Published on: Wednesday, 23 May 2018
Last updated: Thursday, 31 May 2018
Greater Anglia is developing a new uniform for its employees with acclaimed multi-disciplinary designers HemingwayDesign, led by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway, and using employee feedback to shape the final design.
HemingwayDesign will be working with industry leaders Cooneen Group, who together have a wealth of experience and created the award-winning and highly popular London Underground uniform for Transport for London.
A uniform is worn by over 2500 Greater Anglia’s frontline employees - including the drivers, catering, train presentation, ticket office, train dispatch, conductors, revenue protection and gateline teams.
To start the process, staff gave feedback about their current uniform and their aspirations for what they want from the clothes they wear to work.
The first designs have now been shown to staff, who have been asked to share their thoughts on the proposals, which include a dress and maternity wear for women.
Wayne Hemingway, founder of Red or Dead, said: “HemingwayDesign and Cooneen know from long experience that great design results from listening to the end users, and so our team always gets out from behind our desks and works with the people we are designing for.
“It means we understand what people want. We don’t work from Ivory Towers, we do it from the shop floor.
“We have been to 12 stations and met hundreds of members of staff. We have had a fantastic response from people - so far we have had over 750 responses to our questions and the first ideas that we have presented.
“We are co-designing it with anyone from the Greater Anglia team who wants to get involved and every design is open to being evolved It makes it easy working with such a positive workforce – everybody is genuinely excited about the new trains.”
This autumn, 20 members of staff from different departments across Greater Anglia will also take part in a trial where they test the new uniform for six weeks.
Eva Ndoni, Greater Anglia’s Uniform Coordinator, said: “Every member of staff who wears a uniform will be issued with a brand new one next year. We are spending £1.4bn transforming the railway in East Anglia and the new uniform will contribute to that transformation.
“Our new uniform will provide colleagues with practical, comfortable work clothing that they can be proud to wear.
“It was very important that colleagues were involved from the start - we wanted them to tell us what they think about current uniform and how can we make it better. The design will be inspired by the feedback that was received during the feedback sessions and online surveys.”
The new uniform is part of Greater Anglia’s transformation plan, which will see every single train replaced with a brand new one.