Published on: Thursday, 12 October 2017
Last updated: Thursday, 12 October 2017
A train driver who volunteers his time to help make the railway a safer place is among a group of Greater Anglia colleagues who were recently recognised at the RailStaff awards.
The train operator’s Learning and Development team were crowned Training Team of the year, while driver Chris Compton was a runner up in the Train Driver of the Year category and Jay Thompson, Head of Safety, Security and Sustainability, was runner up in the Rail Safety Person of the Year category.
Chris Compton was nominated for his work surrounding safety. He has worked on the railway for more than 30 years and recently volunteered at the Track Safety Alliance, where he spoke about near-misses on the railway and the impact it can have on a driver.
Jay Thompson was nominated for helping colleagues with train performance issues and going beyond the call of duty. One colleague recalled an incident where the signalling system failed at Shenfield and Jay stepped in to help while on his way home from work. He was not on call but he stayed at the station until midnight to help passengers get home and offer support to the station team.
The Learning and Development team has helped to improve staff retention rates, provide coaching for colleagues and run the company’s GROW programme, which seeks to nurture talent. The team, which is based at Greater Anglia’s Stratford Academy, has also organised learning seminars and held safety awareness days.
Jamie Burles, Greater Anglia’s Managing Director, said: “We are very proud of our colleagues who were recognised at the RailStaff awards.
“Every day our teams work hard to make life a little easier for our customers and we are very pleased that their efforts have been rewarded. A lot of work happens behind the scenes to enable us to run a good train service, and we are thrilled that our Learning and Development Team were recognised at the ceremony.”
Learning and development was recorded as one of the top three most improved areas in the most recent Greater Anglia annual opinion survey results and a top two organisational strength with an increase of 7%. Working as a team, they recently took on a number of development coordination tasks and activities for a new talent programme.
Nineteen people from Greater Anglia were finalists at the event, which took place in Coventry on Saturday 7 October.