Colas Rail UK are pleased to announce that our Future Leaders Programme (FLP) and CARL App have been short listed for the (UK) National Rail Awards 2017. We have entered the following categories:

Sustainable Development Award

The sustainable talent strategy at Colas Rail for the last 8 years has been to develop Key Talent Programmes at all levels to ensure we create and build in-house talent to deliver a sustainable business for the future. Our entry focused on developing and investing in leaders of the future through our FLP which allows us to build our own talent and develop them on fast track graduate schemes resulting in loyal and passionate employees who deliver brilliantly for our customers.

We currently have:

• Over 150 trainees, graduates and staff being strategically upskilled which makes up around 10% of our workforce.
• 22 graduates who have completed the FLP in management and leadership roles who make up 25% of our overall management team
• 18 graduates currently in the scheme with a further 16 taken on so far this year

Ondrej Roubicek, Senior Vice-President (Infrastructure Division), adds: “Having recognised the vast skills gap in the rail industry, Colas Rail has invested heavily in recruiting and developing home-grown talent through our Future Leaders Programme. It is tough being a manager at Colas Rail, but it is these great managers and leaders which clearly sets us apart from our competition.”

Safety Initiative of the Year Award

CARL (Call, Action, Report, Learn) Safety Reporting App. As safety is at the forefront of everything we do and in order to continuously improve our safety record, the quality of our working environment for our staff and enhance our performance for our customers we formed a collaboration group between our internal Health & Safety and IT teams to develop an effective and convenient way of tracking and recording close calls to reduce safety incidents.

Benefits include:

• 20% reduction in our Fatality & Weighted Injury Index throughout 2016
• Simplicity of use which has seen nearly 700 Safety Conversations recorded
• Over 3500 close calls reported and actioned through the system over the last 15 months
• Improved health, safety and wellbeing of staff, suppliers and members of the public
• Better engagement in relation to safety with our customers and staff

Being shortlisted for these awards is an achievement within itself, we now wait for the final event in September to find out if we have been successful.