“I was very conscious of sitting and listening to people and asking lots of questions,” she says. “It was an opportunity to ask the dumb questions because I was the new girl, so I took advantage of that. I asked the questions that perhaps [new recruits] can’t ask two or three years in because they should know the answer.
“I wanted to find out what makes people tick, what makes the business tick and what was going to make us attractive as
an employer.”
Hayes’ preparation for her new role included an informal meeting with her team ahead of her official start date, to grasp its current approach to HR and benefits management.
On joining the organisation, she soon discovered that one of the key challenges of her role was its diversity. Network Rail is a large organisation spanning multiple locations across the country, with employees’ roles ranging from management and engineers to railway track workers.
“It is a very diverse and dispersed workforce,” says Hayes. “So, for me, it was about finding out what [benefits] we have on offer that meet all employees’ different needs and trying to understand what is out there in what is a very large and complex organisation, and pulling all the relevant information out.”
Pressing challenge
But it soon became clear that a more pressing challenge was the lack of a comprehensive benefits strategy, which was a result of Network Rail’s benefits provision having evolved over the organisation’s 10-year history.
“Throughout that period, there has always been a philosophy of having a good, comprehensive benefits package,” says Hayes.
“But what I found when I got here was lots and lots of [benefits], so there was clearly a great intent to have a great benefits package for people.
“What had not been done was to pull these together in a coherent way for an individual employee to understand.”
Hayes also used her own experience of being a new recruit to inform Network Rail’s HR and benefits strategy.
“I was using the process to assess how a new employee would feel about the [benefits] package and if it was engaging and relevant for me,” she says.
