Social value on the right track
Collaboration with the Railway Mission improves the Rail Social Value Tool.
Anna Plodowski Senior Content Editorial Manager, RSSB
After a good start offline, and then an online launch in 2022, the Rail Social Value Tool (RSVT) is being improved. Collaboration is essential for that improvement. The way the Railway Mission and RSSB worked together recently shows that process at work.
The Railway Mission is a faith-based, Christian charity that helps both rail employees and members of the public affected by railway operations. It gives independent, confidential, and impartial pastoral care. It aims to help those experiencing loneliness, stress, depression, trauma, bereavement, or illness, and who are also involved with rail. It is highly valued, even cherished, within our industry.
What might not be so obvious is that the Railway Mission’s work inevitably increases the social value of rail, too. If we don’t measure the social value that has been created, we are underselling the value of what rail does. Measuring the social value that rail produces gives us data and metrics to show how valuable we are, and the multiple benefits from investment in rail.
That’s what makes collaborating with others, like the Railway Mission, so precious. The Railway Mission showed us how their people work and the impact of what they do. Learning from their real-world experience was instrumental for the RSVT team. It enabled us to think hard about the best way to measure the social value that the Railway Mission produces. This gives us confidence that the new RSVT metrics will capture the social value reality of what other colleagues are doing too.
As a result, we added new metrics to the RSVT. The RSVT used to have around 500 metrics and now it has over 1,000. While the RSVT used to be very focused on the social value of station improvements and similar activities, the new metrics address more ‘human focused’ topics—employee health and wellbeing.
The availability of over 1,000 metrics doesn’t mean that everyone needs to use every metric for every project. But it does mean the improved metrics are more nuanced and far more usable for the whole industry.
Whether your company is large or small, the RSVT can help you demonstrate your social value. Sometimes it’s easy to think that only grand gestures matter. Our collaborative work on social value shows otherwise. Even small things are worth doing for their social value, as collectively they add up to a big social impact. The Railway Mission are already benefitting, using the new RSVT metrics to demonstrate the value of their work to their funders.
This benefit is open everyone in the industry using the RSVT. When allocating funds to projects that create social value, the RSVT makes it easier to demonstrate the social value of that investment. The improved RSVT makes that easier still.
Find out about how the Rail Social Value Tool can make a difference in the rail industry.
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