Innovative or Same Old, Same Old?
Author: Daniel Mattock, Engineer, Pareto FM
Standing there in my old plantroom watching yet another subbie come in and do the job that not only I was capable of doing, but actually went to college to learn how to do, I succumbed to the inevitable…. This was not the place for me.
Now……. I should have seen this earlier.
Training that was promised was constantly on hold for 3 months. My progression was being held up by my supervisor, who at 60 wanted to see out his days in relative ease. And any job that was remotely interesting got subcontracted so we didn’t have responsibility for it. I was no longer even a spanner monkey I was becoming an expert filter cleaner.
Ok, so I got back on the merry go round that is maintenance recruitment. 7am interviews, untold technical tests and being asked if you were an animal what would you be and why? I started to believe that maybe the ridiculousness of this process is why I stayed so long.
Then one day a good friend of mine and called me for a coffee. He knew I was miserable. So, as any good friend would, he wanted to take me out. I knew he’d want to gloat about his new job with this “great” new company Pareto FM. We sat there and he listened to me moan about my current situation. But, instead of the smugness I was expecting, he said something I didn’t expect;
“Come and work for Pareto” he said. “They are different”.
My first reaction was to laugh, I had seen this guy at his glorious best and his hilarious worst, but I trusted him implicitly.
“Why would I do that mate? All these companies are the same” I said. “Promise you the world and forget about you as soon as you sign on the dotted line”.
He replied with “well come and have a look then you sceptical sod. If you don’t like it the worst that will happen is that I buy you lunch”. Now he must have been serious as he is a usually frugal chap but I decided I had nothing to lose.
Fast forward five months
So, now here I am 5 months later sat at my Pareto laptop, covered in old macerator water (story for another time), writing a blog about how my new company differs.
The be honest, the answer is transparency. It’s simple.
From the day I looked around the proposed site, to the day I met the team for the first time, any questions I have asked from holidays, training, and tools have been answered honestly. If anything ideas/initiatives get pushed back the management team have properly explained what the issue is and how we’ll work to resolve it together. Not via email, or hiding behind texted messaged, but a phone call or face to face.
This personal touch has long been forgotten in engineering services. Even Andrew Hulbert, Founder of Pareto, who has hundreds of people in his employment, takes time to engage with the staff and remember everybody’s names. He is even choosing, yes choosing, to jump out of a plane with twenty of the Pareto operatives and managers for charity.
I’m not here to fluff up the company, I have no reason too. But what Pareto are trying to do is get the right people in the right positions. This means it works for the staff and works for the clients. Ultimately, this makes everyone happy.
I honestly mean this from the ground up and the top down. Pareto are different. From Andrew Hulbert down, I know I can call anyone here and they will go out of their way to help. This is just what we do here. The engineers make the client happy and the clients being happy is what FM is about.
To any engineers out there that are frustrated with their current work situation, get in touch with Pareto. You won’t believe how much better working for a company like this can be.
