling aspect of her job and tells of stories of taking her grandchildren on days out to new places she’s discovered while in the Unit. She is a true asset to the organisation and has a real love for her job – not something you can teach. She has worked tirelessly over the last 12 months with this new vehicle, and already is developing plans for further expansion of the fleet.

Watch our short video feature on Jane and the Safety Unit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irX-kb24wbw“