Employee Newsletter: Quarterly Update

HR Department: Employees Working Together

Tools to Help You While Working Remotely from Home Amidst Covid-19

Workplaces everywhere are implementing and expanding programs to help employees work remotely. With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicting that COVID-19 effects could last into 2021, it’s likely that remote work will become the new normal as countries try to flatten the curve of exposure.

Here are some essential ‘work from home’ tools for management and employees:

Make Technology Your Best Friend!

Technology is what makes work possible, both in the main office and the home office. As employees begin working from home, communication is key to ensure they have all the essential tech tools for remote work.

When employees and teams are learning how to work from home, they need to adjust their habits. This includes finding a workaround for walking over to someone’s desk or asking someone to look at a screen. These communication tools for working remotely help ensure clear, complete communication as employees adjust to the realities of remote work.

For employees who take calls, but also need their hands free to enter data, a good headset is an essential part of the job.

Managers need to connect with their team members to review what everyone is working on and to touch base on updates from the organization. This can also give employees a chance to ask for help during this transition time.

Don’t Forget Your Physical & Mental Needs

Employees’ physical and mental state is critical when it comes to staying productive while working from home. Encouraging employees to get comfortable, get into the right mindset, and take regular breaks can help them stay engaged in the long run.

Encourage employees to keep to their usual schedule, whether or not they’re responding to customer schedules. This can help keep employees from feeling like they’re going through daylight savings time all over again!

Getting dressed for work is another important part of sticking to a daily routine. Not only is it important when interacting with clients or coworkers, but it can also have an effect on your personal performance. One employee said she likes putting on her shoes to help her feel more like she is working rather than lounging.

Employees should plan regular meals and snack breaks (with their timer and calendars) and keep a bottle of water at their desks.

With everything in close proximity, employees might end up moving less when working from home. Encourage them to schedule regular movement breaks, whether it’s a trip to the mailbox, ten sets of squats and pushups, or a short jog on a home treadmill.

Getting Adjusted to Your New Environment

The new normal of working from home isn’t just an adjustment for employees and workplaces. It’s also an adjustment for everyone in the employees’ households. In these extraordinary circumstances, these adjustments could include children who need help with online learning, dealing with distractions, or a spouse who is also working remotely.

Employees will face different circumstances while working from home and should fully explore their work-from-home situation with other members of their household.

Make Time for Time Management.

Time management is one of the hardest parts of maintaining reasonable work expectations when working remotely. Whether it’s the stress of social distancing or simply the effects of being without outside stimuli for reference (i.e., nobody asking if you want to get lunch), remote work can mess with how employees perceive time. One might become anxious and get up every ten minutes for more chips, while another might stay hyper-focused and work well past quitting time without taking time for breaks or food.

Employees need to make time to reset and refresh! Setting a timer can help employees visualize their time management and balance their responsibilities for their workplace, their families, and themselves.

We’re All In This Together.

Whether it’s due to a crisis like COVID-19 or simply the evolution of digital marketplaces, the right technology, and techniques, give employees a great place to work no matter where they are!

HR Employee Portal

Champion Elevator introduced a new HR Employee Portal through BambooHR!

All Champion Elevator Employees can access and track information in this easy to use system allowing staff to feel more involved and engaged on what’s going on in the organization. Employee information is at your fingertips, and employees can make sure all their personal information is accurate and up to date.

During the first quarter, Champion Elevator was able to release the Employee Handbook, secure all employee emergency contact information and be able to utilize this portal to provide the most up to date information and bulletins on COVID-19 pandemic!

Welcoming Our 25 New Hires in the First Quarter of 2020

• Administration: Receptionist
• Finance Team: Account Manager
• Maintenance Team: Dispatcher, Mechanics (3)
• Modernization Team: Adjuster, Helpers (7), Mechanics (5)
• Testing Team: Helpers (2), Mechanic
• Sales Team: Sales Representative
• Shop: Warehouse Manager
• Violations Team: Testing Assistance Coordinator

Celebrating 1st Quarter Workplace Anniversaries & Promotions

Recognizing 3 Years of Service

• William Bush
• Junior Colon
• Anthony Graziano
• Ralph Graziano
• Frandy Guzman
• Barry Hintz
• Carlton Mills
• Giuseppe Parisi
• Albert Ramirez
• Richard Ryder
• Michael Sinisgalli

Congratulations on Your Promotion

• Ismael “Izzy” Montezuma to Repair Supervisor

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

Carlos Rosa was a valued member of our Modernization & Construction Team, as Project Manager, since December 2, 2019. May he rest in peace.

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 1st Quarter

• Rollout of account and geographic territories for each sales representative
• Implementation of Sales Force as our CRM platform
• Standardization processes for service and modernization contract review and pricing
• Created the best sales incentive plan in the industry

Major Win in the 1st Quarter: One Old Country Road

Champion Elevator is proud to partner with ownership of One Old Country Road in the upcoming Modernization of 6 Elevators. One Old Country Road is a 315,000 square foot building located in Carle Place, Long Island. It is surrounded by Roosevelt Field Mall and is the Corporate Headquarters of 1 800 Mattress.

The scope of our Modernization includes, but is not limited to, replacing the existing geared overhead traction elevators with new PMAC Gearless machines, installing new VVVF controllers with group operation, replacing the existing cabs with new modern designs, along with new car and hall call fixtures. Through this modernization we will be increasing the level of efficiency for both the riding public and ownership through energy conservation.

We would like to thank Steven Tilchen of Champion Elevator for his tireless efforts working on this project and bringing it home!! This work will be performed under the direction of Robert Masterson, President of Modernization & Construction, we thank him in advance along with his team for their dedication to excellence!

New Service Sales 1st Quarter: 55 new units on service

Top Service Sale Rep in 1st Quarter: Laura Rivera (25 New Service Units!)

“TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK”

Service Department

Hello, fellow Champion co-workers, this is an update on the First Quarter state of the Service Department. The first thing that needs to be addressed is the very difficult times we are all facing with the Covid-19 Virus. We want to extend our prayers and best wishes to each and everyone of our employees and families that we all get through this for the better. We will do our best to mitigate contact with the virus for each of you, we will continue to provide the proper PPE to each of you and we expect you to practice social distancing as best as you can and remind you to wash your hands as often as you can. We want to thank all of you for your professionalism during this time and let you know how appreciative we are for your donating time back to the company during this rough financial time. We will come out of this a stronger and closer-knit company and family in the end. Your efforts during these trying times will not be forgotten.

This has been a great start of the year for the service department, we have been adding new customers monthly and the company has had a strong quarter. Our supervisors have been doing a great job with the service techs in their areas to quiet down trouble jobs and reducing the number of callbacks on problem jobs. I want to give shout out to Andres for stepping up and doing a great job helping on an open route in a demanding area and keeping things quiet. We have added a few new techs, Willie Rodriguez at the Manhattan VA and Sean Hill is taking over route #2 in Queens. We also added Sylvan Small as our Dispatcher, Sylvan has been a great addition is doing an outstanding job. Our plan in the very near future, May 1st, is to use our ESS dispatching app to its fullest capabilities to capture our time and billing in real-time and eliminate all paper timesheets and work tickets. We need all your help to achieve this goal, but it will be mandatory. If anyone is having issues using the app please contact Hannah Edwards (ESS) at 215-756-7464, she will be glad to help you resolve any issues you may be having.

In wrapping up I want to say that we had a great start to this year and we were working toward a banner year but we have been hit by this unexpected tragedy. We will be facing a tough time but with everyone working together we will get through this and be better in the long run. May God Bless and watch over all of us.

Repair Operations Department

We completely restructured the department beginning in Jan 2020, including the following: We streamlined the repair process as a whole, requiring job information, quotes and estimates before generating proposals.

We consolidated all aspect of repair jobs (from opening to final billing) under one coordinator. We created a Supervisor position and promoted from within to fulfill the spot.

We obtained cell phones for all mechanics and had them trained in the ESS payroll app.

We had the new repair scheduler rolled out for job assignment and tracking.

We are currently running at full operation, all teams are in and working. However, we asked for volunteers to take some time off if they would like. We have also asked each team to consider donating a day to Champion in the month of April, therefore possibly saving 40 team hours for the month.

We had an exceptional first quarter for 2020 (just shy of $1 Million in billing) and our backlog is very healthy right now.

April and May are looking strong, but with the environment right now and the need to pass around some work we could be looking at a weak 3rd quarter. We really need to work on the older proposals and pre-maintenance stuff in the pipeline. I have a message to Doug to help extract the ‘expired’ proposals and distribute that list.

Connecticut is fine and producing some good numbers. Matt’s already generated some proposal work, we are looking forward to getting signed.

Modernization & Construction Department

Champion in Action 60-01 31st Avenue

You always know when Champion is in the house performing another quality mod!

Manpower: Added 6 New Teams

• Approximately 24 interviews we performed
• 13 new employees were hired
• 1 Adjuster, 5 highly experienced mechanics, and 7 helpers
• All new employees received 4-8 hours of one-on-one safety training
• These 13 new employees enabled us to create 6 new additional modernization teams

Testing & Violations Department

In January 2020, Champion Elevator implemented in house testing with the addition of two teams to meet our testing capacity. Their responsibilities include performing Category 1 & Category 5 Year tests. Samantha Retas, Testing Coordinator for Champion, tracks all required testing dates and coordinates with Third-Party Witnessing Agencies. Champion Elevator is forecasted to perform a total of XXX tests in 2020.

Champion Elevator’s Violations & Testing department is proud to welcome Jenna Scibetta. Jenna’s daily responsibilities will consist of assisting Samantha Retas with coordination of all Cat 1 & 5 testing. She will also be assisting Elba Flores with tracking all ECB & PVT violations. Jenna will be reporting to Donna Scibetta.