Interfaith visit brings Northern staff and community together

A group of colleagues visited the Shree Lakshmi Narayan Hindu temple, Guru Gobind Singh Gurdwara and the Rawda Mosque in Bradford with Yorkshire Asian Business Association (YABA) on Tuesday 22 November.  

The day enabled them to learn more about different faiths and discuss how to be more inclusive in the workplace.  

Tony Baxter, regional director at Northern, said: “I would like to thank everyone from YABA and Bradford faith groups who made this day possible.  

“We are proud to be a part of this wonderful community. At Northern, we worked hard to ensure we are an equal, diverse, and inclusive business for our customers and colleagues, but there is always more to learn.” 

Northern launched a new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) strategy in 2020 with the aim of creating a culture where everyone who works for or travels with the train operator feels included and valued.   

More than 50 colleagues volunteer from across the business to advise on how equality, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of everything Northern does and the group have spearheaded continuous EDI based learning and development, raised awareness of key issues and helped to introduced workplace policies on Menopause, Domestic Violence Support, Becoming a Parent and Transgender Support.    

Northern also has a blind sifting policy, meaning information on CVs that could indicate a person’s background or gender is removed to ensure there is no potential unconscious bias. This has led to an increase in new recruits into Northern from ethnic backgrounds.