Barrie Fulker - **HAS LEFT**

Said the following about Siemens Rail Automation Training and Capability Team Training Team:

“The Siemens Rail Automation Training and Capability management team are at the heart of our Company’s success, ensuring that we have the right numbers of people with the right skills, competences and training to deliver ground-breaking, complex and high profile railway signalling and control projects in close cooperation with our clients.

Why nominate this team for this award – Because they are a team of just 5 dedicated professionals all committed to the development of others in a continuously changing and challenging environment. The Siemens Rail Automation (SRA) Capability team has the responsibility to ensure that our people, who all work in the railway signalling and train control industry, do so in a safe and competent manner. It is vital that the engineers across our teams – from R&D through to installation and maintenance - are safe, competent and skilled in what they do. What they do affects the lives of many others.

This team is committed to the company’s employees and customers to support them in being able to demonstrate that they have the skills and training that they need to do their job. The team do this by providing a service which manages and delivers a comprehensive portfolio of training and development programmes and events.

With some 1600 employees in the UK SRA delivers projects to a wide range of customers and partners. Within this technologically continually changing environment these 5 team members need to be ahead of the game and proactive in identifying and providing training and development solutions.

The development of the company’s apprentices and graduates is a priority for the team. Over the last three years, the company has recruited a total of 123 apprentices and graduates onto our programme. This is particularly important recognising the demographic of the industry and the changing technology that is being adopted. The development of apprentices and graduates offers mitigation of this whilst at the same time providing developing engineers with competences and licences that will be transferable within the rail industry and help in their own personal careers. The programmes have been a real success that can be demonstrated by the retention rate which is currently 98% over the 3 years.

What does the team bring to the table? Colin, Barrie and Andy all have an engineering and management background having served an apprenticeship themselves. All are trainers in their own right. Colin and Andy are from the rail industry and Barrie is from the defence industry. The team also has two co-ordinators, Nicolette and Gail, who deliver excellent customer service and co-ordination skills needed to deliver such a diverse and detailed plan. Gail manages the co-ordination of the diverse technical training plan and Nicolette manages the Track Safety programme. Andy is the programme manager and assessor for the apprentice programme with 70 participants and Barrie does the same for the graduate programme which has 55 participants.

The apprentice and graduate programmes have been accredited by the professional bodies the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Institution of Mechanical Engineering which is a credit to all the apprentices and graduates on the programme and the capability team. Colin, the team leader, specialises in the development of the technical training solutions working with specialists and customers across the board.

Together, as one, the team provides credibility and assurance for customers and employees. The team all act as leaders in their own right specialising in different aspects of the team’s diverse portfolio.“