VIDEOS TO RECOGNIZE THE FRONTLINE Those with teenagers know the mess that can be left in their wake. Now imagine 30,000 teenagers descending on your place for the day and then leaving. That’s a portion of the day in the life of a caretaker. And there is a hope everyone can respect their work as they keep Western’s facilities looking their best.
“Videos are a good way to share our stories, but more importantly they can share the personalities that bring those stories to life.” - Brandon Watson, Communications Officer In an effort to share the stories of FM frontline staff, Communications Officer Brandon Watson and Communications Intern, Michelle Smith have picked up the video camera and made tracks to where the proverbial rubber meets the road. “Our staff are identifiable, with their uniforms and fifty pound key-chains,” say Watson. “but I’m not sure our customer are always aware of the services they provide to the University.”
SERVICE EXCELLENCE This is Steve Leslie on the right, Supervisor of our Commissionaires and Tom Beckman, Assistant Supervisor. This event was the Annual Commissionaires Awards dinner held Thursday October 4th, 2012. They received the Commandant’s award for exceptional service to Western. I nominated them for their work in replacing our meters. I had scheduled a two week transition period for this and they finished the task in 4 hours.
It is a big place and getting bigger. The expectation from the Facilities Management Division is that they will continue to maintain the same level of service year over year, new construction after new construction. Watson points out that customers can always expect great service, but hopes the videos will provide some insight into the complexity of each of our frontline positions. “Take Rick Mercer interviews and add a dash of Dirty Jobs and you get the recipe for our new series,” says Watson. The plan is to reach out to most areas of our service offerings and find out how we make the University a better place to learn, research and work.