During these trying times, it is important to protect yourself. We all need to use Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), along with washing your hands with soap and water to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

All guards should be putting gloves on for protection during every shift and putting on new gloves every time you return from break. See pictures below, to properly take off and dispose of the gloves. Please make sure you understand when taking off your first glove, you do so without touching your skin. Next, crumple it up into the second glove and remove the second glove while not touching the outside of the glove, putting your finger(s) underneath the rim of the glove and remove slowly to minimize anything from getting on your clothes or person. Make sure both gloves are thrown out in an appropriate container. Keep safe all and see you soon.

Job Satisfaction can be defined as the sense of contentment one feels as a direct result of being an employee in a particular role.

Employee engagement can be defined as the level of involvement and connection one feels in their job. Various forces shape engagement, including the leadership and sense of community in the workplace.

In 2020, ASP is focusing on Employee Engagement and will be utilizing best practices to ensure our employees feel valued at work and are satisfied with their job.

ASP has been providing more training to our employees and building processes for developmental growth. Employee Satisfaction surveys have also been conducted with our front-line staff.  At ASP, we strive to make every day enjoyable for our employees and will continue to so.

Social media has proven to be beneficial over the last several years

For businesses, social media has created a way to send a brand’s messaging to the right people. There are a lot of benefits to be had from using social media. Below are some of the top benefits of using social media.

1. Networking & Partnership
   Employees or customers can contact a customer service representative faster and easier now than ever before thanks to social media. Businesses can also receive, review and respond to employees questions or concerns faster and more effectively using social media platforms.
2. Communication
   In addition to the simplified lines of communication, there’s the aspect of general availability. Social media helps connect us easier than ever before. Building quality relationships becomes a lot easier with the streamlined communication we get from social media and building relationships with key businesses earns a lot of value for your brand.
3. Increase Website Traffic
   Social media channels are supplemental to the brand’s website. Social media is intended to reach different audiences in a personable, useful, and entertaining way and refer those potential customers you may not have ever had the chance to engage with previously to get to know and try your services.
4. Customer Feedback
   In the world of business, sales, and profits, regardless of what your industry is and who you are marketing and selling to, the focus has to truly be on the employee. Success, both digitally and traditionally, is achieved by understanding – and delivering the best quality customer service possible and doing everything in your power to ensure your employees and potential prospects have the best experience.
5. Keeping Potential Customers
   Keeping in line with maintaining your brand’s respected reputation is the opportunity to impress potential customers with how you’ve handled other, typically unrelated customer interactions. People often turn to – even rely – on social media and outline-review sites to get a good idea of just who a company truly is.

Each business has different goals and ways it measures success. Social media can help achieve those goals, but it’s important to stick to the basics and encourage employees to actively check out social media platforms for news and information.

Staying motivated can be tough, especially when falling back on familiar routines feels a whole lot easier.  Consider these tips to help stay motivated when it comes to health goals:

Stay connected to your why
Vision boards can be powerful motivators, offering graphic images that help reconnect you with why you are investing energy and time into your goals in the first place.

Focus on one thing
When you have too many goals or too many items on your to-do list, it can feel overwhelming. That can sap your motivation to do anything at all. Focusing on one thing each day helps keep you focused and motivated.

Change your routine
Routines can get boring. When things get boring, motivation wanes. That is why it is hard to stick to the same meal plan week after week. It just gets old. Changing up your routine every month or so can help you maintain excitement about your goals. For example, changing the time of day you exercise or where you eat at lunch are easy ways to shift your momentum.

Monitor your progress
Whether you use an app or a sheet of paper, tracking your progress can serve as visual motivation. Monitoring helps us transform actions into habits.

The Resource Planning Department is very happy to announce the promotion of William Charles to Senior Resource Planning Analyst!

William brings to our team the knowledge and expertise of the various operational nuances within the contracts that ASP services.  William has also developed relationships with our frontline and operation teams across our company, which has been very beneficial.  William has perfected the art of adding his personal touch and developing relationships with everyone he works with daily.

William started with ASP in 2015 as a supervisor and was then promoted to Mobile Patrol Supervisor in 2017. Shortly thereafter, William moved to Resource Planning.  Bringing his experience from the operations side of the house to Resource Planning, William was able to excel in scheduling by providing guards with extra information that could be useful for the shifts assigned. For example, providing the best way to access their post or sharing what was available in the area when going on breaks.

William was also a big part of launching the Calgary Security airport project.  He took the lead for scheduling guards for this location and worked with the operations team to ensure InTime was updated.  He also worked very closely with HR and Accounting to ensure that the process flow for Calgary was running smoothly. In William’s new position, he will be working more in the background to support our schedulers.

Updating leave requests for all division and balancing out scheduling hours for accounting to process payroll and billing are just a couple of his new duties.  We are very excited for William and his new promotion, and happy to see that his hard work and dedication to ASP has paid off and wish him luck as he progresses with his career.

Please join me in congratulating William on his new promotion!!

For over a year now, I have been delighted to be a part of the ICTS/ASP team and I never cease to be amazed by the energy and dedication embodied by ASP, its leadership team and its employees.

ASP’s remarkable growth, especially recently, has nicely reflected how well the company is regarded across the nation. Therefore, like most of you, I had no idea that we would be spending the last month discussing how best to keep ASP alive and vital through coming months. But this is where the international crisis has placed ASP, alongside many Canadian businesses.

During my 40 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, I developed a strong belief in planning for the worst, and then working with reality. It was a philosophy that enabled the military to operate with the confidence that we were prepared to deal with whatever hit us. I will admit that the current situation is one for which even the military, let alone a company like ASP, could never have adequately prepared.

As I mentioned above, I have been very impressed with those things that make ASP stand out from the competition; the “magic sauce”, so to speak. I have watched the excellence of the members of the leadership team during strategic retreats and seen how they identify key challenges and opportunities, and then develop ways to address them. And through all their discussions, they have been careful to keep in mind their key asset: the ASP employee on the front line. They know that regardless of the quality of their planning, if it didn’t translate to a happy, professional and well-trained group at the “coal face”, ASP would not thrive. And it has thrived, and for good reasons.

Over the last month, this same philosophy has been evident throughout the daily discussions I have observed. Each meeting has begun with CEO Dean Lovric laying out the latest situation, and then asking for observations and critical points from each member of his executive and management team. The remarkable thing has been that, in clear response, no one has held back the truths that needed to be shared and grasped; of the fear among the most vulnerable front-liners, of the concern of those in quarantine, of the pain felt by those who faced layoffs, and of the required actions.

There is no doubt that tough decisions have had to be taken. These decisions have been critical to the survival of the company and, more importantly, to position ASP for a strong return to the marketplace once the opportunity arrives. And it will arrive. At that time, ASP will be looking to return to its former growth curve, and everyone who has been part of the company will again play a key part in its future.

I’ve come to know ASP pretty well in my time with the company, through business meetings, tours and company gatherings, and my sense is that it is doing so many things right, and this places ASP exactly where it needs to be during these toughest days of the COVID pandemic, and for the post-pandemic return to full business.
I am honoured to be able to play a part in that.

In the sending out of the 2019 T4s, ROEs and other communication by regular mail, we have many letters being returned due to the incorrect address we have on file.  This may cause you to miss important documents being sent from the office.

Please review the mailing address on your pay stub. If it is incorrect, please send a note to Human Resources ASPHR@security-asp.com with your employee number (listed on your paystub) and your new mailing address and we’ll be sure to update our systems.

The concept of “scheduling” is not new; the pyramids are over 3000 years old, Sun Tzu wrote of scheduling strategies 2500 years ago, transcontinental railways have been built for 200 years, etc. None of these activities could have been accomplished without a form of scheduling.

Shift work has existed from ancient times, based on the need for watchmen of kingdoms and military. Our modern-day shiftwork traces back to the late 1800s. With the invention of the lightbulb and the increased costs of assets and start-up times, industries like steel mills, iron foundries, and textile mills were urged to run production 24/7.

At first, the schedule patterns split the workforce into a day and night crew that typically rotated. The first crew would work for 13 straight days on 12-hour shifts, followed by a continuous 24-hour shift. This exhausting day was immediately followed by 13 straight night shifts, with one day off at the end before starting this work pattern again.

This schedule resulted in high rates of accidents and injuries. With few regulations, employers had little incentive to consider a more humane design when running a 24/7 operation. Thankfully, this practice ended with the development of new and better-balanced schedule patterns designed to decrease workplace injuries. Two of these patterns have dominated all 24/7 industries.

The most popular used pattern is called the DuPont Rotation or Pitman Schedule. This pattern’s biggest advantage is “every other weekend off”, by setting up 12-hour shifts on a 2-on 3-off, 2-on 2-off, 3-on 2 off, 14-day rotation. An organization using this pattern will require four crews, consisting of two day crews and two night crews. The favourability of weekends off makes this pattern highly desirable by both workers and employers.

Scheduling has come a long way and is now automated through software. There are many patterns and algorithms available to balance the needs of the workers and employers.

On Thursday November 14th 2019, I was lucky enough to attend a special event with our client, Shelter Movers. Shelter Movers is a National Organization that provides free moving and storage services to women and children fleeing abuse.

This is such a great non-profit organization that we are teaming with. ASP RES/CIC provides security guards for each move. Guards are there to ensure that the movers and the family moving are protected and secure during such a critical time.

The event was called A Moving Affair: Expanding Horizons, and was hosted at Arcadian Court in the heart of downtown Toronto. It was held for the people that have put in all the long hours, and hard work to make sure their company is helping people for many years to come. It was also a night that saw 52 donations of $200 (cost of 1 family move) for the next year. I got to enjoy a great event of live music, dinner and drinks with friends. I also met a few awesome people, including Lucy DeCoutere (Trailer Park Boys) and Dwayne De Rosario (Canadian Soccer Legend).

If you would like to make a donation or volunteer on a move, please visit www.sheltermovers.com.