2021 Monitoring Center Excellence Award Winners Approach Challenge With Compassion

The winners of The Monitoring Association’s 2021 Monitoring Excellence Awards show that leading with your heart is just as important as leading with your mind.

MAIN UAS Video Capture — Scott Elkins, CEO of Universal Atlantic Systems (winner, Monitoring Center of the Year, SMB) , thanks TMA for being nominated in a pre-recorded video shown at the virtual awards ceremony in April.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MONITORING ASSOCIATION

Manager of the Year

Jonathan Rainbow Was Central to Rapid Response Monitoring’s Coronavirus Leadership Task Force

Jonathan Rainbow uses a bit of Disney magic every day when working out of Rapid Response Monitoring Services’ Syracuse, N.Y. office, thanks to his Disney Institute Employee Engagement certification.

“Disney Institute is a part of everything you would assume is Disney,” he says. “It’s basically best practices, as told by Disney in all their years of experience.”

As director of operations, he has created new onboarding practices for hires, provided mentorship opportunities and has established town hall meetings between the central station and operations teams — no magic wand needed.

Additionally, he developed and implemented an employee incentive program that rewards employees based on quality of service rather than productivity or efficiency.

“That is something that we take a lot of pride in,” he says. “You don’t just have one winner every month or one winner a year. Everybody is receiving recognition for what they’re doing. I’ve enjoyed seeing that grow since we revamped it.”

His greatest feat, however, was implementing COVID-19 work plans. He ensured all safety guidelines were adhered to throughout the pandemic with consistent messaging — which was incredibly important when guidelines changed almost weekly. He also built different processes and a tracking system for testing and contract tracing; quantifying time lost due to COVID-19 leaves and a process for daily employee temperature screenings.

Learn About the Manager of the Year Finalists

Shelley McQuigge is a monitoring center manager at Alarm Systems, based out of Belleville, Ontario. She has been with the organization for 15 years. McGuigan has trained two members on her current team who are now responsible for recruiting and hiring, a testament to her tutelage. She also developed a training manual, then trained, coached and developed team leads to execute the training process. She works on ongoing development for longer-term employees, helping develop a career path for all levels of experience at the company.

Josh Sanders has worked at Engineered Protection Systems (EPS) for nine years. He is a U.S. Army veteran, having spent 27 months in active duty as part of operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom. Sanders created and implemented a 16-unit training manual for use at the monitoring center, which is updated monthly. Additionally, he converted EPS’ records department to a completely paperless operation.

“It was probably one of the more challenging scenarios or circumstances I’ve ever run into,” he says. “The first part of the challenge was, how do you create a safe and comfortable work environment in the middle of a worldwide pandemic? The second side of that was, once you got to … a cruising altitude, where you’ve got your temperature checks in place; you have social distancing in place; you have your mask policy in place; how do you manage the staff? How do you build those same relationships when you can’t be next to them?”

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Rainbow’s dedication shows through his actions and words. During the Monitoring Excellence Awards ceremony, he thanked his team. In fact, he doesn’t consider this honor an individual award, but more so a reflection of the entire Rapid Response Monitoring group.

“The first thing that I thought of was, ‘Wow, this is a great recognition for our team,’” he says. “Because I wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for them.”