Employee Newsletter: Quarterly Update

HR Department: Employees Working Together

In most working environments, there are no hand-written rules surrounding proper email etiquette. Many of us know to avoid the obvious: politically incorrect cartoons, offensive video content, unforgiving language, and other questionable materials.

What is business email etiquette?

Appropriate email etiquette involves including the necessary elements of a message, such as a clear subject line, greeting, closing, well-organized body paragraphs, and proper language. Employees should carefully consider the format and phrasing of their professional messages to make sure they send messages appropriately.

Daily, people send “hasty” emails, which may not accurately reflect their intended message. But before you hit send prematurely, be mindful of these tips to communicate your message clearly and professionally:

1. Draft a clear, straightforward subject line. The subject line is one of the most vital parts of an email, as it’s the first thing a recipient sees in their inbox. Ultimately, it should tell the reader why you are writing or what you are writing about. Be direct, so your recipient immediately understands what your message is concerning. This subject line should summarize the purpose of your email in a few words with a concise sentence. Keeping it brief and including the main point of your email can improve the recipient’s ability to see your message in their inbox.
2. Traditional letter writing skills still apply to emails.
3. Emails require a professional tone when maintaining a relationship with clients and coworkers that you interact with internally. You can accomplish this by using formal language instead of slang, complete sentences, correct punctuation, writing out all words, and avoiding exclamation points.
4. Always proofread your email prior to sending, no matter if you are in a hurry.
5. Use Spellcheck: There is nothing worse than tarnishing a compelling message or important email with numerous spelling errors. It reflects poorly upon you and your business. A quick click to confirm all your spelling is correct will save you the embarrassment.
6. Use Caps Sparingly: CAPS = SHOUTING
   If something is important, using a bold or italicized font may indicate that it requires more attention. If it is very important and the point you are making needs to be stressed, you can use caps. But use them sparingly! Do not use acronyms that some people may not understand, such as OMG, TMI, etc.
7. Only “Reply all” when necessary. Think carefully about whether your response needs to go to everyone who was included in the original message. Only use the “Reply all” option when you’re providing information that is relevant to the entire group. Otherwise, the “Reply” option is usually best.
8. Start new email threads for new topics. If you want to address a new topic with a group or individual, begin a new message rather than adding the matter to an existing and unrelated thread. This method can ensure you and other recipients keep communications as organized as possible.
9. Respond to messages promptly. A timely response helps clients and coworkers stay on schedule. A brief response is often appropriate for things like acknowledging receipt of a file or confirming a meeting time.
10. Confirm Receipt: Did you receive an email this morning that you won’t be able to address until tomorrow? Confirm receipt. Let the sender know that their email is going to be addressed and did not get intentionally ignored or land itself in the spam filter. Respond within a day of the sender’s message, if not sooner.
11. End Emails with Positive Salutations: Never fail to let people know they are appreciated. Sign off with “Thank you,” “Regards,” or other respectful sayings.
12. Set your email signature line to be consistent across all emails.

FAMILY FISHING BOAT TRIP
Saturday, August 1, 2020

Freeport Charter Boats
540 Guy Lombardo Avenue
Freeport, New York
RSVP by July 17^th

Welcoming Our 7 New Hires in the Second Quarter of 2020

Finance Team
Accounting Intern
Sales Team
Sales Coordinator
(2) Sales Representatives
Modernization Team
(1) Helper
(1) Mechanic
Director of Engineering
Project Engineer & Manager

As our company grows, the employees of Champion Elevator Corp. are our most important asset.

Celebrating Workplace Anniversaries, Promotions and Milestones

Recognizing 4 Years of Service
Raman Pantsialeyenka

Recognizing 3 Years of Service
Ramon Collado
Brayan de Jesus Diaz
Robert Guida
Elba Flores
Hector Madera
Gustavo Balaguera
Yamique Webb

Congratulations to Stirling Collins on his Promotion to: President of Business Development

Congratulations to Joseph Carfora on his Retirement on June 12, 2020! We wish him the best in this new chapter in his life.

Congratulations to these Employees on achieving this milestone with Champion Elevator Corp.! We know you all have worked hard for this accomplishment and we truly appreciate your dedication!

Welcome to the Sales Department at Champion Elevator

Our mission is to grow our customer base through Modernization, Consultant RFP and old fashion networking/cold calling.

We have a passionate and dedicated team of seven sales representatives covering New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.

Accomplishments for the 2st Quarter

• Expanded into the Connecticut and New Jersey Markets
• Official opening of you Connecticut Branch Office
• Expanded our sales force with three new sales representatives

Welcome New Team Members

Matt Pereira – Connecticut
Alexandra Samoilis – Brooklyn
Desiree Moore – Midtown Manhattan
Avelina Guzman – Sales Coordinator

Major win in the 2nd Quarter: Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey

Champion Elevator is proud to announce the award of the elevator service contract at Stevens Institute of Technology located on the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey.

The award of this contract gives Champion Elevator a very strong presence in New Jersey. The contract is a 5-year agreement with mutual options for 2 additional years. The entire campus is on waterfront in Hoboken there are 27 elevators under contract effective July 1st with an additional 8 devices to be added over the next 18 months.

We would like to thank Stirling Collins of Champion Elevator for his relentless hard work pursuing this contract over the past 9 months.

New Service Sales 2nd Quarter: 62 new units on service

Top Service Sale Rep in 2nd Quarter: Stirling Collins (42 New Service Units!!!)

“TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK”

Service Department

Hello to all my fellow employees at Champion Elevator. It has been a strange and difficult couple of months dealing with the Covid19 pandemic. We offer our thoughts and prayers to our fellow employees who have suffered through their illness and our deepest condolences go out to those who may have lost loves the past year. We will continue to do our best to keep all our employees with proper supply of masks, gloves and sanitizers to keep you safe during this pandemic, If anyone needs more supplies please let myself or your Supervisor know ASAP so we can get you what you need. We all need to keep vigilant and follow the CDC guidelines at work and at home.

It has been unusually slow with service calls the last couple of months with the restrictions and most people at home. We have been able to use this time doing extra maintenance items on our elevators and machine rooms that would have been difficult to do when things are normal and busy. We have also been able to keep some of our fellow employees in the Modernization Department working when their jobsites were shut down by the Covid19 restrictions. They did an excellent job re-painting machines and motor room floors, we are making “Purple” the color of elevator machines in New York.

We are all looking forward to the next lifting of restrictions, and some more semblance of real day to day life. There will be more people going back to work and business opening so things will start picking up, so we remind everyone to keep up with the CDC guidelines. We have signed a Maintenance Contract with the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. There are 27 devices on the campus and outlying area. We welcome Anthony Lacchiana to the Champion family. Anthony will be our mechanic on our New Jersey route. Our Sales department id doing an excellent job of signing new customers and are looking for great growth in the remainder of the year.

Be Safe.

Repair Operations Department

Through the second quarter of 2020, the repair operations department remained strong. Although the Covid-19 pandemic has made it difficult for every business, we were able to continue operating as normally as possible. However, some things have changed during this time, such as face coverings and new entry requirements into buildings. Through it all, Champion has remained diligent, following every recommendation. And when the time came, we purchased special personal protective equipment (PPE) for our teams to perform repairs.

During this quarter, we remained financially strong, beating plans for three straight months, only falling slightly short of forecasts in the end. We feel the next quarter will be the most challenging, with the current shutdown for most businesses still in effect. We’ve asked other departments for their support in trying to get older, expired proposals in front of customers to bulk up our backlog.

Repair introduced a new estimating process in May and is currently rolling out the specifics to the other departments. This new process helps new employees find their respective role in repair estimating, guiding the flow from survey to proposal.

Our repair operation teams have had a successful half-year and are happy to be a part of the Champion family.

Thank you,

Ted Mazola
Vice President of Repair Operations

Modernization & Construction Department

Despite all the challenges that come with COVID-19, the Modernization Department continues to progress with all modernization jobs.

We’re currently operating with 24 teams and plan to add two more teams by the end of July.

Co-Op City Project

Congratulations to everyone involved with this job. We successfully completed another 10 duplexes on time. Five of the buildings were actually finished ahead of the customer’s schedule!

It’s important to note that this was accomplished even with the COVID-19 two-week shutdown, as well as enduring all the new challenges that we now must comply with to meet the CDC COVID-19 safety requirements.

When it came time for the owner of 527 W. 143rd Street to modernize his elevators, he looked forward to offering his tenants new state of the art elevators with new slide-type hoistway doors. For years, his tenants struggled with the old swing door entrances on each floor. It was everyone’s hope that one day their elevator would be updated with new conventional slide doors.

Champion Elevator successfully won the modernization bid. Our engineering department took it upon themselves to “think outside the box.” Through our relentless drive to be the best and to always offer the customer the very best product with a major focus on reliability and longevity, we were able to engineer the project to include new slide door entrances on all floors. Additionally, we were able to provide this amazing alternative for no additional cost to the owner. The owner and all of his tenants were thrilled to hear this wonderful news. We have successfully completed one car, and we are well on our way with the second car.

Testing & Violations Department

Elevator Violation Search Portal, Payments and Waiver Requests Launched in DOB NOW: Safety on June 17, 2020

A new Elevator Violations portal was launched in DOB NOW: Safety. It allows the public to search for elevator violations at a property and any amount due for these violations. Payments for ‘Failure to File’ or ‘Failure to File an Affirmation of Correction’ for Category 1 and Category 5 elevator violations and all requests to waive civil penalties resulting from these violations must be made with DOB NOW: Safety.

How To Search the Violations Portal

Requests to research elevator violation penalties owed and Elevator Cashier Civil Penalty Forms (ECP) can no longer be emailed or delivered in person to the Elevator Unit. A new portal has been created in DOB NOW: Safety that will calculate the penalties owed and contains all elevator violations and inspection report data from the Building Information System (BIS) and DOB NOW.

Follow these steps to conduct a search:

1. Select the violation for which you want to submit payment. Only one violation can be paid per application.
   Save the application to proceed. The respondent information on the request is populated from the information found in the eFiling account that was used to log into DOB NOW.
2. Complete the ‘Statements & Signature’ section and Save the application again.
3. The last step is to select ‘Proceed to Pay’ to enter the payment in the CityPay portal.

Violation Dismissal

Payments made in DOB NOW: Safety by credit card will be processed immediately, and the violation(s) status will change to ‘dismissed’ in the Buildings Information System (BIS). Payments made by eCheck will take up to 10 days to be processed. An email notification will be sent when the payment has processed, and the violation has been dismissed.