Worcester names 'Engineer of the Year' at Gala Awards evening

Worcester, Bosch Group has named Matthew White as its ‘Engineer of the Year’ at a special Gala Awards evening held at the Chateau Impney Hotel, Droitwich, in late July.

Matthew, who works in the South Central area, was one of 12 regional winners to beat off competition from around 300 other service engineers taking part around the country.

The awards, which are in their first year in this format, were launched by the customer service team at Worcester in June 2006 to recognise and reward excellence amongst its team of service engineers working in customer facing roles throughout the UK. Judging has taken place over the past 12 months, with the first finalists announced in July 2007.

In the initial round of the selection process, engineers were assessed on their overall ability as a service engineer, as well as their general flexibility, administration accuracy and customer service skills. A point scoring system was devised to ensure engineers were measured fairly against others taking part.

Individual performances were monitored on a monthly basis from July 2006 — June 2007, providing results across a 12 month period. Those with the highest number of points were selected as the overall regional winners.

Having made it through to the second and last stage of the awards, the 12 finalists and their partners were invited to the Chateau Impney Hotel. The 12 engineers spent a day at head office undertaking final assessments and appraisals designed to test their technical and practical product knowledge, in addition to their customer facing skills.

As well as being tested on their electrical fault finding and general maintenance knowledge, the engineers were also required to sit a written test and take part in a question and answer session in front of a panel of senior personnel including Worcester’s Director of Service Operations, Customer Technical Support Manager and a member of the human resources team.

Whilst the engineers were put through their paces, their partners were treated to a more relaxing day out in Stratford-upon-Avon where they enjoyed a tour of the town, lunch and free time for shopping before attending the awards dinner.

The evening awards ceremony was attended by over 90 guests, including Worcester’s Managing Director, Richard Soper, Regional Service Managers, supervisory service personnel and members of the heating and plumbing industry trade press.

After dinner, all 12 finalists were presented with a commemorative certificate, trophy and bottle of champagne to celebrate their achievements as regional winners. Having achieved the highest score in the final round of assessments, Matthew won a week long Mediterranean cruise for two and £100 worth of ‘Love to Shop’ vouchers in addition to his regional prize.

Ian Cockett, Director of Service Operations for Worcester, Bosch Group said: “We are delighted at how well the awards have been received by our service engineers and everyone at Worcester, from the service team to the technical and training departments.

“The initiative was introduced as part of our ongoing commitment to invest in the people who work for Worcester and are our special way of recognising and rewarding the most outstanding contributions people are making to the business from day to day.

“The judging process has already been put in place to find the ‘Engineer of the Year’ for 2008. We are looking forward to holding a similar event next year and to celebrating even more personal achievements.”

Date published: 17th August, 2007

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