Lynn Norbury

Said the following about Natasha Wilding:

“In August 2014 a re-organisation of the stations team at Northern Rail was implemented seeing all the stations in the Northern Network come together under one consistent form of direction. Natasha was appointed to the role of Head of Stations and since, she has successfully led a team of 33 Managers and 14 clerical staff to produce a one team approach to enhancing the customer experience that we provide at our 464 stations across the North of England.

Natasha is a joy to work for. We all appreciate her rational, consistent style of management which inevitably gets results. We have all learnt a lot from Natasha whether it be behavioural skills, leadership methods, attention to detail or generally just the importance of taking time to stop and think about situations to ensure that the best results are achieved both for our customers and for the 900 staff members for which she is ultimately responsible for.

Working her way up from on board catering staff to where she is today as Head of Stations Natasha has obtained a wealth of knowledge and respect across all areas of the business and other TOCs from her years of dedication to the rail industry. Her unique level-headedness, compassion, and management skills are to name but a few of her astounding qualities however, most astonishing for me is the way in which Natasha handles any situation to which she is faced. No matter how challenging the end results are always positive, timely, accurate and fair. Natasha consistently remains cool, assesses the situation and provides clear and understandable guidance with a positive spin. No matter how disappointed she must sometimes be inside, this can never be detected. She is considerate to the feelings of the people around her and has an exclusive knack of reading people and getting the best out of them.

Another of Natasha’s skills which she has been learning and actively delivering over the past 12 months alongside embedding the changes to the stations team is that of being a Coach. Her patient and balanced approach is gradually being shared amongst other managers in the business with whom she has dedicated regular 1 – 1 time. Techniques from what Natasha has learnt from the Coaching course are also skilfully and mainly covertly conveyed at team meetings from which Natasha gleans great satisfaction as she notes the positive effects that exercising her new expertise is having.

I firmly believe that the business has changed for the better since the implementation of Natasha as Head of Stations and I can personally see positivity being nurtured as the former two areas become one. This is particularly evident at our quarterly station team events where we join together as one ‘big happy family’ to create a fun scene in which to breed positive results such as the new innovation of the Station Management Charter which is soon to be cascaded. Feedback from this productive event was that such results are created from the environment where it ‘feels like we are at a family wedding’. I’m sure you will agree that this is a relaxed and effective way in which to develop our ambition of running “A Railway the North can be proud of”.

Natasha is an inspiring genuine lady who is extremely modest about her qualities and achievements and recognition from this award would really go a long way into showing Natasha how appreciated and refreshingly extraordinary she really is.“