Barry Love

Said the following about Nick Chadwick:

“I had the pleasure of having Nick as my manager for just over a year at Virgin Trains and he impressed me hugely. He is an excellent example of a visionary contemporary leader within our industry and should be celebrated. During the brief time I spent there, Nick successfully developed and managed the very first Train Driver Apprenticeship programme in the UK which has received recognition in the UK and globally. He has also implemented, (in partnership with the OPC) cutting-edge post incident diagnostic, investigation and support for train drivers - based on safety behaviours or non-technical skills (NTS). This is unlike what any other TOC in the UK and Ireland has done and, similar to the apprenticeship programme, I believe he has set the benchmark for our industry and for train drivers going forward. At NI Railways we wish to incorporate both of these successful train driver programmes in the near future as I believe they are industry best-practice.

Nick has a friendly, approachable and collaborative approach to how he works with people and I have never known a senior manager within the train driving function to have so much respect from his management team and team of drivers. He works effectively with ASLEF and other internal stakeholders to make positive change happen. The first ever 2 year train driver apprenticeship programme that his team launched in partnership with ASLEF has received praise from not just within drivers at Virgin but within rail industry press and across Europe and Australia in particular. The programme is dynamic and exciting - giving 3 young people the opportunity to train as a driver after a year spent getting to know every other part of the business as well as spending time at Network Rail, the airline industry and hopefully Virgin Galactic this summer! They are on-track to be well-rounded professional 21st century train drivers…

NTS is still in its infancy in our industry but Virgin Trains, under Nick's guidance, have placed huge focus on developing driver NTS skills after they experience an operational incident/accident. Most TOCs have attempted to integrate NTS into their respective Competency Management System (CMS) and basic driver training and fail to up-skill management or provide staff with effective NTS techniques. But Nick's approach is to work top-down ; getting all management levels highly skilled first. This means giving them the relevant professional tools and training (in partnership with the OPC) to identify NTS that were lacking in incidents and to work alongside drivers to embed NTS tools and techniques to help keep them safe in the future. There is a tangible link between the small group of ‘problematic’ drivers who have received development and support with their NTS and a reduction in operational incidents.

Nick is also a huge advocate of using new internal communications and reward strategies to effectively engage his team. Train Drivers are a unique bunch to say the least! In any TOC they are usually the most disenfranchised and disengaged. This was not the case at Virgin Trains. Nick developed several Driver-related groups within ‘Yammer’ (Virgin Train’s award winning internal comms platform). Within these groups, drivers could submit ideas for improvement or take part in discussions with their peers or other parts of the business on issues relating to safety or HR initiatives. Yammer had just launched when I arrived at Virgin but within a year nearly half of the drivers signed up to the various yammer groups – a feat thought impossible as driver’s dismissed it as being too ‘fluffy’. One thing that helped drivers sign up was Nick’s commitment to ensuring Drivers were recognised internally and rewarded for excellent performance. Driver retirements, birthdays and even special family occasions were all made highly visible for all to see and enjoy. If Drivers performed well they were rewarded with ‘Red Creds’ – points that could be exchanged for gifts. This reward system had already been in use throughout functions of the business. But before Nick took up the role of Head of Drivers, there was very little attempt to have drivers engaged with it. He worked with his Driver Management team to come up with a set of reward criteria for drivers and rolled it out across the business. For example, if a driver performed exemplarily well during a simulator assessment, I could reward them with ‘Red Creds’ and share it on Yammer. Interestingly, since this was introduced, we experienced a 300% increase in the number of Drivers (within a year) who had a perfect simulated assessment performance.

I feel that most of the positive cultural changes that Driver Managers make within our industry are often over-shadowed by engineering, ticketing, branding or customer service initiatives. In my opinion and that of many within the driver team at Virgin, Nick is an unsung hero. He believes in adopting contemporary methods to improve driver recruitment, performance and engagement. I could nominate him on the first ever launch of a Driver Apprenticeship programme alone. But he has initiated a positive cultural change across all aspects of train driving at Virgin. Undoubtedly, his visionary approach should be transferred across the rail industry as a whole.“