Swindon company named rail supplier of the year

train4change (t4c), an innovative training and consultancy company based in Swindon, has scooped the prestigious Rail Supplier of the Year award at the 10th HSBC Rail Business Awards at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel last night (Wednesday February 27, 2008).

train4change Last night’s victory marks the second time in three years the Wiltshire training company, which was established in 2000, have been awarded the title for services to the rail industry.

Reflecting on the achievement train4change’s Managing Director Paul Hargreaves said: “We are delighted to have won this award, it is great recognition of our continued efforts to develop and provide training courses which have a positive impact on the UK’s railways. train4change will see more exciting growth over the coming year and this award marks a milestone in our continuing success.”

Started by Paul Hargreaves a former actor and Sarah de Brion a training consultant, from their homes in Purton, t4c’s unique training courses use actors and creative techniques to recreate delegates’ own working environments and bring them face to face with true to life workplace scenarios. From abusive customers to difficult management situations, the courses are designed to provoke an emotive response from attendees, helping motivate them to change their behaviour to ensure long lasting effectiveness from their learning.

The judges were impressed with train4change’s novel approach to staff training. Category judge Paul Clifton, the BBC transport correspondent for southern England said; “train4change’s realistic training scenarios with actors in the role of passengers and harassed staff have helped increase customer satisfaction scores, improved performance figures and generated positive testimonials from train operators and their employees who have attended the training events.”

Enjoying growing success train4change, which always tries to employ people from the local geographical area, has increased in size from four associate staff members to 35 in less than five years.

Note to Editors

Attached are jpegs showing Peter Plinser, BBC Transport Correspondent for the Midlands presenting the award to , Lindsay Cook t4c, Sarah de Brion, Managing Director t4c, and Paul Hargreaves, Managing Director t4c.

train4change believe to truly change behaviour, delegates have to want to change, and thus the emotive side of the brain must also be challenged and engaged. t4c uses actors and creative techniques to ensure that these emotive responses enter the training environment.

train4change carry out extensive background research on the companies they work to create credible, believable and effective training courses. From learning company specific colloquialisms and acronyms to understanding individual business behaviours, t4c immerse themselves in the workplace culture, conducting mystery shops, staff interviews and observational exercises to enable them to incorporate workplace idiosyncrasies into training room scenarios.
train4change creates bespoke training courses for a wide range of organisations. Clients include a large number of train operating companies, including First Group and National Express, The Football Association and Provident Insurance.

train4change first won the HSBC Rail Supplier of the year award in 2005.

Contact: This release with issued on behalf of train4change by Woodhouse Communications. For more information contact Andrea on 01444 473588 or email andrea@woodhousecommunciations.co.uk