In October, NXWM Engineering Development Manager Katie McGrath won the routeone Rising Star Award. Confidence, thick skin and a proactive approach are her keys to success
When industries try to attract youth, there are often two camps.
While university can be attractive to those with a desire for higher learning but no clear path on which company to work for, apprenticeships might be considered the opposite, where a company will offer pay, work and education as it guides an apprentice into their career.
What about an alternative? National Express West Midlands (NXWM) has one answer – its graduate scheme, which began recruiting in 2005.
It has seen real success from its applicants, and one beneficiary – Katie McGrath – has plenty to say in support of both the opportunities afforded by it, and the working culture that fostered her own development and successes.
Her achievements saw her celebrated this year at the routeone awards, made possible by Award Partner Optibus.
Career change
Katie didn’t begin with a goal toward engineering. She studied biochemistry at the University of Birmingham and, after being offered a place on the general management graduate scheme with NXWM, spent 18 months working throughout various departments tailored primarily towards operations.
The scheme’s aim was to set Katie up as an assistant operations manager or operations manager at a NXWM depot – but halfway through, she decided it wasn’t for her.
In a first for the company, Katie asked if she could move over to engineering, while also studying towards supporting qualifications. The HR Director at the time, Madi Pilgrim, was delighted – it was the first time a general management trainee had chosen such a route. With no engineering background, Katie entered a traditionally male-dominated area on her own initiative.
A better fit at NXWM
Katie took well to engineering with her science background and problem-solving skills. In September she began a coach and bus mechanics course at Coventry College to assist in her ongoing education.
“I was nervous to begin with,” Katie explains. “Not many people had asked about engineering before, and we had an engineering graduate scheme that had run the year before I started. I wasn’t sure of the opportunities that would be available.
“In operations, I also had a clearer path. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going to end up. That’s not a bad thing, though. I take the challenges as they appear.”
She was supported by the Engineering Director, while NXWM, which is trying to attract more females into the sector, views Katie as integral to its efforts to show that transport is an exciting and attractive career choice for women and men alike.
Communications Manager Nikki Houghton says it has been encouraging from the company’s perspective: “Katie herself had the drive to say that engineering would be a better fit. We’re willing to support that.”
Graduates are further encouraged towards supporting qualifications and to explore avenues for training and development.
“The graduate scheme is very flexible and that’s one of the best things about it,” says Katie. “It offers regular meetings with a mentor and asks which areas are of interest. Other graduates have moved into whatever departments fit them best.”
In particular, the graduate scheme tries to expose candidates to various parts of the business to give them experience for whatever future career fits best – whether that’s in commercial, operations, marketing, finance, or engineering.
While graduates do go through a programme to attain a PCV license, the breadth of roles and opportunities means NXWM is keen to show a career in transport is not limited to driving. “Part of the problem is the transport industry in general doesn’t shout about its breadth of roles,” Nikki says. “The graduate scheme therefore is a good way to expose people to all the different areas of transport there are.”
Rising Star Award
By recognising that improvements could be made at both a local and central level, it did not take long for NXWM to target Katie as a potential candidate for the Rising Star Award. She has delivered measurable success to the company’s operations.
The last 12 months have seen her involved with the Engineering Excellence project, the idea of which is to visit depots to know and understand the key issues affecting managers and engineers, then look for improvements.
“In terms of communications between engineers and a departmental point of view, it’s difficult to get strategies across to engineers outside of toolbox talks. The team are working 24 hours a day, so we don’t see much of them,” Katie explains.
Last year, she created an online portal of key information, working instructions, safety information and job advertisements in order to communicate more effectively with the company’s engineering department. It has involved digitisation of paperwork-based methods and communication of processes happening between the business.
Development took about six weeks. It is an ongoing process which has added an engineering forum to permit communication and questions between depots; a platform for anyone to express their concerns.
Further, by identifying inefficiencies and trends in breakdown data and defects, Katie was able to make improvements possible. “Existing data on breakdowns was limited,” she explains. “Busy engineering managers shouldn’t have to sift through lists of data to identify trends. We took the information from spreadsheets, mapped trends and made it easy to understand.” In real terms, that has meant a 10% reduction in weekly breakdowns.
The engineering newsletter also highlights staff successes, and makes the engineering department – often behind the scenes and forgotten – feel appreciated. It has boosted morale and keeps the standard of work high.
“Katie came in and wasn’t afraid to challenge the status quo,” says Nikki. “A business can very easily carry on doing things the way they’ve always been done. Katie has challenged it and developed solutions that save time and money… and she did it quickly.”
By looking to improve and set standards, it has also determined where many of the struggles within the industry lie.
“The most challenging part was that, as a whole, the industry can be a little slow to change,” says Katie. “That can be frustrating at times when you know a good change can be made. Politics and barriers can get in the way.
“Sometimes there is a way a business works, and that’s how it has been done for years. But there are opportunities for improvements, and some people are not open to change.”
Women in transport
NXWM is keen to express the importance not just of Katie’s role in showing how any career path is open to a prospective graduate, but that more and more women are entering the industry and proving that barriers, both personal and those in the industry, are being broken down.
“Katie is unique in that she chose engineering,” says Nikki. “We’ve never had an operations graduate choose that before.”
The year Katie joined, all three graduates were female. “I’ve been lucky,” she says. “A lot of the depots that I’ve been to throughout my career have had a lot of female role models in the workplace, and in jobs that you can aspire to. NXWM is very supportive. Gender isn’t viewed any differently – if you can do the job, you have the opportunity.”
The visibility of women in senior and management roles is important, and further growth there is something NXWM is aspiring to achieve. Many of those women began as drivers and worked their way up the company.
“It’s important for people like Katie, who are coming into the business in the early stage of their careers, to have that visibility,” Nikki adds. “Katie has come in as a graduate and needs to feel that it’s a career she has the opportunity to pursue.”
While the culture at NXWM has been welcoming, both Katie and Nikki acknowledge that there are still barriers to break down, and opportunities to raise awareness should be exploited. Katie has been a key part, volunteering for PR activities to add to exposure, including STEM events and promotion as part of International Women’s Day. “To a certain extent, you also have to have thick skin,” she says.
Adds Nikki: “Whenever we have an opportunity, our employees talk about their experiences. Katie – women in transport – this Award – they all show what is possible; what women in transport and engineering can achieve.”
