![]() ![]() Many of them feel they are just turning up and doing their job. Understanding that it might not just be passengers who needed reassurance, Emma issued all station staff with high vis vests that said ‘help me to help you to please keep your distance’ to remind passengers to keep their distance, as well as ‘key worker’ pin badges for the station team to remind them and others of their status.Īsked if her team recognise the importance of their work in such a crisis, Emma says, “No, I don’t think they do. And mask compliance has been high which is great to see.” “We’ve had to completely redesign how the station should operate to meet public health guidance – whether safety measures or introducing one-way systems to prevent crowding. “On the whole, passengers have largely been understanding” Emma says. Hand sanitiser points were installed, and face masks added to vending machines. She introduced briefing sessions which included an emphasis on ‘warm welcomes’ – essentially how to interact with passengers who may not have travelled for a number of months and who may be feeling anxious.Ĭleaning efforts were ramped up with increased cleaning hours and the use of new products including hospital-grade disinfectant, and focussing on high touch areas such as lifts, handrails, and ticket machines. One of Emma’s first moves was to bring the team together and enable staff to carry out their duties in a safe way. “Still, I had to build rapport very quickly.” “Luckily I already knew a lot of the station team from my previous role as a Retail Business Partner for a number of stations including this one” Emma said. That said, nothing could have prepared her for what she was about to take on. Her ten years in rail have seen her work on a series of projects, including the 2012 London Olympics where she was a project manager overseeing transport logistics, using real-time spectator data to prepare stations and manage crowd control as people arrived and departed from the Olympic park. This is not the first time Emma has been thrown in at the deep end. Instead, she joined the station team amidst a global pandemic which saw passenger numbers drop overnight, an emergency train timetable put into place, and safety measures introduced on a scale never seen before. Taking up her position on 20 April – four weeks after the country locked down – it’s fair to say her first few weeks were a baptism of fire.Įmma was expecting to manage Britain’s third busiest station, overseeing 450,000 passengers travel in and out of the capital each day. “Everyone is so motivated to do the right thing for staff and for passengers and without the collaboration or the support of my team, I just couldn’t have done it.” Emma Watson, Station Manager at Liverpool Street StationĪt just 35, Emma Watson is one of the youngest female station managers in the UK.
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