Xmo people
Name:
Steve Martin
Job title:
Managing Director
Before joining Xmo Strata:
I completed a 4 year engineering apprenticeship before joining the FMCG industry where I received 8 years of classic management training from one of the UK's leading confectionery distributors with a turnover of £380 million. My roles included several management positions, with responsibility for a team of 38 people and a sales budget of £60 million.
I moved into the sign industry 20 years ago, in which I have always tried to apply my disciplined training into a very unruly and unstable industry.
My work at Xmo Strata includes:
Directing our management team to complete all work in a safe manner, on time and to the high standards expected by our customers.
A large part of my job is also maintaining a strict adherence to health and safety policies and procedures. The priority I have instilled in everyone at Xmo Strata is safety, quality and productivity - in that order. I always try to encourage our management team and engineers, to ensure that they deliver the same service they would expect if the work was being done on their own home. I also believe firmly in an incident and injury free workplace, to ensure that everyone goes home safely to their family at the end of each week.
Training needed to complete my work:
Much of my training relates to managing people and getting the best out of them. Early on in my career, I received formal “listening skills”, “learning profile” and man-management training. This helped me to understand that we all learn in a variety of different ways. I always try to remember that it isn't what we say that counts, it is what the recipient hears, and more importantly, understands.
Training courses completed since joining Xmo Strata:
As well as management training, I also believe in our management team understanding what our guys on the ground do. For this reason, I hold many of the same qualifications as the teams doing the work, these include UK PIA, PASMA (mobile scaffold tower erection course), Incident & Injury Free training, as well as IOSH managing safely, IOSH Directing Safely and the NEBOSH General Certificate.
In 2008, I was accredited as a Tech. IOSH member, and in my spare time I am studying for an NVQ level 4 in occupational safety, to achieve my aim of Grad. IOSH status by the end of 2009.
The best thing about my job:
I get a lot of satisfaction when customers are pleased with our work, and take the time to drop a note or e-mail. Passing this sort of plaudit onto our guys makes the job all the more rewarding.
Why I wanted to set up Xmo Strata:
As detailed in Safety, Quality, Tricks and Lies, the UK sign industry is (in the main) very poorly managed, extremely under-capitalised and littered with the corpses of companies that could boast a long list of blue chip customers, but that failed to survive. I wanted to set up a company that would deliver what blue chip customers want, and lead the industry from the front in driving up its standards of safety, quality and service.
Sum-up your job in 3 words:
I was torn between 2 answers here, so offer both: “Bloody hard work” and “Tough but rewarding!”