"The 'hands on' approach provided a creative, lively and productive learning environment and delegate feedback universally noted that the course had fully met its objective of helping the RICs be better prepared to fulfil their role"
Michael Gilbert, Steelhenge
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Crisis management case study - Network Rail
Incident Management Workshops for Network Rail
Network Rail tasked Steelhenge to develop a series of scenario-based incident management training workshops for their Rail Incident Commanders (RICs). The aim was to endorse the RICs' understanding of the Network Rail National Emergency Plan and to ensure they are equipped with the crisis management, crisis leadership and crisis communications skills necessary to fulfil their role in the event of an emergency.
Network Rail is the Network Operator for the railway network in Britain. The organisation is responsible for the operation, maintenance and development of the tracks, signalling system, rail bridges, tunnels, level crossings, viaducts and 18 stations. Their incident response command structure reflects that of the gold, silver and bronze model used by the emergency services. The RICs operate at the ‘gold’ level. Thus the workshops were designed to enhance their strategic-level management and communications capabilities in a multi-agency environment.
The main challenge for Steelhenge was to design workshops that would be beneficial to both those RICs who had previous experience within their role as well as those who had not. It was decided to create an interactive format whereby desk-based learning was brought to life with case studies of previous incidents as well as through practical application of their learning in short scenario-based exercises.
For each of the workshops a guest speaker from Network Rail provided an insight into their strategic-level management experience of major, high-profile incidents, sharing their personal and professional recollections and the lessons they learned, personally and organisationally, through their involvement. This provided the basis for delegates to learn from the ‘real-life’ operational experiences of others. The scenario-based exercises also gave those who had not been appointed as a RIC previously, a controlled environment in which to work through the practicalities of managing an incident with the benefit of input from those delegates who had experience.
Each workshop also identified a number of lessons which will be used to further develop the current emergency arrangements and better equip RICs for the management of an incident.
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