Louis Szymanski nominated for Graduate or Newcomer of Year Award at Rail Staff Awards 2022

D2’s Louis Szymanski has been nominated in the Graduate or Newcomer of the Year category in this year’s RailStaff Awards.

The RailStaff Awards are designed to honour the people and teams in the industry that go above and beyond to make the UK’s rail industry one of the best in the world.

D2 are incredibly proud of Louis’s nomination and extremely appreciative of his contributions to the business. Louis has an amazing work ethic, he is confident, professional, and extremely passionate about people and about the projects he works on. He continuously looks at ways he can add value and leads by example by volunteering for numerous working groups that focus on improving equality, diversity, Inclusion, health, and wellbeing in the UK rail industry.

In Louis’s role on the Early Careers Professionals group committee, he helps create a safe place where members can engage and support one another in the early stages of their careers. The committee looks at enhancing professional development and networking opportunities for apprentices, graduates, placement students or anyone new to the industry.

He also has a keen interest in equality, diversity, mental and emotional health, and how it affects people in and out of the workplace. To be able to support his friends, family, and work colleagues he volunteered to be Mental Health First Aider. He completed his training and immediately joined the Mental Health First Aider group on Transpennine Route Upgrade West Alliance, supporting up to 1200 people across the project.

Louis leads the Equality Diversity and Inclusion group for D2 Rail, and volunteers on the Transpennine Route Upgrade Equality Diversity and Inclusion group as an ED&I Champion. As part of his role in the group Louis leads the Age workstream for the protected characteristics under the ED&I act. Louis’s goal is to help make strides in equality, diversity, and inclusion within the industry. In his role as an ED&I Champion he helps bring awareness and improves the experience of all employees for underrepresented groups with protected characteristics.

Although Louis’s background is not in Rail, he strives to find improvements and a smarter way of working. At D2 Rail he has implemented a challenge statement process which lets anyone in the business put forward a problem that needs to be resolved. He then assigns people to a work stream to resolve the issue. This has been extremely important in the development of our company.

Louis is a shining example for newcomers to the rail industry. He looks at ways he can make it easier for others to follow in his path by providing guidance, support and helping to create a positive working environment. We feel Louis is a worthy winner for Graduate or Newcomer of the Year award, and as a business we are extremely proud of his contributions to the business, his colleagues, and the industry as a whole. If you would like to read more about Louis’s nominations and place your vote  please click here the deadline for voting is the 16^th October.