The Carer's Community has been set up by a small group of volunteers from within RDG who have, between them, a wide variety of experiences and responsibilities caring for family or friends.

The group aims to provide support to unpaid carers employed at RDG, to raise awareness of caring and to help people who don't think of themselves as having caring responsibilities to identify as carers and access support.

The aim of the Christian Fellowship is to support and encourage each other and the wider organisation through our Christian faith. Meetings are informal where we discuss and study the Bible, pray for and encourage each other. We also organise the Chaplain’s visits and drop-ins from the Railway Mission throughout the year.

Anyone is welcome to join the group – whether you are already a believer or would just like to find out more about the Christian faith.

Our Disability Awareness Network ran its first “Disability Awareness Week” in November 2019, which aimed to highlight how a range of disabilities can affect employees. It now hosts regular coffee mornings with external speakers.

The group also works to ensure colleagues with visible, or invisible, disabilities have access to all the adjustments they may need to enable them to work effectively.

This group focuses on diversity and inclusion so that we can attract and retain a more diverse workforce, whilst being inclusive in our approaches. Our Minority Ethnic network – “Embrace” - aims to provide a space for Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic employees to discuss, question, challenge and make recommendations where necessary to promote race equality and diversity across RDG.

Other members of staff who actively believe in the promotion of race equality, diversity and inclusion can also join Embrace to influence change at RDG and the industry.

For Black History Month in 2020, Embrace members produced several blogs that you may find interesting:

• Celebrating black railway workers that made history
• The benefits of diversity and inclusion at the workplace
• Equality, diversity and inclusion at RDG

Empower is an employee network for women and non-binary people in RDG. Although it tackles specific challenges for women, it’s an inclusive group and we welcome everyone else to join as allies.

Our purpose is to empower women and non-binary people in RDG by creating a positive space to share experiences, tools and strategies that can help each other build confidence to tackle challenges that we face in the workplace and achieve career goals and ambitions.

The Inclusion Forum has representation from the Network Leads, HR, Internal Comms, and the Exec team, as well as colleagues representing all areas of the business.

A core focus of the group is to dissect some of the verbatim comments made in the latest EDI survey to drill down into the issues that matter most to colleagues across the business.

The group will also be looking at the recommendations made by the Equal Group. They will then propose a series of recommendations to the Exec Team, and once they have been approved, these will be shared with the rest of the business.

The MHAG aims to to change the way we all think and act about mental health in the workplace. The group has created an Employer Action Plan which puts in place best-practice interventions and policy to help our employees work in ways that promote positive mental wellbeing. Our Group meets monthly and is here to support colleagues with issues relating to wellbeing.

We also have a group of trained Mental Health First Aiders at RDG, who are available should employees need someone to speak to confidentially. As an organisation, we have signed Time to Change’s Employer Pledge, advertising our commitment to improve the mental health conversation in our workplace.

Platform is the employee network for LGBT+ people at RDG with a vision that everyone should be able to bring their whole selves to work. The network aims to provide support and advice for LGBT+ people as well as organise informal social gatherings with colleagues and groups from across the rail industry.

The group also host events for all colleagues to find out more about LGBT+ issues.