Southeastern Railway launches initiative to encourage more women to opt for a career in rail.

81% of women have never even considered a career in rail. However, two thirds (70%) of female workers polled admitted they would retrain for a job that offered great benefits and security.

In order to boost the number of women in front-line roles, the company has set a target of raising the number of female applicants for train driver roles to 40% by 2021.

At present, only 4.5% of Southeastern’s drivers are female – a figure in line with national statistics. Southeastern is determined to break the perception of driving trains as a male-dominated occupation. Across the entire rail industry, just 16% of employees are female.

Southeastern has introduced initiatives including:

• Mentoring and development programmes for female employees
• Amended imagery in recruitment campaigns to reflect diversity
• Mandatory unconscious bias training for all managers
• Partnership with WorkingMums, a leading employment website, to attract applicants
• Employability programmes aimed at women, to provide help with application and interview techniques
• Recruitment Open Days specifically aimed at women
• Establishment of a women’s colleague network group – WIRE (open to all colleagues in Southeastern. Participants include women and male allies)

Ellie Burrows, Southeastern’s Train Services Director, said: “Driving a train brings responsibility, pride and achievement. It’s high time we broke the perception of the railways as a male-dominated industry. There are thousands of talented women out there who could have a rewarding career working in roles ranging from engineering to driving, on-board supervising or sales.

“Society has moved on. It’s no longer the case that little boys play with toy trains and little girls play with dolls. It’s vital that as a major transport operator, we have a workforce that reflects the diversity of our passengers.”

As well as becoming a member of a vast and dynamic team earning a generous salary, Southeastern reward staff with some impressive benefits including:

• Full Training & Nationally Recognised Qualifications
• Free Uniform
• Free Rail Travel (extending to partner and children for leisure/education)
• Final Salary Pension Scheme
• Employee Discount Scheme
• Career Development Opportunities
• Maternity/Paternity/Parental Leave

Over the coming months, Southeastern will be running a series of recruitment campaigns encouraging women and men from a wide range of backgrounds to apply for roles as drivers.

If you would like to hear more about the Train Driver Role and how to apply email [email protected]

You can also check out our Top Employer Page HERE

This case study was written and supplied by Sputheastern Rail

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