People Employee Experience Graduate 2023

At Northern, we are dedicated to developing and delivering a better rail service in the North of England, by employing driven and motivated people to improve what we do on a daily basis. We have an exciting opportunity for a Graduate to join our People function.

Northerns Graduate Management Scheme is a 24 month programme, designed to give you a unique insight into the Rail industry. During the programme you will work predominantly across one business function, but also get the opportunity to expand your knowledge and skills in other business functions too. The scheme will give you the change to gain highly valuable work experience and lifelong skills – helping you work towards becoming a great leader of the future.

You will have a unique chance to become a valued contributor to the business and its continued growth and development; as well as gain a strong understanding of the Rail industry. As part of the scheme, you’ll also be onboarded onto a Management course; so not only will you have on the job experience and working on various workplace project, you’ll also obtain a qualification in Management.

About the Placement

As an Employee Experience Advisor, you’ll mainly be working within the multi-discipline People function, gaining exposure to the HR Operations, Communications and Training from their base within the Employee Experience Team.

You’ll support the Employee Experience Business Partner on colleague engagement programmes which include the development and delivery of EX and EDI strategies and initiatives. You’ll actively participate in all elements of the business engagement/diversity year which involves great opportunities including, but not limited to:

• Management of events within the annual EDI calendar, such a Pride, International Women’s and Men’s Day, World AID’s Day etc.
• Co-ordination of recruitment attraction events across the network
• Delivery of EDI training and induction module to new starters and managers.
• Active participation in our colleague engagement group, Northern Crowd, identifying and working closely with engagement champions to represent Northern at internal and external events including awards ceremonies.
• Collaborating on our bid for Investors in Diversity re-accreditation and supporting the Employee Experience Business Partner throughout the process
• Supporting the deployment of the annual colleague survey and internal ad-hoc business surveys which will provide insight into our business culture and engagement action planning processes.

About You

You’ll have a natural interest in people. You’ll be highly motivated, with a passion for helping people to advance in their career and in general terms.

You be enthusiastic about growing and developing the business from a employee experience and equality, diversity and inclusivity perspectives. You should also be able to demonstrate the following:

• Be driven; demonstrating determination to succeed.
• A passion for building relationships with a wide variety of people from all varying levels.
• Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal.
• A global attitude for working in a multi-cultural environment.
• Have a high performance and achievement mentality; whilst also being creative and innovative.
• Step up when the challenges arise; show a desire for taking on responsibility.

It is also essential that you have:

• Completed a 2:1 or higher Bachelor's degree or Master’s degree.
• Must have studied at a University in the North of England or live in the North of England.

Our Values

You'll also need to share our values, too. They reflect what's important to the way we work, which means we look for the same in everyone who joins us.

• Make it yours - We're proud to be who we are. We don't hide our personality, we let it shine and bring our best every day.
• Make the difference - We never settle for okay. We pursue perfection, seek out better ways and always look to improve.
• Make it last - What we do today affects tomorrow, so we look after the environment, our communities and each other.

Our Benefits Package

Because we value our people and reward hard work, we’ve created a benefits package that we think you’ll love. So, you’ll be able to make the most of:

• Opportunities to progress and grow - including comprehensive training schemes and a range of online learning courses.
• Agile working for non-train crew - many of our roles can now be based at both home and the office, which is great if you are looking for flexibility.
• Cycle to Work Scheme - save up to 42% on the cost of a bike, while also spreading your payments throughout the year.
• Free Travel on Northern services - everyone who works at Northern, plus their partners/spouses and dependents, can travel for free right across our full network of services. *Certain eligibility criteria will apply.
• 75% discount with other Train Operating Companies - after 2 years with us, you’ll also get discounted travel on many other rail services in the UK and Europe.
• Defined Benefit Pension Scheme - you’ll rarely find a pension as good as a Northern pension, and we top up your pension with a generous 1.5 times your contribution.
• A generous holiday entitlement - our incredibly generous holiday entitlements can help you feel like you can get away too.
• Exclusive benefits with Northern Perks - enjoy retail discounts, instant vouchers, cashback, wellbeing support and much more.

Plus so many more!

About Northern

At Northern, we play a vital role connecting millions of people to work, leisure and education opportunities.

We operate 2,500 services a day to more than 500 stations across the North of England. But our vision is about more than just train travel. It’s about setting a new standard for customer experiences. And that means building a different kind of workplace. One that values individuality and celebrates differences. Somewhere we can work together, have fun, and get stuck in to making our customers’ lives easier. A place that goes out of its way to create incredible opportunities for everyone to grow and be the best we can be every single day.

So, if you’re smart, forward thinking, passionate and full of fresh ideas like we are, you could play your part in making it happen.

Equal Opportunities

We’re an equal opportunities employer and a promoter of diversity and inclusion in the workplace. We are committed to encouraging and celebrating applications from different backgrounds, whatever their gender, ethnicity, race, religion, education, socioeconomic background, disability, or sexual orientation.

We also have Disability Confident status, which means we’re committed to making the most of the talents that disabled people can bring to the workplace.

Your Application

Ready to help our customers go do their thing? You can get started by telling us more about what your thing is.

The first thing you need to do is complete our online application form and tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Once we have all your details, we will be back in touch to let you know what to expect.

Northern reserves the right to close the advert before the published closing date if high volumes of applications are received. In this situation partially completed applications will not be progressed forward or given extra time to complete.