“Letting people know what the options are”
The rail industry is limited this year in how it is able to mark International Women’s Day on March 8. But PAUL STEPHEN speaks to three of Network Rail’s bright stars to learn how the rail industry’s diversity and inclusion agenda remains as strong as eve
When William ‘Bill’ Hagland commenced his career as a driver in 1906, he did not have an abundance of female colleagues.
The rail network had been conceived, engineered and then built by men throughout the previous 80 years, while the strict social order of Victorian Britain had carried over into the 20th century to preclude women from occupying any operational roles.
Hagland went on to enjoy a successful career in which he drove illustrious East Coast express services including ‘Flying Scotsman’ and the ‘Aberdonian’. And the footplate and much else on the railways would remain an almost exclusively male-only domain until beyond the end of steam in 1968.
But fast forward to the present day and it is now Hagland’s great great granddaughter who is enjoying a career on the railways.
A station manager at London King’s Cross, Laura Murphy leads a team of more than 30 receptionists, customer service assistants and other station staff.
Although holding such a senior position will not raise any eyebrows in modern Britain, Murphy concedes that a young Bill Hagland may well have been surprised at the stark contrast between prevailing attitudes in 2021 and his own experiences.
“I didn’t really know about his railway links until I got the job as a customer service assistant 11 years ago and was shown some newspaper cuttings,” she says.
“I am told that Bill used quite colourful language, but I think he would have been quite proud of me. I don’t suppose that the chances of me being promoted to become a female station manager here at King’s Cross [in 2016] would ever have even crossed his mind, such were the times back then.”
Despite the obvious advances made in the last century to secure equal rights for women and to tackle gender discrimination, female representation has remained stubbornly low in many sections of society.
This includes the rail industry, where a recent survey revealed that just 16.4% of the total workforce are women.
As the railway’s largest employer,
Network Rail has assumed a leading role in the industry’s attempts to get to grips with this depressing statistic. Around these efforts is a much wider diversity and inclusion programme that aims to address the continued under-representation of other demographic groups, including those from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds (BAME).
By 2024, as part of its Everyone Matters strategy, NR has targets to ensure that 26% of its workforce are female (currently 17.3%) and that 13% are BAME (currently 8.51%).
Meanwhile, other targets exist to increase the percentage of leadership roles filled by women and BAME employees (to 30% and 13% respectively), and the percentage of the total workforce that are living with a disability (10%) or identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and/ or transgender (10%).
Murphy is joined on RAIL’s call by two of her customer service assistants - Olga Siduna and Chanola Lewis.
Both have worked at King’s Cross for about five years, having swapped a background in retail for what they believe to be a more motivating and fulfilling career.
In addition to her ‘day job’, Siduna is one of more than 2,000 diversity and inclusion (D&I) champions who act on behalf of Network Rail as ‘local change agents’.
This is management speak for NR employees who promote inclusive behaviour, help to encourage a culture that is more open and diverse, and challenge the organisation to be more ambitious.
D&I champions are also able to actively direct colleagues towards additional support and resources such as dedicated employee networks.
These employee-run networks exist to promote LGBT+ inclusion (Archway), bring together BAME employees (Cultural Fusion), provide support for colleagues with caring responsibilities (Myriad), create a more faithaccepting environment (Multi Faith), create greater gender diversity and help position NR as an employer of choice (Inspire), and to support anyone with a disability (CanDo).
Siduna explains: “As a D&I champion it is my role to encourage greater diversity and to signpost all of the various groups like Cultural Fusion. As a member of this group, I can tell you that it is very open, and we have really interesting group chats that bring us all together.
“We also communicate our concerns and ideas to management and take part in events such as Race Equality Week, in order to make the business better and more inclusive.”
Lewis says that she is actively looking to join one of the networks, and that she feels “very fortunate to be surrounded by such a large group of champions” like Siduna.
As of February 8, nearly 900 NR employees had joined Cultural Fusion and almost 1,250 were members of Inspire.
All three women agree that King’s Cross represents a welcoming and inclusive environment, but are also able to point to other areas of the rail sector where this does not appear to be the case.
“I wouldn’t say that there is any active discrimination, but I can imagine that lots of people will think that working in a signal box is mainly a male-orientated role,” adds Lewis.
“I’d say the same thing about trackwork, which many will automatically assume is a job for men. It’s all about image really - it might be different if we saw more women walking around in bright orange PPE [personal protection equipment].”
Siduna agrees that these traditionally male roles continue to have an image problem, but that there will be no ‘quick fix’ as “it’s an ongoing process as women slowly begin to do these roles more and more”.
Murphy adds: “It’s about showcasing what’s out there. We all come from service backgrounds and continue to do customerfacing roles, but it’s about letting people know what all the options are. There will always be more to be done in that respect.”
Much else is being done across the industry, with most of the largest employers supporting nationwide efforts to promote STEM (science, technology, maths and engineering) subjects and career choices to girls and young women.
There are also several pan-industry organisations, such as Women in Rail, which promote the rail industry as an attractive career choice for all young people.
Meanwhile, changes to recruitment practices will help ensure that vacancies are advertised and appeal to a wider cross-section of society, and that there is no unconscious bias in the selection process (see panel).
The rail industry’s participation in highprofile events should also help to change perceptions. They include International Women’s Day (on March 8) that aims to celebrate the social, economic, political and cultural achievements around the world.
Last year, LNER marked the event by running a service from Edinburgh to King’s Cross that was staffed entirely by female crew and dubbed ‘The Flying Scotswoman’.
The Coronavirus pandemic means that International Women’s Day 2021 is unlikely to pass with the same fanfare, but it nevertheless remains an important date in the calendar to celebrate all of the roles that females can have and enjoy in the rail industry.
Siduna, Lewis and Murphy are modest, and are all visibly humoured at the suggestion that they are role models. But they accept the more serious point that it is their very presence on the network which will go furthest in persuading the next generation of talent to join the industry.
Siduna says: “I do feel very strongly about this because I have a teenage daughter. It’s up to her what she decides to do, but I’d encourage her first-hand to work on the railways. I’d tell her to be motivated and not put off, because it’s a diverse business and there are jobs for everyone and anyone.”
Murphy adds: “It’s about letting people know. I’ve been here for 11 years so it can’t be all that bad, and we should be able to do anything that we want to do.
“We should be taking every chance we’ve got to talk about this, because women are just as capable as doing anything that a man can do.”