As a member of the National Dodgeball Team, I know how important teamwork is. Even the smartest and most talented person could fall short without teamwork. With that said, teamwork is pivotal in the workplace.

Over the last month, the ASP Residential/Commercial team demonstrated proper teamwork, communication, and unity. With the team dealing with several challenges after starting one of ASP’s largest contracts and losing an important member of the team for this contract, the RES/CIC team stepped up. This group had sacrificed and were dealing with multiple consecutive weekends, 12 hour days, an overwhelming amount of phone calls, and the rolling out of a new phone application, along with much more.

Through this stressful time, instead of breaking down or crumbling, the ASP Residential/Commercial team stepped into each other’s roles. Everyone helped everyone, from Managers helping Administrators to Operations helping with Recruitment. This team stayed “in the trenches”, as our Regional Manager would like to say. The team worked through adversity and never gave up.

I have never been so proud to go to work, and I have never had a team that is willing to sacrifice so much to ensure success. From on the court to off, ASP is one of the greatest teams I have had the privilege to be a part of. The sky is the ceiling for ASP and I look forward to seeing what the future holds for this company and this team.

As we enter into the Fall, I’d like to reflect back on our Summer within RES/CIC.

Our RES/CIC Team has grown significantly, due to the growth of the division’s business. As much as we focus on new business, we remember what got us here.

We’ve maintained strong partnerships with our clients throughout our growth to sustain our professional working relationships and to build the confidence and trust amongst all partners. One example was when Brookfield Properties and ASP enjoyed some summer fun with the team this year, by trying out “bubble soccer” and some friendly billiards competitions. We all had a lot of fun and now know the best pool player amongst the teams!

Now that summer is coming to an end, it’s time to buckle down and prepare for the rushes of Fall. ASP’s RES/CIC Division has prepared for the busy season, through increasing our management and administrative team to ensure there are no shortfalls in services over the upcoming months. With any growth, there will be some challenges but we come together as a strong organization and face these challenges head-on.

I am very proud of the work done by our management team, admin staff, and our operational frontline teams. Everyone has worked tremendously hard, put in many hours to support the operation, and rose to demand needed to get the job done. All these extra efforts have shown and paid off. I am excited and look forward to continuing this upward progression of growth and building strong relationships by ‘focusing on our most important resource, people’.

Let’s keep up the great work team!

Over the past few months, the Residential/Commercial division has been working diligently towards the start-up of our new contract.

This new contract is with the City of Toronto and we are proud to be chosen as one of two companies that supply the school crossing guard services throughout the City of Toronto.

This new contract encompasses about 310 crosswalks through the city within two zones. It includes a state-of-the-art technology, as well as a unique app that is proprietary to ASP

We have officially rolled out this new contract and I am very proud of all the work the team put into this service to minimize the issues and bumps as we started up on September 3, 2019.

This new service allows ASP to continue to show the market why we are an industry leader and allows us to continue building niche verticals that provide a customized service to our clients.

This contract brings with it about 350 new employees. This contract was awarded to us due to our reputation and hard work that our field staff have done over the last several years at our sites. This is a testament of how important it is to always maintain a professional image and attitude.

I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone that was a part of this contract, as it was a full team effort to make sure this was a success. I wanted to send a special thanks to Sean Gallagher for all of his efforts and support from the corporate office. Sean was a big part of the transition and he went above and beyond to make sure we had support when it was needed.

I wanted to send a special thanks to my whole RES/CIC team. Majority of the time, the Senior Manager of a division gets all the credit when a contract like this rolls out, but I personally know that this project was a success because of the hard work, dedication and passion you all had to make sure this was done well. You are all a special team and you know how to make sure stressful times are still enjoyable times. Because of each one of you, we have grown quickly and successfully. Each of you should take a long hard look in the mirror and truly be proud of what you have all done within this team, because without each of you we are not as strong as we are.

Thank you to every team member on my team; you have all built a concrete foundation for our team to stand on. The future is bright, let’s continue embracing it.

Over the last couple of years, a lot of you have heard me talk about growth in the RES/CIC Division, which has led to great development within the organization. Our team has outgrown our current office location, so we have obtained a new office for the team.

By November 2019, we will be moving to a larger space that will allow us to continue accommodating the organization’s growth and to provide an even better experience for our employees.

The new space is going to allow us to provide a more structured and state-of-the-art training facility that will allow our field staff to receive even more robust training and knowledge through in-class training programs that are created in house.

The new location for our upcoming office space will be 200 Consumers Rd., Unit 900. This space is even more accessible to all staff, as it is available on the subway line, TTC bus lines, all highways going north, south, east and west which makes the team more accessible to the field staff.

We are looking forward to this move and we welcome you all to come visit us any time once we are moved into our new space.

The Residential/Commercial Division is offering the following in-house training courses: Standard First Aid/CPR & AED Level ‘C’ (2 days), CPR/AED (4 hours), and Customer Service Excellence (4 hours).

Courses are open to all employees working in the division, including Crossing Guards and Security Guards. Additional courses will be offered later this year both in the classroom and through the iSpring e-learning portal.

Use of Force courses such as Legal Authorities-Use of Force Theory, Advanced Communications, Defensive Tactics & Handcuffing and Tactical Baton, are available to Security Guards, Security Specialists and Mobile Patrol Supervisors.

Training is free for employees. Where a course or certification is required for the position or post, employees are paid to attend the training. Please ensure your certifications are up to date and enroll in any required courses in advance to ensure compliance with site policies and service agreements.

Courses have been scheduled through the end of November. Please contact Mike Moledzki, Training Coordinator (mmoledzki@security-asp.com) for a copy of the training calendars and to register for a course. Please book your courses with the Resource Planning Team and your Supervisor or Manager to ensure that you are able to attend a required course.

What a feat the training department accomplished this summer! This July and August, the Training Department trained over 300 school crossing guards in preparation for the start of the school year. This was the largest training initiative the division ever coordinated, with groups of 100-150 people at a time! We rented a hall at a community centre for the larger sessions to have everyone ready in time.

We appreciate everyone’s patience in the training of the crossing guard duties, uniform expectations and the cell phone app. It was a great experience getting to know the crossing guards and listening to their stories from their years of working to keep children and other pedestrians safe while crossing the roadways. In addition to the experienced crossing guards, we also onboarded and trained new employees. We look forward to working with them as they serve in this important role. It is an honour to welcome the crossing guards into the ASP family!