Who are we?

South Western Railway (SWR) operates over 1,500 services each weekday across the network and employs more than 5,000 people. We provide easy and convenient mobility, connecting people and communities in South West London, southern counties of England, and the Isle of Wight.

Join our team and help us continue to improve quality of life, by bringing people together to get the most out of life.

The Reward

Opportunities to work on rest days or to do overtime could increase your annual earnings. Some Rail Operators earn up to £30,000 per annum plus regional allowance.

On top of your salary, we offer a variety of valuable benefits, including:

• Free duty and leisure travel on SWR services for employees
• Free leisure travel for spouse/partner and dependants (criteria dependent)
• 75% discount on many other train operating companies
• Full training and support with development
• Large range of exclusive retail offers
• Excellent pension scheme

About the job:

To lead a team of station assistants to provide a safe environment whilst delivering excellent customer service at all times. To ensure that customers are extended a welcome to the station, are kept well informed and are assisted as necessary.  To ensure that all areas are kept clean and well presented.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Lead and direct staff in the provision of a safe, courteous, helpful service at all times.
• Lead and direct staff in the provision of a safe, clean and well-presented customer environment, ensuring that the tasks detailed in the cleaning schedules are maintained.
• Undertake emergency procedures and implement evacuation procedures when required.
• When the Duty Station Manager is not in attendance, maintain signing on/off records for staff under your control, ensuring that members of staff are fit, capable and presentable (including the wearing of name badges) for the duty they are working.
• Ensure that arrangements are made to cover short term and late notice absences and periods of sickness.

• You will be safely dispatching trains from the platform, ensuring all customers are clear of the train whilst observing the correct signal is showing. You will need normal colour vision for this position.
• You will need to be flexible in your approach and not afraid to get stuck in with a variety of tasks as you are responsible for your station and making sure it meets the quality and safety standards our customers expect. Whether this be cleaning toilets, checking everything is working and safe, clearing up rubbish or providing a helping hand to a customer, you are the face of SWR and can make a difference to someone's day.

* For a full list of responsibilities, please download the job description available at the bottom of this advert.

As a minimum, you will need to have:

• Able to travel to your location of work within 60 minutes, for all shift times.
• Good general education
• Strong customer focus
• Good interpersonal skills
• Team leadership ability
• Resilience 
• Supervisory experience is desirable
• Able to distinguish colours with normal colour vision

Applicants who require a visa must have 6 months remaining at the time of their appointment. Training is full time and you must be able to commit to this.

Working pattern:

Our customers need us all day, every day (except Christmas day) and as part of the stations team, you'll need to able to work shifts at all times of the day and on every day of the week.

You will work an average of 37 hours per week with a rolling rest day and Sundays off. As a GPR (General Purpose relief) you will be expected to cover a mixture of early, late and night shifts at various locations at short notice.

Typical shifts include 06:00 – 14:00 / 14:00 – 22:00 / 22:00 – 06:00

SWR is part of FirstGroup, the largest rail operator in the UK and second largest bus operator in the UK outside London. FirstGroup operates services throughout the UK and Ireland, with over 30,000 employees providing services that make travel smoother and life easier.  FirstGroup works hard to reduce its impact on the environment, introducing cleaner and more environmentally responsible methods of transport.

We all belong at SWR. FirstGroup's vision is to provide an inclusive environment for all colleagues, across its group of businesses, ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to access meaningful employment.

We value our differences such as age, gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, and disability. We maintain a zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice towards our colleagues, customers, and future talent.

We celebrate and encourage diversity of thought, progressive ways of working and seeing all our colleagues grow and thrive.

We review all roles and job descriptions to ensure they are accessible and, where possible, we support and provide flexible working options; we recommend that you refer to each vacancy description for further details.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, please follow the links below.  We encourage you to share any additional needs you may require so we can provide a fair and equal process for all who apply.

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/neurodiversity/

https://www.healthassured.org/blog/neurodiversity/