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TRAINING
RAILSTAFF APRIL 2016
REPORT BY PAUL DARLINGTON
ENGINEERING WINNING YOUNG HEARTS AND MINDS
T
hree of the biggest challenges with today’s railway are attracting the right talent for tomorrow’s railway, increasing the number of female engineers and reducing the risk associated with level crossings. I recently met up with Jennifer Gilleece, Chris Uren and Peter Rock of Network Rail to hear of a scheme they are involved with that tackles all three issues. The expansion of the rail industry is well documented, along with the shortage of available engineers and talented people to build and operate the network. This requirement is growing and there are already great apprentice and graduate recruitment schemes in place, but there is a need to do more. In particular, the percentage of female engineers is still low, so this is a missed opportunity for the engineering community.
IMAGE PROBLEM The railway still has an image problem and the industry needs to get the message over to the next generation of the rewarding, interesting and exciting challenges that a career in the railway industry can provide. I was involved with graduate recruitment and mentoring in the rail industry for many years. It was not unknown for the assessment process to select great candidates, only for some to turn an offer down as they had received ‘a better opportunity’ from another industry. Financial reward was not always the issue, but the candidates simply thought a role in the rail industry was not interesting or exciting enough. We had made a good job of assessing the right candidates, but had failed to sell the rail opportunity.
SELLING THE RAILWAY Like all successful projects and plans the key is to start early and lay good foundations. It’s the same with attracting the next generation. We need to start selling the railway to young people well before they have completed their education. This is where Jennifer, Chris and Peter come in with the Engineering Development Trust (EDT) and their Engineering Education Scheme (EES). Their’s is one of the many teams who go into schools to run EES sessions. RAILSTAFF.UK | @RAILSTAFFUK | FACEBOOK.COM/RAILSTAFF
The EDT delivers over 30,000 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) experiences each year, for young people age 11-21 across the UK. The range of work related learning schemes provide opportunities for young people to enhance their technical, personal and employability skills. The schemes include: First Edition - Hands-on STEM activity days for Year 7-11 & S1-S5 (11-16 year old) students providing experiences for under-represented groups (girls, ethnic minorities etc), Go4SET Environmental themed 10 week STEM projects for Year 8/9 & S2 (12-14 year old) pupils and EES Real life 6 month STEM projects for Year 12 (16-17 year old) students.
FEMALE STUDENTS The team has experience with the Go4SET scheme and last year (2014/2015) Chris mentored a group of female students in the EES scheme which focused on solutions to the national problem of low parapet walls on existing rail over bridges, especially in areas of electrification, and compliance with the new European standards. Chris said the group had come up with some really interesting solutions.