As part of its new communications policy and for the first time, UIC organised a welcome meeting for the staff having recently joined the UIC team. This meeting took place on 27 October 2010 at the UIC headquarters in Paris where the newcomers recently arrived from Asia, America, Europe and Russia were officially received.
The welcome package comprised the UIC general brochure, a CD with the UIC activities report and a Guidebook on the UIC communications tools and products. In addition to this kit, the first edited UIC Welcome Booklet was offered to the newcomers. This booklet gives useful advice on the basic questions that newcomers have to deal with on their arrival, from the essential points in their professional life at UIC to more personal aspects to help them prepare for their stay in France.
The welcome was delivered by Mrs Lim, Finance Director, on behalf of the UIC Director-General, M Loubinoux, who had to travel urgently to meet members in Seoul. She presented the International Union of Railways created in 1922, emphasising the crucial values of the organisation: Unity, Solidarity and Universality.
Mrs. Lim also highlighted UIC’s global cooperation and unique strategy to the benefit of all its members. Later on, she explained UIC’s internal organisation on the basis of its organisational chart.
The UIC Technical Directors Messrs Barron, Maestrini, Sellnick and Wiesniewski presented their respective department structures and key activities. The UIC Coordinator for Europe briefly presented UIC’s relationships with the other European railway representative entities and its challenges at European level. These presentations were prepared with the aim of enabling the new staff to get an overview of UIC’s technical expertise and an insight into its business positioning.
The support departments also took the opportunity to present their internal services. Thus, the new staff were given information on the departments of Institutional Relations, Communications, Human Resources and Finance. They were able to get a first glimpse of the UIC Intranet network tools and were provided with essential information regarding the use of these tools, procedures and forms.
Given the good feedback received following this meeting, UIC intends to regularly organise welcome meetings for newcomers on an annual basis, in order to facilitate the professional and private adaptation of its new staff members.
Latest arrivals at UIC
Anton Akulov arrived on September 21st and will work for one year for the Freight Department especially in the field of Intercontinental and Transcontinental Rail Traffic. He will mainly contribute to the following projects : the description of the complete rail based transport value chain from Europe to Asia ; ICOMOD. He will also support the Coordinator for Russia at UIC.
Gregory Kozyr arrived on October 15th and will work for one year for the Rail System Department. Since 2009, he has been working as Chief engineer for the Directorate Operations and Maintenance of Track Machines of Russian Railways (RZD).
Gianfranco Cau joined us from Trenitalia (Italian railways, subsidiary of FS, operating in the sector of passenger transport) and he will be replacing Francis Delooz working on projects such as Pantotrain, Dynotrain, Aerotrain, CAB Drive and will be in charge of several of the UIC SETs (SET 02, SET 11 and SET 15).
Vicenzo Carpinelli, seconded from RFI (Italian railways, subsidiary of FS, infrastructure management), will replace Paolo De Cicco and work on the ERTMS Benchmarking project and also on the European Performance Regime (EPR).
