Great Western Railway’s customer services training manager Ashley Bray scooped a major award at the 18th annual Rail Business Awards.

Attended by nearly 1,000 members of the UK rail industry and hosted by The Apprentice co-star Nick Hewer at the London Hilton, 33-year-old Mr Bray, who is from Newton Abbot, was named Young Railway Professional of the Year.

Working in partnership with Flybe airline, Mr Bray was instrumental in designing customer service training – titled The Gift – for First Great Western’s engineering and control teams, which was delivered to more than 1,200 employees.

Flybe realised his holistic approach to train the whole of the business and not just frontline staff was the right one and decided to do the same – a first for Flybe and one of a number of firsts for Mr Bray.

Following its success, The Gift – Great Impressions First Training – is being rolled out to all 6,500 staff in the new franchise, Great Western Railway (GWR) to be delivered to everyone, including those in non-customer facing roles.

Mr Bray has also been heavily involved in creating coaching, mentoring and assurance programmes, providing professional assessment and feedback for all roles, overcoming line management resistance and improving colleague performance and compliance.

This required him to overcome resistance from FGW’s divisional councils (trades unions) and line managers who weren’t comfortable with someone coming in to question their staff!

This training has now become business as usual, with more than 2,000 customer-facing colleagues assessed and coached.

Mr Bray was was also the force behind the award-winning Apprenticeship Scheme, supporting 75 apprentices and their mentors – the programme is now integral to the franchise obligations with GWR.

His management career began more than five years ago when he worked as a training manager. At the same time and working with one of his colleagues, he brought in new customer service development and assessments for station and on-train staff.

Tracey Coleman, GWR’s head of learning and development, said: ‘Ashley is totally committed to the industry and the company, and he thoroughly deserves the award.

‘His work ethic, his approach to the business and the people he works with are exemplary and inspiring.’

‘Ashley is one of a rare breed of individuals who is not particularly ambitious for himself, yet is highly motivated to succeed in whatever he does for the benefit of the individuals he works with and, more importantly, for the business.’

‘Despite his senior manager role, he’s at pains to make himself equal to any member of staff. There are numerous examples of him lending a hand in a ticket office when he’s been visiting or taking care of customers.’

‘Having worked in the business in a number of roles – catering, sales office to management – he’s a familiar face and has always got his ear to the ground listening out for what’s happening in the business.’

Mr ?Bray said: ‘Some people manage upwards; making sure the boss is happy, but I am far more interested in managing in the opposite direction; making sure staff have what they need and challenging management to help them get it.

‘It would be useless for me to sit in an office in Swindon “guessing” what the training needs of the business are. The only way to find out is to talk to people.’

He attended a charity summer ball at Hannahs, Newton Abbot, giving up precious time off because he knew there would be senior people from GWR attending and he didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to talk with them informally about business.

He also regularly works with schools – among them St Michael’ Primary School, Kingsteignton – to promote GWR to the next generation of railway users.

Mr Bray currently heads a team of ten training managers, a training allocation manager and two administration staff.

They are currently supporting the rolling out of the customer experience training programme to everyone in the business – that’s 6,500 staff. This is being initiated as part of the realignment of FGW to the new GWR brand.

Ashley added: ‘The rebrand is not just a colour change. It’s the way we do business.

‘I’ve been very vocal on that, but also about meeting our franchise obligations – we’re measured by the DfT to provide a level of service we committed to in our bid documents for the next five years and I want to make sure I deliver my part.’

Away from work – which is not very often – Mr Bray shares a home with long-term partner Justin, who also works for GWR, and cat Bumble.

He has many interests, among them cycling, motorbiking and getting out and about in his Lotus, which was previously owned by his late step-dad Peter.

He also has a passion for animals, in particular giraffes, and has adopted one at Paignton Zoo.

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