Flagship Duty Station Manager

Who are we?

South Western Railway (SWR) operates over 1,500 services each weekday across the network and employs more than 5,000 people. We provide easy and convenient mobility, connecting people and communities in South West London, southern counties of England, and the Isle of Wight.

Join our team and help us continue to bring people together to get the most out of life.

About the job

Responsible for the efficient station operations in their area while on shift, this role works in collaboration with a team of Flagship Duty Station Managers. The post holder is responsible for delivering excellence in customer experience, safety, and performance, and driving improvement plans to meet functional objectives. Leading a team of Safety Critical and Customer Service professionals, this position is instrumental in delivering local performance and KPIs for the assigned stations. The working hours for this role requires a degree of flexibility depending on Operational, Safety, or Contingency requirements.

Your main responsibilities will be:

Strategy and Planning

• Supports delivery of the regional strategy in their area, aligning with the overall SWR and functional plan to achieve improvements in Customer, Colleague, Commercial, Safety, and Performance areas.
• Contributes to the review of plans to ensure alignment with changing business priorities and resources, creating a culture of continuous improvement and business change.
• Creates cross-functional relationships with key internal stakeholders (allocated by their FSM), influencing the delivery of the local plans and process improvements throughout their area of stations.
• Communicates local plans effectively to key stakeholders, including front-line teams, ensuring their support in delivering strategy elements.

Leadership

• Provides positive and inspired leadership, setting clear performance expectations and accountabilities for their team.
• Builds effective teams by responding to colleagues' immediate needs, supporting colleague well-being through a positive work environment.
• Actively listens to colleague feedback, supporting the regional/local area employee engagement strategy.
• Aligns annual objectives with SWR's vision and values, creating a sense of direction and achievement for all colleagues.

Technical Planning

• Uses a variety of information sources to deliver tactical plans for improving station operations, planning activities to fit with the shift patterns of their teams and colleagues.
• Adapts to changing business needs, technology, and customer behaviour to ensure station operations are economical.

Operations and Delivery

• Oversees the daily delivery of tactical plans, creating a mindset of continuous business improvement.
• Ensures safety objectives are implemented within the area and collaborates with key stakeholders for required improvements.
• Manages on the day local rostering for optimal colleague deployment, achieving business objectives and enhancing the customer experience.

Customer and Stakeholder

• Responds to immediate customer needs and creates ideas for improvement to strengthen service at stations, ensuring consistency across all accountable locations.
• Takes corrective action to resolve any service quality issues highlighted by the SQR process
• Motivates the team to deliver excellent customer experience, driving colleague engagement and embedding a customer-centric culture.
• Develops effective relationships with trade union representatives and collaborates with relevant departments across SWR.
• Ensures collaboration with Network Rail and other TOCs to maximise the customer experience.

Commercial Agility

• Awareness of the wider commercial impact of decisions and communicates accordingly.
• Allocates resources smartly to achieve optimum efficiency, challenging existing processes to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs. For example, the commercial impact of on-the-day resourcing of ticket offices and gatelines, TVM performance, Smartcard uptake and planning of resources to support events delivery.
• Translates and communicates commercial data to the team.
• Ensure efficient management of Retail and Gatelines (where applicable) in line with Revenue Protection strategy.

Safety

• Takes responsibility for safety and security, ensuring proper communication and understanding of safety messages.
• Follows applicable rules and procedures, reporting unsafe conditions or acts.
• Follows environmental rules and procedures, minimising waste and using resources efficiently.
• Provides support for health, safety, security, welfare, and fire safety arrangements.

You'll need:

• Good organisational, analytical, and planning skills.
• Ability to lead and motivate teams for cultural improvement.
• Good leadership ability; able to communicate and influence others.
• Have an understanding of commercial activities and cost management.
• Ability to work independently or as part of a team and adapt to changing priorities.
• Experience in a customer-focused industry.

Working pattern

You will work an average of 37 hours per week across 5 days per week.

A mixture of early and late shifts between 06:30 and 22:30, working shifts of 06:30- 14:00, 07:30-15:00, 14:00 – 21:30 and 15:00- 22:30. 1 weekend in 3 on a 6-week rotating roster.

The Reward

In return we offer a competitive salary and a variety of valuable benefits, including:

• Free duty and leisure travel on SWR services for employees
• Free leisure travel for spouse/partner and dependants (criteria dependent)
• 75% discount on many other train operating companies
• Full training and support with development
• Excellent pension scheme

We all belong at SWR. Our vision is to provide an inclusive environment for all colleagues, ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to access meaningful employment.

We value our differences such as age, gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, and disability. We maintain a zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice towards our colleagues, customers, and future talent.

We celebrate and encourage diversity of thought, progressive ways of working and seeing all our colleagues grow and thrive.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, please follow the links below.  We encourage you to share any additional needs you may require so we can provide a fair and equal process for all who apply.

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/neurodiversity/

https://www.healthassured.org/blog/neurodiversity/