Starting with no HR department, no legacy systems and no inherited baggage, Lumo has built a people-first culture from the ground up. People and Culture Manager Lindsay Gauntlett explains how a clean slate became the company's greatest strength...
When Lindsay Gauntlett joined Lumo in January 2021, she was one of just a handful of employees. There was no HR department, no ready-made playbook, and certainly no inherited way of doing things. And it turned out to be the company’s superpower in building the company’s famed inclusive culture.
“We were literally building everything from scratch in real time,” she recalls. “And it’s the best thing that could have happened because it came with no baggage. We were all in it together. We just wanted to be open and inclusive. Everybody felt heard, everybody felt valued and what we built has persevered.”
It was a far cry from her previous role in private healthcare, which she’d taken after being made redundant when her children were small. “I wasn’t even looking to move,” she admits. “I scrolled past the job a few times, but something about it stuck with me. It was the chance to build something new. And we did.”
Importing fresh DNA
In a sector where tradition and hierarchy run deep, Lumo deliberately set out to be different. During Covid, when hospitality and airlines were hit hard, Gauntlett turned to those industries for talent. What could have been an accident of circumstance became a strategic advantage, allowing Lumo to tap into a workforce where customer-centric service comes naturally and diversity is the norm. The result has been a culture – and a customer experience – that has helped give Lumo a clear USP in a sector often weighed down by its own ways of doing things.
“That really shaped what the customer experience looks like on board,” she explains. “And it’s probably helped shape the diversity within Lumo too.”
For someone who describes herself as “down-to-earth and family orientated,” that people-first instinct comes naturally. And it fits right in Lumo, which as been dubbed by Modern Railways as one ‘big blue family’.
“I’ve been with my husband for 25 years, I’ve got two kids, a dog, and my idea of heaven is walking in the countryside or, one day, retiring to a villa in Greece with goats,” she laughs. “So building something where people feel supported and happy felt obvious to me.”
Today, passengers notice the difference in the way colleagues interact with them on Lumo’s services up and down the East Coast Mainline – and soon to be on the West Coast Mainline. But internally, it has also set the tone for how people work together. New recruits go through a “culture interview” with Gauntlett and the Service Delivery Director before they even start. It’s a two-way conversation about values, expectations, and whether the fast-paced environment is right for them, Lindsay explains.
“It’s about making sure people know what they’re coming into,” she says. “And it’s helped keep our turnover low, because everyone’s clear on what Lumo is about from day one.”
And it’s not just the colleagues that benefit. Passengers are responding too – the company landed a 96% overall satisfaction rating last year in the Customer Insight Survey, commissioned by the open access operator, and led by The TAS Partnership transport consultancy working with market research specialists MRFGR.
Lumo’s culture mission has also seen it awarded the Clear Assured Bronze Standard, a globally-recognised standard that’s awarded to businesses which can demonstrate their commitment to inclusivity and diversity. As of last year, 95% of Lumo’s operational workforce has come through the Newcastlebased business’s apprentice programme in partnership with Train’d Up. And in the past three years, 29 females have completed the training compared to 27 males breaking all sorts of industry cliches.
Flat, open, and all-in together
But for Gauntlett, Lumo’s culture isn’t about an award in a cabinet – it’s the lived day to day and in every policy she and her small team put together. Lumo’s head offices in Newcastle were designed to bring train crew and office colleagues together, avoiding the silos common across the industry where train crew and back office functions can be separated by miles. The management team is deliberately lean, and access to senior leaders is direct.
“There’s no hierarchy here,” she says. “If someone’s got an issue, they’ll just pop in to see the Service Delivery Director or Managing Director. People aren’t scared to do that.”
That openness extends to mucking in when needed. Every contract includes the expectation that colleagues can act as ambassadors in times of disruption, whatever their day job. Gauntlett herself has found that spirit in action more than once including an Easter when she was spotted trundling boxes of mini eggs through Newcastle station for customers.
“You find yourself in bizarre situations,” she laughs. “But nobody says ‘that’s not my job.’ We just get on and do it. Everyone has each other’s backs and that pays it all forward.”
Work-life balance has become one of the pillars of Lumo’s culture too. Annual leave must be taken in-year – there’s no option to roll it over – to make sure people properly switch off. Flexibility is agreed case by case, rather than being bound by rigid policy.
“If you’re happy at home, you’re happy at work. They affect each other, don’t they?” says Gauntlett. “We don’t have hard and fast rules. People manage their own workloads, and we support them when they need it.”
She admits she keeps a watchful eye on colleagues’ wellbeing. “If I see someone online late at night, the first thing I’ll do is message them: why are you working at this hour? That kind of check-in makes a difference.”
Perhaps the most striking part of Gauntlett’s philosophy is her determination to prove HR can be more than a corporate shield. “I think people might be surprised by how much I care,” she says. “People think HR is just there to protect the business. Of course we do protect the business, but the way I see it, we do that by doing the right thing by people.”
It’s a conviction shaped by hard lessons. Early in her career, she was pressured by a manager to dismiss someone against her better judgement. “I did it, but it still affects me to this day,” she says. “It taught me never to be put in that position again – and now I’ll always challenge something if it doesn’t feel right.”
Five years on from launch, Lumo has grown from 20 people to more than 115 on the East Coast, with a new team building up on the West Coast Mainline as Lumo’s parent company FirstGroup launches services from Glasgow to London next year. For Gauntlett, the culture that has emerged is the company’s most valuable asset – and one that sets it apart from the rest of the industry.
“I’ve never worked anywhere as supportive as Lumo,” she says. “If I’m struggling, there’s always someone ready to help. And it’s not just me who feels that way – people are protective of this place, because they’ve helped build it.”
It’s that sense of ownership, she says, that makes the hard graft worthwhile. “It was tough in the beginning – really tough. I questioned what I was doing more than once. But when you see people proud of being part of Lumo, that’s when you know it was worth it.”
In an industry often criticised for being slow to adapt, Lumo has shown what’s possible when a new operator starts with a blank page and puts people at the centre. As Gauntlett puts it simply: “It always comes back to one question: what’s the right thing to do by people?”
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