Bringing our teams together

Unique in our industry, CPA understands the power of communication. We know that if we allow our professional staff to work as part of a greater, more cohesive team – service delivery, and client satisfaction improves in leaps and bounds!

A great example is provided by Tyler Matakamikamica – Field Contract Coordinator (Medical) who has implemented an individual weekly catch up over Teams with all of her 13 sites. We asked Tyler to provide feedback on this great initiative:

I initiated a scheduled 15 min catch up (Monday afternoon) with our Paramedics/Nurses to discuss order issues, leave/coverage and anything else they may be concerned about.

The first few weeks I just sat waiting for someone, anyone to join! I’d send a quick “teams meeting” text and sometimes I would be joined, sometimes I’d still be waiting.

Even when people did join, those first few calls went for over an hour, and to be honest, turned into gossip-and-vent sessions. Entertaining, but not very productive.

I persisted. I also tweaked the meeting structure. And I’m glad I did. These weekly catch-ups have now become routine for the entire team to dial in to. As the time slots are B2B, they are often already waiting for me ahead of time!

The information we’ve shared during these meetings has proven invaluable – giving everyone a voice and myself and Matt a great overview on everyone’s needs and issues. Currently, Matt and I are working through two recent issues which have been bought to our attention – that we would only have been made aware of through these meetings.

I just wanted to share with you the success – through sheer perseverance – these meetings are now experiencing.

Personally, I have benefited greatly – especially due to far fewer travel days, resulting in more time to perform my FCC duties and support my team.

Great work Tyler!!!

Our site teams may not realise that they really are part of a family of over 500 experienced and dedicated professionals, comprising:

• 170+ Paramedics and Nurses as part of our medical team,
• 300+ Security APOs and MSGs
• 80+ Fire & Rescue ESOs.

Every one of our staff is confronting issues and creating solutions every day. By sharing our ideas and experiences, we grow and continuously improve – always reminded that we are part of the larger CPA family.

How did we start the ball rolling?

Two years ago, CPA implemented a “Field Contract Coordinators” model two years ago. We recognised that our expansion needed to be accompanied by better structures and systems – to better serve and communicate with our remotely-located team members,

Appointing a senior and experienced operator to manage this and rotate it through a number of sites ensures:

• Our staff see representatives from Head Office
• Staff can share vital information, issues and concerns in a way that can be actioned
• There is an opportunity to share best practice.
• The client is visited regularly

As we travel through our operational sites, we are seeing amazing initiatives and innovations that have the potential to continuously improve other sites within that service division… and indeed for other service divisions: What works for a Health & Medical site may work also at a Security site.

This is how we share innovations – and Innovation is one of the CPAFIT core values.

Other CPAFIT core values include commitment to Team and Family. We want staff to know they are not only a member of their onsite CPA team or their divisional team (e.g. Fire & Rescue), but also the greater CPA corporate family. The more we communicate, the better we feel about – and perform – what we do.

It is why we have newsletters, Town Hall meetings, supervisor summits, lunch-and-learns, senior management visibility at site, and staff satisfaction surveys.

We look forward to hearing a lot more from a lot more of you. So let’s keep talking!