WOMEN in Rail (WR) South, an organisation aiming to improve diversity in the UK rail industry, kicked off the new year with a spectacularly positive workshop, designed to identify and build upon personal strengths in the professional environment.

Inviting women from the Swindon area and beyond to the event, Women in Rail sort to empower females from the local area with a new skillset for career development.

The event, led by Gill How of Buonacorsi Consulting and hosted by Network Rail in Swindon, was the first professional development event for the WR South group. The format will now be rolled out across other South counties based on great feedback from the attendees.

Delegates said: “This is just what I needed to help me! More events like this please”, “Very good balance between input, discussion and questions” and “Time went far too quickly - it was great to take a different perspective on looking at self-awareness”.

Well attended by a great mixture of industry leading women, the purpose of the workshop was to help individuals identify their personal and professional strengths and to use this to best effect for career advancement and job satisfaction.

Lack of self-confidence is the most frequently cited insecurity for women in business and this workshop was created to tackle that, bolstering and encouraging delegates to think differently. Drawing from a deep understanding of professional knowledge, Gill How is skilled at helping people to self-critique in a very constructive manner.

WR thanked the sponsors, Network Rail, Amey and Gill How for making the event such a great success.

This was the second event of WR South and it is now planned to hold similar events in other counties across the South region – further details to be circulated in due course.

If you are interested in attending and finding out more about the Women in Rail community in the South region, register on south@womeninrail.org.