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Making Employee Voice a National Maintenance Standard
Project Overview
Project Overview
Class Winner at the IOIC Awards 2026 for Best Listening Programme
Network Rail needed to solve a long-standing challenge: teams of approximately 14,000 colleagues across 13 distinct Routes were tackling similar maintenance issues independently, with no consistent way to share learning, reduce duplication or scale proven solutions. Previous attempts had failed because they lacked ownership, trust and clear action. In response, Afiniti designed and launched a listening-led knowledge-sharing programme within six months.
Our approach combined co-creation, community-building, digital tools and governance to help frontline insight travel further and turn local improvements into nationally adoptable practice. Three goals drove the work: transform shared knowledge into actionable change, eliminate duplication across Routes and build a community of practice.
Our Solution
Our Solution
We worked in close partnership with the leadership team, adapting our approach as the business context evolved. We:
Co-designed the programme with representatives across regional teams to ensure relevance, ownership and long-term adoption
Established a peer community and in-person events to surface challenges, share successes and encourage cross-region collaborative problem-solving
Built a governance model so the strongest ideas could move from shared insight to endorsed and adoptable practice
Created a central knowledge hub with easily searchable case studies, practical guides, videos and reusable templates
Delivered a targeted communications approach using trusted local channels, leadership endorsement and contributor recognition
Embedded continuous feedback loops to improve the programme over time and respond directly to participant input
The Difference We Made
The Difference We Made
“The scale of opportunity is incredible, and I am looking forward to seeing the learning and growth develop in actions and outcomes!”
Programme Director
Created alignment and visibility at the top, providing 10+ Exec / VP leaders with a shared narrative, role clarity and a practical framework to lead through change
Enabled teams to share proven solutions nationally through a single platform, with 40 case studies and 6 spotlight videos shared within the first few months, transforming shared knowledge into actionable change
Helped create the first structured route for frontline ideas to become organisation-wide recommendations and eliminate duplication
Built strong engagement through a digital community and in-person events, with 88% of attendees rating the experience very good or excellent
Strengthened collaboration between leaders who had rarely worked together before, leading to ongoing peer learning
Strengthened collaboration between leaders who had rarely worked together before, leading to ongoing peer learning
Created a sustainable model now being adopted and adapted across the organisation, contributing to the wider programme’s multimillion-pound efficiency plans
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