“Lean-in and enjoy the challenge.”
2023 has seen growth in the business (by 40%) as Benchmark continues to deliver effective learning and development programmes nationally. Success is largely due to our high-calibre trainers/coaches who immerse themselves in the client’s environment; match the shift-working patterns; in all weather conditions; and become ‘one of the team’. Their consistent results are maintained through an excellent combination of a positive attitude; role-modelling expected behaviours; applying learned experience as leaders; holding Teaching and Coaching qualifications; and being RISQS certified for working in safety critical environments.
As well as our USP – on-site coaching with leaders and their teams in safety critical environments – we continue to deliver traditional leadership development and behavioural change programmes bespoke to the client’s requirements. These include both virtual and face-to-face workshop settings using interactive and engaging techniques.
Most of our L&D programmes are ‘repeat business’ with nationally based clients such as Network Rail, Babcock International, Inspiro Ltd, WM Lee, various Rail & Freight Operating Companies.
Please drop us a line if you would like a bespoke L&D solution for your business.
Annual Digest 2023
2022 Annual Digest
31 December 2022
Our feet have not touched the ground in this demanding and exciting year. Our hybrid learning & development offering has really suited our clients’ needs always adapting to their specific work environments; from Scotland all the way down to Kent.
Our programmes use the following methods of delivery:
- Virtual learning
- 1:1 Coaching in the workplace
- Team Coaching on-site during shift-work
- Workshops for senior management
- Structured learning with accreditation awards
In addition to their formal teaching qualifications, all our trainers hold the ILM Level 5 Coaching & Mentoring qualification and are also qualified, authorised and competent to carry out coaching on the Network Rail Managed Infrastructure (NRMI. This allows them to deliver our behaviour change programmes on the infrastructure, day, or night, with minimal distraction and disruption to the client’s work.
Our main events include:
Home Safe Coaching for rail maintenance teams on the infrastructure. Total of 300 front-line staff at all levels (in Scotland ‘s Railway, East Midlands Route, and Sussex Route) coached in safety behaviour and leadership.
Behavioural Safety Leadership Coaching for supervisors and their teams working nationally to assess, upgrade and sustain the rail network. Over 400 coach sessions delivered by four coaches so far.
Behavioural Safety Workshops (‘Golden Hour’ practise; Dynamic Risk Assessments; Challenging Conversations; Safety Critical Communications) as part of Eastern Region’s Safety Stand Down Weeks. Total of 320 front-line staff trained.
Qualified 300 Apprentices for the ILM Level 3 Award. This was a combination of virtual learning and face-to-face practical leadership development. In addition we delivered behavioural safety training for 120 Year 1 Apprentices using the rail testing site at Long Marston.
A mixture of short duration; high impact learning across Southern Region has included:
- Leadership Conversations for senior managers;
- IPad familiarisation training for safety critical e-permit systems;
- Safety Critical Communications for 320 learners from across the rail business.
What will 2023 bring?
2021 Annual Digest
Babcock International, MV Kelly, London Fire Brigade, Buckingham Group, Network Rail
1 December 2021
2021 has been another busy, successful, and fascinating year for the Company. We have welcomed Buckingham Group and RTG Group to our customer portfolio and we have expanded our footprint significantly within Babcock International Group and across Network Rail and MV Kelly. Buckingham Group is a highly regarded Principal Contractor providing civil engineering services nationally. RTG is a fast-growing company providing specialist services to the utility, construction, rail and environmental sectors.
We have rapidly developed and expanded our ability to provide both 121 and team Safety Leadership and Safe Behaviour Coaching across the railway’s mid-level and front-line leaders and its operational workforce. We have over 250 people currently enrolled on one of our Safety Leadership or Safe Behaviour coaching programmes; keeping our growing pool of qualified and competent staff very busy.
Our coaching is objective and non-judgemental and provides learners with a tailored development experience. It is delivered within a real-time working environment and, typically, ‘On or Near the Line’; focused impact on individuals and groups over a two to three-month period to:
- Reduce the likelihood of accidents and incidents
- Save time
- Increase engagement with other people
- Communicate more effectively
- Identify different, more productive and safer ways of working
We have recently completed delivery of the 2021 ILM Level 3 Certificate in Leadership and Management training programme to 280 Network Rail apprentices on behalf of Babcock. Planning is underway now for the 2022 programme for a further 300 apprentices. Babcock, as part of its continual improvement programme, has also contracted us to provide Safe Behaviour training for all future Network Rail apprentices following a successful trial throughout November.
We continue to see an upsurge in Safety Critical Communications training with contracts in place to train over 250 critical communicators by April 2022. We have re-started our work, through Babcock, to provide leadership and soft skills training to the London Fire Brigade (LFB). We were selected to support Babcock to deliver the LFB’s Gillian Tanner Leadership Development programme for their front-line leaders with delivery in progress as we go to press.
Our Incident Management and Accident Investigation training programmes have also been in demand this year. New programmes for MV Kelly and Network Rail starting this month.
Section Capability Development – Coaching Support for the Front-Line
Network Rail – Southern Region
Demand for Benchmark’s Leadership & Team Coaching capability continues to grow – supporting Front-Line Infrastructure Maintenance Sections (Network Rail) to achieve specific performance improvement objectives. Based upon the unique structure, environmental challenges and varied tasks faced by each Maintenance Section, the Section Capability Development (SCD) programme is a partnership, between the Manager and the Benchmark Coach, for coaching interventions to address the bespoke challenges faced by the Maintenance Section.
Our Leadership & Team Coaches have, to date, been active in 5 x Front-Line Maintenance Sections over the last 18 months with impact improvements to the business including performance outputs, safety behaviours, staff retention and team culture change. As a result, we are now planning to ramp-up the SCD across Southern Region to complete 36 x Sections by the end of CP6 (2023).
Babcock International Group
Virtual ‘Behaviour & ILM L3 Learning Programme’ for Network Rail Apprentices
We have been extremely busy since early June rapidly designing and then delivering an extensive virtual learning programme to three hundred (300) Network Rail Year 3 Apprentices on behalf of Babcock International Group. We designed, developed and delivered four separate virtual modules. Each virtual module covered different behaviours identified in the Rail Engineering Technician standard that the apprentices need to evidence during their End Point Assessment (EPA). Each module also included different units within the ILM Level 3 Certificate in Leadership and Management programme.
Apprentices progressively mapped evidence for their EPA and completed the underpinning knowledge elements of each relevant ILM L3 unit. The virtual modules were interactive, wholly contextualised to the workplace and the feedback from the Apprentices was overwhelmingly positive. The Apprentices undertook the learning in classes of ten with two classes attending the learning each week. The four-month programme was completed on 2 October 2020. We wish all the Apprentices well during their EPAs and subsequent learning and career journeys.
Network Rail – Kent and Sussex Routes
BeST Electrical Safety Coaching
We are delighted with the news that Network Rail – Kent and Sussex Routes – have selected Benchmark Training to deliver its Electrical Safety Coaching programme. This new development programme is designed to help eliminate workforce injury from contact with live electricity, on and around the railway. Kent and Sussex have concluded that the existing Behaviour Safety (BeST) programme, delivered by Benchmark, provides the most effective ‘vehicle’ to deliver the new electrical safety programme. We have expanded the scope of the BeST programme to include the electrical safety intervention. Approximately 205 x maintenance teams will participate in the programme over the next 12 months. Each team will receive in-depot and on-track coaching and support from Benchmark’s PTS-qualified coaches. The programme will focus upon improving individual and collective behaviour when planning, preparing and delivering work. We very much look forward to extending our professional association with every operational maintenance team in the Kent and Sussex Routes.
Network Rail – West Coast Mainline South (WCMS) and Sussex Routes
Leadership Development Training
It’s great to be back at work doing what we do best; developing people safely and transforming safe performance in the workplace.
We have very recently been contracted to deliver another series of leadership development programmes for Maintenance Section Managers, Supervisors and Team Leaders across Network Rail, WCMS and Sussex Routes. Each of these one-week courses represent the bedrock upon which key people, in a crucial part of the railway business, develop their operational leadership and management skills. We are proud to have been selected to deliver these courses. By 31 December 2020, a total of 120 x front-line leaders will have completed the programme. As ever, the courses are highly experiential and contextualised to the workplace. The exceptional feedback received is testament to the positive impact made, both from the participants and their line managers. The subsequent workplace improvements and transformation across the operational environment – in terms of the scope, scale and longevity – is a direct outcome of our partnering approach with the Routes.
Network Rail – High Output
Work Group Leader Training
A very busy start to 2020 continues into March with the successful design and initial delivery of a new programme of professional development for 60 x Work Group Leaders responsible for leading front-line contractor teams in support of the national High Output capability. The training is being delivered at NR High Output depots across the country and will provide the Work Group Leaders (primarily working for McGinley) with a wide range of skills, knowledge and tools to further improve safety and performance across this critical element of the national rail infrastructure. The learning programme is highly practical and participative and focuses on developing several key areas of capability including decision-making and impact, the management of interfaces and information, site access and welfare, health and hazards, managing plant and tools and preventing and investigating accidents and incidents.
Network Rail – Scotland
Person in Charge (PIC) Forums
We have just concluded the first phase of a new work package with Works Delivery Scotland to support them in creating and initiating a progressive series of route-wide forums to ensure the requirements of the recently introduced Person in Charge (PIC) capability are fully identified, understood and met. Our coach is working actively with key operational staff within Works Delivery Scotland to ensure the forum becomes the platform from which the PIC concept is supported and implemented successfully by all operational managers and staff.
Network Rail – Southern Region
Behaviour Safety Training (BeST) – Update
Our programme of practical training and support to deliver Network Rail Southern Region’s BeST training programme continues at pace. A succession of continual improvements has seen revisions to the structure of the programme. BeST now includes additional workplace coaching and support sessions with our coaches and the training-room based element is completed now in just one day. A total of 550 delegates have attended 70 courses with a further 200 delegates attending courses by 31st March 2020. The feedback continues to be excellent and the on-track safe behaviour of the teams continues to improve significantly.
The BeST programme has also now been expanded to include:
- The High Speed One station staff from St Pancras, Stratford International and Ebbsfleet International stations respectively.
- The SE Route Possession Support staff including supply chain staff.