Meet the people behind the railway
Across the country our staff have been working hard to keep customers and each other moving safety and with confidence during the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Cara has worked on the railway for 20 years’ and is currently working at East Midlands Railway. After finding out her Retail Supervisor had to shield due to the pandemic, she took on the challenge of covering his role in these unprecedented times.
As a Retail Supervisor her job is to ensure the smooth running of the day-to-day operation of Sheffield Travel Centre. She talks to us about the biggest challenges she faced taking on a new role in such surreal circumstances.
“Personally, you had to sort out the staff members, put social distancing in place also we had to make sure we plenty of cleaning products to constantly clean and hand sanitiser. I had to ensure that staff were able to comply with social distancing.
So, we had less staff working which was a challenge. But it worked perfect as we have had no sickness or anything since this all happened.”
“I don’t class it as a challenge, doing the Retail Supervisor job has been the biggest thing ever for me in all my 20 years working on the railway I’ve never had this responsibility and being put into this situation and being in charge of all the staff, to me has been my biggest achievement not a challenge.
It was amazing I absolutely loved it and I gained the respect from the staff which is good. I had my phone on 24/7 in case they ever needed me.”
Working with her colleagues and coming together as a well-knit team has been her standout moment working throughout Covid-19, throughout all the uncertainty lying ahead they came together as one.
“I got a bunch of flowers, which I wasn’t expecting. It was really nice and I also got a thank you card from a customer, an elderly lady who couldn’t come down to get a refund on her ticket so I sorted it out for her and gave her a call back and she was so grateful that I was able to sort it out for her.
It’s just me being me but when I got the card and the flowers, I felt appreciated and that I had done a good job.”
“Seeing a different side to the supervisor role, it’s made me grow up a hell of a lot, to me the responsibility has been a massive learning curve. It’s made me more aware of how I am with colleagues and the respect I’ve gained from them. I can’t fault anything that’s happened, customers and staff have been really good.”
“As bad as it sounds, this has been best experience of my life. The morale at the Ticket Office has been amazing, when you are coming to work worrying about catching Covid-19, the staff would sit down and talk about each other’s worries, helping to ground each other.”
Thanks to Cara for her dedication in working hard behind the scenes and stepping up to take on a new role.
Find out about what East Midlands Railway are doing to keep customers safe here.