Lincoln Messenger, Issue 3 - Jan 2014

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Inspiration Station Commitment Issue 3 • February 1 st , 2014 Inspiration Station Training Call Center Milestone Program Human Resources Lincoln Charities Risk Management IT Sneak Peek Community Services LMH Milestones Marketing Featured Installation RECP THE LINCOLN MESSENGER “Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.” -Abraham Lincoln At Lincoln Military Housing, we spend each day providing one of the most basic of human needs, shelter, to the men, women and families that serve - that is the easy part of our job. What is impressive is not that we have merely managed to fill the role of landlord, it is in how OUR team of professionals have chosen to COMMIT themselves to our mission “to provide military families with exemplary service in a quality home environment” in everything they do. Lincoln Military Housing is fortunate to have living examples of the above quote, individuals who strive for excellence in their daily work to literally transform our promise into a reality that our resident’s experience each day. It is impressive, and I want each of the members on our team to know that getting to witness your daily commitment has served to inspire the leadership at Lincoln Military Housing and Lincoln Property Company to better fulfill our promise “to provide employees with unparalleled opportunities for personal and professional development.” With the addition of Leslie Sylvester as our National Director of Staff Development and the promotion of Mimi Morrison to National Training Director, we took great steps last year towards making our promise a reality and are committed to continuing on this year. We have work to do, and we will need your help to get there, at the same time, I am confident that with the example you have set for us, we will! - Philip Rizzo

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4th Quarter 2013

Transcript of Lincoln Messenger, Issue 3 - Jan 2014

Page 1: Lincoln Messenger, Issue 3 - Jan 2014

Inspiration StationCommitment

Issue 3 • February 1st, 2014Inspiration Station

Training

Call Center

Milestone Program

Human Resources

Lincoln Charities

Risk Management

IT

Sneak Peek

Community Services

LMH Milestones

Marketing

Featured Installation

RECP

THE LINCOLN

MESSENGER

“Commitment is what transforms a promise into reality.” -Abraham Lincoln

At Lincoln Military Housing, we spend each day providing one of the most basic of human needs, shelter, to the men, women and families that serve - that is the easy part of our job. What is impressive is not that we have merely managed to fill the role of landlord, it is in how OUR team of professionals have chosen to COMMIT themselves to our mission “to provide military families with exemplary service in a quality home environment” in everything they do. Lincoln Military Housing is fortunate to have living examples of the above quote, individuals who strive for excellence in their daily work to literally transform our promise into a reality that our resident’s experience each day. It is impressive, and I want each of the members on our team to know that getting to witness your daily commitment has served to inspire the leadership at Lincoln Military Housing and Lincoln Property Company to better fulfill our promise “to provide employees with unparalleled opportunities for personal and professional development.” With the addition of Leslie Sylvester as our National Director of Staff Development and the promotion of Mimi Morrison to National Training Director, we took great steps last year towards making our promise a reality and are committed to continuing on this year. We have work to do, and we will need your help to get there, at the same time, I am confident that with the example you have set for us, we will!

- Philip Rizzo

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Milestone ProgramYearbook Program

Training Thank you

What a year we had! RECP, Yardi Mobile, Purchase Orders, PAYscan, Docusign… and we could continue listing all of the changes you made possible in addition to your already very busy schedules. We appreciate each of you for facing the challenges that come with change! Thank you to each of the Regional Training Directors, all of our Certified Training Associates (CTAs) and Service Training Associates (STAs), everyone who piloted programs, everyone who created training aids or facilitated support in any capacity and to everyone who has faced and embraced these initiatives. We appreciate your hard work! Thank you. As we highlight a few of the changes we have made, it emphasizes the need we have for great employees who want to share their expertise with others. If you are interested in becoming a CTA or STA, please contact your Regional Training Director to inquire about the Certification process!

Lincoln Property Company & Lincoln Military Housing have been pleased to partner with O.C. Tanner, the leading global provider of strategic employee recognition solutions, on our ongoing milestone recognition program.

Starting in 2014, our milestone program will have a whole new look in the form of a Yearbook. Yearbook, a suite of tools that has been designed to create memorable experiences and personalized keepsakes, integrates printed brochures, web technologies, and certificates. The Yearbook offering will help provide a keepsake, celebrating our employee’s career anniversaries with unique, year-specific messaging and personalized comments from their manager.

“Our research and our experience shows that what people feel and experience at a 5-year anniversary, is very different than their mindset at 25 years,” explains O.C. Tanner’s President and CEO Dave Petersen. We are excited to commemorate these milestones based on your tenure with the company in ways that are meaningful to you.

We hope you will enjoy the new Yearbook program and look forward to celebrating your next milestone with Lincoln Military Housing!

For 2013, our call center team handled a total of 244,178 incoming calls with an average time to answer of 37 seconds. We are excited to give recognition to those maintenance superstars that have really stood out to our residents and team throughout their daily interactions.

• Sept, Carlos Eussegil, 29 Palms, Browne Region• Oct, Terrell Carmouche, Camp Lejeune, Crennan Region• Nov, Terry Rice, Oceana, Crennan Region• Dec, Victor Gutierrez, Lemoore II, Brown Region

As we move into this new year, we will begin to utilize a new “live” answering service and implement within our hotline the automated attendant to provide recorded utility outage updates to our residents.

Thank you for working alongside us to provide the BEST service in military housing! We look forward to another productive year filled with new and innovative ways to serve you and our residents.

Call Center Year in Review

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Human Resources Looking Ahead

Happy New Year LMH Team! We are looking forward to some great developments and changes in the upcoming months. Feedback from our team in 2013 was that our employees did not feel that a clear career path existed, nor did we have a foundation for all the related components to develop our team members. Our goal is to continue to cultivate an environment where our employees have clearly defined roles, goals and understand their professional career path within LMH. We strive to continue to build on those components that will keep us moving in the in the right direction.

One of the biggest projects we are actively working on is the updating and refining of our job titles and job descriptions. Not only will this create consistency within LMH, it will give our team the ability to have clearly defined roles and development plans to expand their knowledge, skills and abilities. This will give our team a career path to strive for as we continue to foster a “promote within” environment. In the upcoming months, we will be seeking team members who are “subject matter experts” in their role and are interested in joining a “task force” to provide input to our job description project. Please feel free to reach out to your supervisor if you have an interest. Some additional projects in 2014 will be improvements to our Annual Performance Appraisals and additional training to help our leaders effectively coach and support the performance of our teams.

As we continue to grow our business and strive to deliver exemplary service to our customers, we cannot be successful without talented, passionate and caring people like you. We are dedicated to providing you with the right support, training and opportunity for continued success with LMH. Here’s to a great 2014!

Next year, we are hoping to increase participation in automatic payroll donations, currently we have about 54% of employees participating. We would love to see that number go higher and have all employees participating, even if it is only $1 per pay period. In February employees will receive a newsletter from LCI in the mail. Enclosed will be a pre-addressed, postage-paid postcard to make it easy to enroll in the program. Just fill in the blanks and drop it in the mail. Done!

Our biggest wish for 2014 would be for nobody to find themselves in a situation where they need to ask for assistance. Unfortunately, we know that is not realistic so the Lincoln family will be here in the form of LCI to continue to help one another.

Lincoln Charities Helping Others

Lincoln Charities (LCI) is proud to announce that 2013 was our biggest year yet! We helped 27 Lincoln families in need with assistance payments of over $131,000. To learn more about the recipients visit the LCI section of the Knowledge Center or our Facebook page. Adding to the success of 2013, many fundraisers were held throughout the year across the country. Some of the largest events included the Camp Pendleton Golf Tournament, the Kansas City Area Golf Tournament and the Crennan Region Team Building Event.

There were also contests to collect loose change, bake sales, car washes, raffles, bingo, a dirt bike race, and many other great ideas. We are constantly amazed and inspired by the creativity and dedication of the people in the field who work so hard to support the charity and thank all those who held fundraisers this year.

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Risk Management Initiatives

We are excited to introduce Emily O’Dell as our new Director of Risk Management. Below are a couple of new projects she has been working on:

Incident Reporting – This function is being moved to YARDI with a target live date of January 31. Keep an eye out for further instructions, a screen shot primer of changes, and an FAQ sheet the week prior. The biggest improvements will be more system stability, fewer “null” reports due to input errors, and eventually a BI Tool dashboard for management to see incident trends at the neighborhood, district and aggregate level. Some changes will include: (1) The launch link from the KC will not change but the landing page will require a YARDI log on. (2) The “claim type” will now be called “incident type”. Employment Practices will no longer be an “incident type”; this was largely unused and true employment issues – harassment, discrimination, wrongful termination, etc. – are best documented in a more limited format. (3) OSHA Inspections will be a new “incident type”. While few and far between, these can be reported and tracked in this database. (4) A few new subcategories are being added and the FAQ sheet will provide examples

SAFE@LINCOLN – Training & Risk Management are partnering to increase safety awareness and training at all levels in 2014. Watch out for the launch of a new campaign in April! We are seeking SAFETY CHAMPIONS who are experts in certain exposure topics, have ideas for district vs. district competitions, and who want to share “GOTCHA” moments. Please reach out to Mimi Morrison if you have ideas and want to participate.

IT Spotlight

Mobile maintenance has rolled out across LMH in 2013; over 230,000 work orders have been completed via mobile devices eliminating 600,000 paper work orders. Implementation of Yardi Payscan, which loads scanned invoices into the system for approval in Yardi or from mobile devices, also went live across the enterprise in 2013. Payscan is another step in LMH’s drive to the paperless office. Online leasing is coming in 2014 and is another big step towards the paperless office.

MilitaryBI, LMH’s Business Intelligence product was released in September 2013. MilitaryBI is an easy to use system for computers or tablets that slices and dices data at the click of the mouse and reports on: financials, maintenance, residential demographics, and inventory and occupancy. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of MilitaryBI is that is creates a Flash report with one click of the mouse!

As of November 2013 Community Services is using a new Event Management system. Event Management is powered by Streampoint and is a system that residents use to sign up for events and for Community Services to effectively manage those events.

The Virginia House is located on Naval Station Norfolk, based in Norfolk, Virginia. This home is 13,383 square feet and is one of the largest Flag Quarters in the country. It features seven bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms. The home has three floors of living space and a three car garage.

This home was built in 1907 for the Jamestown Exposition and was designed as a replica of a Virginia colonial plantation home. The grand entrance of this home starts with a large exterior emblem bearing the Virginia Seal, as well as six mahogany doors decorated with leaded glass and original hardware. Once inside, the front foyer boasts a 20 foot rotunda with a large crystal chandelier and unique pictures of the area from 1917.

The Jamestown Exposition was held to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and the Virginia Colony. The exposition was held from April 26, 1907 to November 30, 1907. Distinguished guests such as President Theodore Roosevelt visited the grounds during this celebration. These events showcased the United States arts, military and technology to the world. The military presence at the exposition resulted in the Navy’s purchase of the grounds in 1917.

Virginia House is one of fifteen Historic homes located on Dillingham Boulevard, “Admiral’s Row”.

Sneak PeekVirginia House

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Community Services Year In Review

Throughout the Browne Region the community events hosted for our residents in 2013 were very successful! The last half of the year was filled with cookouts, pizza parties, movie nights, and bowling parties. For the residents of the Albany district the Holiday party was the highlight of the year! The Del Mar district saw a record high in attendance of their events and Kansas City residents were treated to an NBA game. The Mountain district welcomed over 800 residents the Fall Festival and Winter Wonderland events while San Onofre celebrated the grand opening of their new dog park with a neighborhood block party! The Stuart Mesa district held their first annual Challenge Run and Twentynine Palms continued the tradition of their very popular Haunted Maze. Vista Del Sol welcomed residents to their new Community Center and the Yuma district treated our littlest residents to horse and pony rides at the annual Christmas event. In 2014 the region’s community events will hold even more surprises and the Browne Region is looking forward to a year filled with new ideas and fun events!

Everything’s bigger in Texas! Ft. Sam Houston lived up to this saying after hosting over 450 residents at their annual Monster Bash! They treated residents to crafts, games and held a district wide costume contest. In December they hosted their Annual Winter Wonderland event where special guests from the North Pole dropped by for a visit and photos. With another successful year on the books they are looking forward to another fun year to come in 2014!

The Crennan South CS team kept busy in 2013 breaking attendance records almost every month! Residents received the VIP treatment at a Cirque de Soleil show, a Harlem Globetrotters game, holiday parades and more. Spouse Club hosted exciting nights out including a Speed Networking Social, crafting skills, couponing classes, and bingo nights just to name a few. Our littlest residents came out for toddler tumble and the whole family kept in shape together during our monthly Zumba classes. LMH is proud to have a partnership with ASYMCA who hosts classes at three of our community centers. Our residents also gave back through many of our VIP volunteering events. The fall came quickly and residents showed their costumes off at our Monster Bash Halloween parties. Of course the end of the year wouldn’t be complete without our annual neighborhood s’mores events where we gave out over 250 turkeys.

The Crennan North Region held a variety of great events for residents, including Halloween parties, trips to the pumpkin patch, magic shows, movie nights, a Fall Festival, and various holiday celebrations. The region welcomed over 2,500 residents to events throughout the year! The Patuxent River district hosted a Fall Festival, with hayrides, carnival games and of course pumpkin picking. Camp Lejeune welcomed over 270 people to a holiday celebration where residents enjoyed building gingerbread homes and took photos with Santa. Sugar Grove and Dahlgren worked with Operation Homefront to supply families with the perfect stocking stuffers!

The Scott Region CS Team finished 2013 with a bang! In December they partnered with Trees for Troops to provide military families with free Christmas trees. Also in December, the Scott Region was able to donate $20,000 to the Navy Seal Foundation with funds raised at their 5th annual “Barona Race Day Salute to the Military” held this past May. In 2013, their passion and commitment enabled them to host over 500 events, attend 35 homecomings, and support 57 other military events with sponsorships and/or a marketing booth.

Santa Claus made a few stops in the Brown Region before heading back to the North Pole to finish getting ready for the big day. While parents checked in, the children hopped up on Jolly St. Nick’s lap to reveal all they wanted for Christmas. After their pictures were taken and Santa gave them a candy cane, he told them that in the next room, there were holiday cookies, hot chocolate and a nice elf that would help them write him a letter. At the letter station, the children were able to write down whether they had been good or naughty and list 3 things they really wanted for Christmas. When they were done, they dropped their letters off in the box to be mailed to Santa. At the craft station, they made clay flower pots into a reindeer that they filled with peppermints. The following week, each child who sent a letter received a hand-delivered response from Santa with a Nice List certificate. There were many smiles and shouts of happiness when they found out who their special delivery was from! This was just one of the many events residents were able to attend this year!

Pictured from left to right: Browne Region Family Challenge, Fort Sam Houston 30th annual National Night Out, Scott Region CS Department are wearing their “boots” as one more way of showing support for our military families.

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Lincoln

milestonesWe are proud to have such dedicated, highly skilled, and caring team members, always seeking to improve the quality of life for our military families. Please join us in congratulating the below members of the LMH team celebrating milestone anniversaries.

CRENNAN REGION Richard K Smith (5)

SCOTT REGIONAngel M Lopez (5)M Martindelcampo (5) Alejandro Bautista (10)Constant T Duplechan (10)Emil Jaye C Samonte (10)Karla E Dimas (10)Renee M Horn (10)

BROWNE REGIONCindy A Ruhl (5)Daniel J Mijarez (5) Erika K Lurz (5)Giovanni R Charlot (5)Miguel A Herrera (5)Robert Hippen (5)A Rivera De Gonzales (10)Beverley A Mason (10)Brad C Bonfiglio (10)Caroline A Parker (10)Steven R Browne (10)

Marketing Updates

We are excited to announce the launch of SatisFacts, an online survey tool that will allow residents to provide us feedback during critical moments in their rental life cycle, helping us to continue to provide our military families exemplary service and a superior home environment.

What will the SatisFacts program provide? • Creates a feedback tool at critical moments in the resident life cycle, including: Move-in surveys, work order completion surveys and Notice to Vacate surveys • Benchmark satisfaction of our residents • Actionable, best-practice, focused reporting • Insights and support throughout the process to help our team succeed • Reducing controllable turnover and reducing resistance to rent increases • Managing and improving your reputation and appeal in the broader market

All trainings for the Satisfacts dashboard should have been completed by the end of January. If you have not yet had an opportunity to complete your training or have further questions regarding the training please contact your Regional Marketing Managers.

The success of SatisFacts relies on the promotion of the program. To assist in this effort we have created communication materials, in the form of the We Care program. SatisFacts program materials and instructions have been supplied to the marketing and training representatives from each region along with a quick outline on how to utilize the materials.

We are also closing in on the launch of the new Lincoln Military Housing website! Stay tuned for news and special features that will be included on the new site in the next issue!

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Featured Installation NSWC Indian Head & NSWC Dahlgren

Two installations in the Crennan North region, Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head and Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren have a unique, historical connection! In 1890, the Indian Head Naval Proving Ground was founded on the Cornwallis Neck of the Potomac River. Over one hundred destitute farmers from Charles County were hired to drain the marshes and construct the Proving Ground, a test range for heavy-caliber naval weapons.

The earliest residences at Indian Head were constructed for top officials at the Proving Ground. The oldest permanent residence, 1 Dashiell Road, was built to house the first commanding officer, Ensign Robert Dashiell, in 1890. Eventually, larger and more architecturally sophisticated homes were built reflecting the greater military expenditures of the William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt Administrations. In 1900, Lieutenant Joseph Strauss opened Indian Head’s Powder Factory. During World War I, the Powder Factory brought almost 10,000 workers to Charles County and the construction of the first civilian community on an active Navy installation began. The U.S. Housing Corporation completed the 100-home village in 1920, providing quality housing to a civilian workforce that quadrupled production at the Powder Factory.

By World War I, the growing power of naval weapons and the rate of testing at Indian Head’s Proving Ground endangered residents in the surrounding communities, where private homes risked shells overshooting the short range area. On January 18, 1918, Rear Admiral Ralph Earle recommended that the Proving Ground at Indian Head be officially relocated, resulting in the Navy’s purchase of over 1,300 acres for the “Lower Station” of Indian Head, located about 20 miles down the Potomac River in Virginia. This remote site became known as Naval Proving Ground Dahlgren and provided a clear test range of over forty miles. Permanent bungalows for civilian and enlisted personnel arrived by barge from Indian Head. These one-story, wood frame bungalows still constitute a portion of Dahlgren’s current housing stock. Today, with 136 newly built homes for enlisted service members and their families and 15 of the original historical homes reserved for officers stationed there, Indian Head remains at the forefront of military technology in naval weaponry. Dahlgren, just 45 minutes down the road, is home to the 43 remaining bungalows that arrived by barge from Indian Head and an additional 160 homes for both officers and enlisted service members and their families.

Indian Head

Dahlgren

Pictured from left to right/top to bottom: (1) View of Indian Head from the Potomac River in 1919 (2) The Proving Ground was relocated to Dahlgren but remained under Indian Head’s command until 1932 (3) Rear Admiral Ralph Earle (far right) asked that the Proving Ground be moved to Dahlgren in 1918 (4)The low quality, segregated housing often causes labor short-ages (5) Present day Bungalows at Dahlgren (6) Present day Field Grade Colonial Officer housing at Dahlgren

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RECPYear in Review

2013 saw the implementation of the Resident Energy Conservation Program (RECP) throughout our Navy and Marine Corps portfolios. Getting this important Department of the Navy initiative underway has truly been a team effort involving nearly every department of LMH. True to most of what we do, our District teams have done the “heavy lifting” in instituting RECP processes and procedures, working with our military families and setting the conditions for success!

RECP incentivizes our valued residents to reduce utility usage, resulting in an objective to promote conservation and re-invest the cost savings back into housing to improve our resident’s quality-of-life. We’re already seeing data that shows moderation of household electrical usage. This results in lower utility costs and makes more of our residents’ BAH available for other uses. In the long run, we expect a 10% reduction in electricity costs that will make more funds available for home and community improvements and amenities.

FeedBack We Want To Hear From You!

We would love to hear your thoughts and opinions about the content covered in the newsletter! Please visit LMHFeedback.com to share your comments or suggestions on what you would like to see featured in the next issue!