WOMEN IN RAIL AWARDS 2020 WINNERS
Bombardier Transportation
Best Apprenticeship Scheme Award
Bombardier Transportation
Winner
Bombardier has developed a scheme specifically targeted at attracting women into rail. It is demonstrating a genuine commitment to developing its female talent, improving the career progression of its apprentices and to increasing both staff diversity and employee retention.
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Rail Delivery Group
Best Graduate Programme Award
Rail Delivery Group
Winner
RDG has developed a comprehensive Programme where graduates are given the chance to experience many parts of the industry, thus exposing them to the wide range of engineering roles available in our sector. Given its cross-industry focus, and the age profile time bomb of engineers who will exit our industry in the years to come, the Programme cleverly addresses a real issue in rail.
Sponsored by
Costain Skanska Legacy Team
Social Inclusion Award
Costain Skanska Legacy Team
Winner
Costain Skanska joint venture has demonstrated a strong commitment and a pro-active mindset to social inclusion and developed innovative ways to reach out to local communities which success was supported by tangible evidence.
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Southeastern Railway
Top Employer Award
Southeastern Railway
Winner
The Judges felt that Southeastern demonstrated a real drive to improve gender balance, diversity and inclusion in UK rail and offered solid evidence of tangible results being achieved. Their first “all-female train” for International Women’s Day was an impressive idea and it was good to see this TOC, which is often under the radar, rewarded for its commitment and impressive results, not least achieving 25% women drivers in a subset of our industry which is too male-dominated.
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Rachel Halliday, Apprentice Station Manager, GTR
Female Apprentice of the Year Award
Rachel Halliday, Apprentice Station Manager, GTR
Winner
Judges were impressed by Rachel’s rate of progress and the amazing testimonials from long-serving (and no doubt mostly older) staff that she now manages. This must have been very hard to achieve and is a testament to both her strong technical and interpersonal skills as her commitment to tasks and personal touch have obviously mattered to the team. Rachel is a very impressive young woman.
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Vanessa Jasmine Burton, Assistant Civil Engineer, Mott Macdonald
Rising Star of the Year Award
Vanessa Jasmine Burton, Assistant Civil Engineer, Mott Macdonald
Winner
The Judges found Vanessa’s nomination very powerful. There was a tremendous amount of positive comments around her personality and nurturing approach, as well as many solid examples of tangible technical delivery.
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Emma Dymond, Chief Executive Officer, Motion Rail
Inspirational Woman of the Year Award
Emma Dymond, Chief Executive Officer, Motion Rail
Winner
The Judges were impressed by Emma’s amazing achievements in compelling circumstances, her infectious energy and her determination to support the development of others around her. There was solid evidence of her being a role model to many and her contribution to improving gender balance, equality, diversity and inclusion in UK rail was undisputable.
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Simon Gallagher, Commercial Director, Volkerrail
Inspirational Man of the Year Award
Simon Gallagher, Commercial Director, Volkerrail
Winner
Judges were struck not just by the actions and results in his current senior leadership role, but the actions he has taken across his entire career. Whilst awareness today would mean that we would, to some extent, expect people at this level to take such actions, it is clearly something embedded in him and earlier in his career, these would have been particularly bold steps to take.
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Paul Plummer, Chief Executive Officer, Rail Delivery Group
The Women in Rail Award
Paul Plummer, Chief Executive Officer, Rail Delivery Group
Winner
Throughout his time at RDG, Paul Plummer has been a strong supporter of Women in Rail and indeed of creating a truly diverse workforce across the industry. He has spoken at Women in Rail events and regularly voiced the need to improve gender balance, diversity and inclusion in UK rail as well as ensuring that women are promoted within his own organisations. Paul has endorsed the Women in Rail Mentoring Programme, which has received tremendous feedback from both mentors and mentees and was instrumental in ensuring that the charity obtained the support from over 20 of its members, TOCs and FOCs, securing £40,000 in funding, which has been vital in ensuring that Women in Rail can continue to thrive regionally as well as at a national level.
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HIGHLY COMMENDED
The Parc Prison Collaboration Project
Social Inclusion Award
The Parc Prison Collaboration Project
Highly Commended
The Parc Prison Collaboration Project is enabling some of society’s most disaffected and excluded individuals to turn their lives around. Parc Junction, a dedicated rail training facility within Parc Prison, has been gifted appropriate track materials to enable it to deliver comprehensive, industry-ready training. NGage Group has guaranteed a work placement to all successful course graduates on their release.
The first courses began in October 2019 with the aim of providing the industry, struggling with a skills shortage, with 48 entry-level trained individuals every year.
One Parc trainee commented: “This will stop me from re-o ending, it’s as simple as that.”
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HIGHLY COMMENDED
AEGIS Engineering Systems (AES) Limited
Top Employer Award
AEGIS Engineering Systems (AES) Limited
Highly Commended
Despite rapid growth AEGIS is proud to have kept to its core values which start with “We value difference and diversity”.
It has established a culture centred on its people, which is flexible, open and supportive. Everyone is treated equally in accordance with their individual strengths and merits, not their gender, age or ethnicity. A 2018 re-organisation saw AEGIS focusing on people development and team engagement, strongly committed to a better family and work balance which has delivered benefits for all employees. AEGIS ensures women engineers are promoted within the company, avoiding the ‘glass ceiling’ criticisms that others have faced.
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HIGHLY COMMENDED
Gemma Andrews, Design Manager, SCS Railways
Rising Star of the Year Award
Gemma Andrews, Design Manager, SCS Railways
Highly Commended
Shocked at the non-inclusive behaviour that she encountered on joining the rail industry, Gemma became a passionate advocate for change.
She established an employee-led community – the FAIR (Female Advocates in Infrastructure and Rail) Network – which provides a supportive platform for staff working on HS2 to voice issues and to influence change in attitudes and behaviours. Gemma is working within the industry to make it a better place to work, she loves working with young people and is an active STEM ambassador; she supports events such as ‘InspireMe’ conferences and Women in Work All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meetings.
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HIGHLY COMMENDED
Heather Waugh, Train Driver, Freightliner
Inspirational Woman of the Year Award
Heather Waugh, Train Driver, Freightliner
Highly Commended
Having joined Freightliner in 2019 as an Intermodal Train Driver, Heather has actively worked to promote the company, the rail industry and rail freight.
The only female freight train driver in Scotland, Heather has single-handedly challenged the myths surrounding freight train driving, worked to encourage more women into the industry and volunteered to be a mentor for new drivers. She has taken part in a video project to recruit drivers, written a blog post and been interviewed for editorials about diversity and recruitment. On social media Heather champions women in rail and the importance of togetherness across the industry.
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