The cutting edge of caring
LNER’s Community Partnerships Manager CRAIG McNALLY tells RAIL how the operator is going the distance on promoting mental health
London North Eastern Railway is a name steeped in history. Established in 1923 as one of the ‘Big Four’ railway companies, it conjures up images of legendary locomotives such as Mallard and
Flying Scotsman setting speed records while representing the cutting edge of long-distance travel between London, North East England and Scotland on the East Coast Main Line
LNER’s modern incarnation is certainly no different, and the operator is currently introducing its futuristic Azuma fleet to increase capacity and improve reliability and journey times on all its iconic routes.
But since taking over the East Coast Inter City franchise in June 2018, LNER is looking to the future in plenty of other ways too, including how it safeguards the mental health and wellbeing of its passengers, employees and other stakeholders.
Providing much of the driving force behind this is LNER Managing Director David Horne who was instrumental in the operator’s decision to sign the Time to Change pledge in February 2019.
LNER is committed to tackling workplace stigma surrounding mental health and to encouraging employees across the business to talk about it more openly in the workplace.
LNER Community Partnerships Manager Craig McNally explains: “We wanted to show that we weren’t just paying lip service to it and that this is now firmly embedded within the culture of the business. David is a huge advocate of mental health and promoting positive wellbeing, and signing the pledge helped us to reinforce what things we have been doing internally to a wider external audience.
“We’ve always taken mental health seriously. The pledge allowed us to make a public statement to show our commitment to mental health and therefore making ourselves accountable to our customers.”
Signing the pledge was also an acknowledgement of the progress that the operator has already made to embrace employees’ mental health and wellbeing in recent years.
This includes the widespread introduction of mental health first aiders, all line managers enrolliing on mental health training courses, and the provision of wellbeing clinics and independent counselling services.
LNER’s 70 mental health first aiders have all been trained and received recognised qualifications from the two-day Mental Health First Aid England course.
They provide confidential advice and a listening ear to colleagues, but also help to signpost the various other internal and external help and resources that are available to them.
The mental health first aiders are embedded in different teams across the business and are not only available to their immediate colleagues, but have their details more widely circulated so they can also be contacted by others - who might feel more comfortable speaking with someone who isn’t an immediate colleague.
The invaluable service that these volunteers
As a society we haven’t always been very good at talking about it, but we’re now approaching it in a much more humanised way. Craig McNally, Community Partnerships Manager, LNER
provide has perhaps never felt more relevant than during the current coronavirus pandemic.
Amid the widespread disruption that has been caused to individuals’ personal and working lives, the first aiders continue to be available by telephone or online communications platforms such as Microsoft Teams to any colleagues who are struggling or need to talk.
Despite limited capacity for face-to-face meetings, the first aiders have reported an increase in contact due to the added emotional strain being posed by social distancing and other lockdown measures introduced by the Government.
Meanwhile, LNER has also worked hard to introduce a range of other initiatives to tackle the causes of poor mental health, such as feelings of isolation from those who might be homeworking and living on their own.
McNally adds: “The technology has played a massive part. Every member of staff has an iPhone loaded with Microsoft Teams and Office 365 so people can keep in touch with managers and colleagues. It’s not quite face-toface, but it’s the next best thing so people can have those conversations and that contact.
“We’ve provided the technology and people have just run with it and come up with ideas for things such as cookery classes, yoga, virtual quizzes, bingo and community cafes.
“We acted quickly to create new ways of keeping our people connected to one another in order to fill the void, as personal interaction is something that our teams really love about their daily roles at LNER. The feedback we’ve had has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s a very challenging time at the moment and having that engagement has done the world of good.”
To help keep up morale, and in recognition of the mental health benefits that volunteering provides, LNER also launched the LNER Reserves scheme in April to enable its employees to volunteer to help the NHS, emergency services, charities and other organisations.
More than 100 staff have already signed up and are making a difference in their communities by fulfilling important tasks such as distributing food and medicines.
As part of its ongoing commitment to promoting mental health and wellbeing, LNER also takes the issue of suicide prevention very seriously.
Since October 2018, the operator has been a proud partner of the CALM charity which is dedicated to preventing male suicide - the single biggest killer of men aged under 45.
Through the partnership more than 100 LNER staff have completed specialist training provided by CALM, while more than £ 200,000 has been raised by LNER and its customers to support the work of the charity.
This money has been raised partly by enabling passengers to donate Delay Repay compensation, and also from LNER staff volunteering their time to take part in fundraising events such as the Edinburgh Marathon and the Great North Run through to organised bake sales and raffles.
Last year, LNER supported the Summer of Pride LGBTQ+ celebrations by decorating stations in Pride colours and adorning one of its trains with a rainbow LNER logo and rainbow heart. CALM used the Pride events to promote the mental health support it offers and to ask for donations.
Meanwhile, other high-profile events including LNER’s Let’s Go Round Again fourday HST farewell tour in December raised further funds for CALM.
The Coronavirus pandemic has made fundraising more difficult and has reduced the numbers of passengers eligible for Delay Repay compensation, but LNER staff have volunteered more than 600 hours and the operator has just reached the impressive £ 200,000 mark in June.
McNally says: “We launched the partnership on World Mental Health Day 2018 and we were the first operator to offer customers the chance to directly donate Delay Repay compensation to charity.
“The partnership really complements all the internal initiatives we’ve been doing around mental health and suicide has always been a real issue for the railway, which we’re beginning to tackle in new and innovative ways.
“As a society, we haven’t always been very good at talking about it, but we’re now approaching it in a much more humanised way (see panel). We wanted a partnership that would reflect that in addition to our industry partnership with Samaritans, and CALM has a similarly accessible way of addressing the issues.”
LNER is continuing the tradition of the original LNER by not being afraid to innovate and break new ground in trialling new initiatives. One example includes the rollout of the mindfulness app ‘Headspace’ to all colleagues, after being piloted in the Communications team earlier in the year. This meant it could be quickly deployed to every employee to offer additional support during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Last but not least, supporting mental health is also a key aim of LNER’s £ 500,000 Customer and Community Investment Fund.
The fund provides financial support to charities in the locations served by the operator and is targeted at improving areas such as education and employability skills, diversity and inclusion, the environment and sustainable mobility.
Applications for the next round of funding will be considered later this year, and potential applicants are asked to keep checking the LNER website for further details.