A day in the life of a Contracts Supervisor across our West Portfolio - Shane Chambers
As the regional Contract Supervisor of our Bristol and West portfolio the sites under Shane's supervision are located in Bristol and the surrounding areas.
Shane's role is an important one with a variety of responsibilities, from working closely with the regional contracts manager to organise and schedule engineers as well as contractors whilst also manding workflows, reviewing jobs and completing quotes on simPRO. Additionally, Shane communicates and liaises with FM's and Building Managers within the portfolio. Shane also conducts workplace inspections and internal audits to ensure standards are maintained throughout the region, while also having a hands-on approach to reactive and planned maintenance when required.
Shane has excelled during his 14 months with Sowga, showcasing his abilities for time management, problem solving and teamwork leading to his promotion from resident engineer at one of our larger commercial office buildings in Bristol to regional supervisor.
Due to the diversity of Shane's job role there has not been a typical structure to his work during the COVID-19 crisis, with an emphasis on taking a flexible and adaptable approach to the situation and planning to ensure an optimal outcome for our clients.
The variety of tasks Shane has had to complete range from dealing with daily issues that are being encountered by our on-site engineers, such as access restrictions, PPE and Health & Safety concerns to overcome the obstacles that are being faced at this time.
The planning and scheduling of contractors and ensuring correct COVID-19 RAMS are in place has been a key factor in Shane's job during the crisis to ensure that the engineering works completed by himself, his team and any third party contractors are being completed in accordance with all COVID-19 safety requirements aswell as any site specific requirements set out by our clients.
As with every individual that has been working through this period of adaptation, there have been difficulties and challenges but also some benefits. For Shane, he has found that due to the buildings being empty, the increased access has allowed his team to complete works that would normally be deemed as out of hours, allowing for flexibility within scheduling which has been essential. Shane has also experienced that travel times to and from sites have greatly decreased due to the reduction in road traffic.
The difficulties and challenges have been diverse and complex such as dealing with concerns raised by clients around safe access, with solutions needing to be found for certain areas being blocked off at times for safety reasons. The challenge of lone working has also been one that Shane has had to contend with, ensuring that any lone working done is planned safely with control measures and regular check ins in place. There has also been an increase on lead times for parts and materials that puts an additional burden on the planning and scheduling of works around this. A difficulty that has become a benefit is the teams focus and drive for Health & Safety, which has become second nature to everyone under Shane's supervision, which is a great bonus moving forward. In response to this focussed initiative around engineer personal safety, it has been Shane's responsibility to ensure that engineers are keeping safe and correctly equipped with PPE, while also being mindful to always practice correct social distancing and self-protection when out on site himself.
Shane likes to spend most of his downtime with his two children, Riley & Cobie. However, Shane also enjoys cycling, walks at the local parks and nightly dips in his hot tub.
For Shane solving problems is always one of the most rewarding aspects of his job, with a wide range of job responsibilities with their own challenges, he has found that succeeding and finding a way through these problems makes the job very rewarding. Shane has a customer centric approach to his role taking great pride in the relationships he has helped build and the recognition he receives from them.