Top Stories
WHAT ARE WE DOING FOR SAFETY? LET’S DO THE SAFETY W.A.L.K.
Watch what your co-workers are doing:
- Are they wearing the correct PPE?
- Are they following procedure?
- Are their actions hazardous to themselves or others?
- Do they look comfortable?
- Do they appear stressed?
Ask questions about:
- What your coworker is doing
- Why they are doing it
- How they feel about what they are doing
- What they think will improve performance and safety
Listen to the answers. Too often people ask questions, but only hear what they want to hear. Listen to their ideas and be open.
Keep improving. Ask for solutions and open the avenues of communication.
Remember, safety begins with you!
UBC LAUNCHES NEW STRATEGIC PLAN: SHAPING UBC’S NEXT CENTURY
UBC is proud to launch its new strategic plan: Shaping UBC’s Next Century.
This plan sets out our collective vision and purpose, and our goals and strategies for the years ahead. It will guide our decisions and actions — and create a framework for resource allocation across the university.
Shaping UBC’s Next Century focuses on three themes that we believe are critical to society today: Inclusion, Collaboration, and Innovation.
The plan also describes four core areas that continue to define what we do as a public university: People and Places, Research Excellence, Transformative Learning, and Local and Global Engagement.
Shaping UBC’s Next Century outlines our ambitions through a series of strategies. Our next steps will be translating these strategies to actions, and creating project plans to guide and align our efforts.
We will continue to seek your input as we move forward. We hope you will continue with us on this journey.
To read the plan, visit https://strategicplan.ubc.ca
FULL CLOSURE OF VOLKOFF LANE STARTING MONDAY, APRIL 23RD
Beginning Monday April 23rd, there will be a FULL closure of Volkoff Lane with no access to the lane for Building Operations vehicles for several weeks for work related to the Hebb renewal. There is a workaround plan that has been submitted by the project and approved by Parking and C&CP that will allow our vehicles to access buildings in the Volkoff lane precinct (Chemistry Block, Hennings, Abdul Ladha).
Below is the Traffic Control Plan. The bollard will be dropped on Agricultural Road at East Mall and a delineator will be placed during their shift and then raise the bollard at the end of this shift. This way only Building Ops service vehicles are allowed access.
PAVING ON LOWER MALL AND AGRONOMY ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 25–WATCH OUT FOR ROAD CLOSURES
BUILDING OPS QUICKLY RESPONDED TO RUGBY PAVILION INCIDENT
On Friday April 20th, there was an unfortunate incident at the Rugby Pavilion in which several windows were shattered. In fact, all of the 12 south facing 5′ X 9′ windows were broken in addition to the glass door entries. Thankfully only the exterior panes were compromised allowing the inner panes to stay intact until replacements can be procured. With no glaziers on campus, the safety and security of the site was quickly rectified by the collaborative effort of Colin Gibson, Martin Varma and their respective crews. There were 6 staff working on this at any given time to ensure the broken glass was removed from site to allow the client to continue operations at this location. Great effort everyone!
Special thanks to Matt Rogan, acting Head Painter, for having his team on standby.
MAKING SPACES WORK FOR THE UNIVERSITY–FRANK FORWARD ROOM 105 REVITALIZED
Robert Stone PC for Construction Office and Building Ops trades made short work of transforming lab 105 into a refreshed state. The renovation included removing a redundant fume hood, replacing flooring and lighting, new counter surface and painting. Special shout out to Thomas Davis and Tony Boyce for an amazing job on the stainless steel countertops.
BUILDING OPERATIONS CELEBRATED VAISAKHI
Our Building Ops Utility Workers, Custodial Team, and Storekeeper put on one of the biggest Vaisakhi celebrations we’ve seen on Friday, April 13th.
Surinder Patrola and his wife were up at 2:30am to prep and cook samosas, pakora, and to pick up hundreds of muffins and treats to give out to all that stopped by to say “Happy Vaisakhi!” Inderpal Toor, Jas Rai, Bill Toor, and lots of others were working hard to ensure everyone had enough to eat, their generosity is just amazing.
Thank the team when you see them around, it was much appreciated by all!
WELCOME TO THE FUTURE…ROBOTIC AUTOSCRUBBER COMING TO BUILDING OPS IN MAY
Custodial Services will be trialing a robotic, self-driven auto-scrubber in May. The robot is the work of A&K Robotics, who began as UBC Engineering students and are now a sought-after company working hard to keep their AI (Artificial Intelligence) Canadian-based.
The A&K Robotics team have been working for a few years on intelligent and mobile autonomous navigation platform for light industrial use, incorporating technology in the fields of robotics, computer vision, and artificial intelligence.
Building Operations will deploy the robotic auto-scrubber as an efficiency tool to help our custodial staff when they have to cover co-worker’s areas, have modified duties/accommodations, or when they need to attend emergencies like floods and don’t have the ability to complete their regular tasks.
As leaders in the building maintenance industry, we are excited to be a part of the custodial equipment evolution and support UBC alumni in developing their skills through this pilot.
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR BUILDING OPERATIONS SUN RUN TEAM!
Health and Wellness are very important to us and we are so proud of those that trained and ran the sun run. We know that there are many other activities that many of you do–no matter what the activity, be inspired, stay moving and continue to work towards optimal health right for you.
Travis Simpson
Dave Wight
Wilma Bernales
Michael Cunningham and his family, Monica, Sophie, and Noah
Sean Lynch
Ruben Mancera
Michael Manhas
Mark Power
Paul Sahota
Bill Toor and his family Manroop
Catalina Canon
Benedict Castres
Chris Freek and his family Holly and Walter
We applaud your efforts to take care of your health and wellbeing and be a part our 2018 Building Operations Sun Run Team. We hope to have you and many more of our Building Operations staff and families join us next year for the 36th Annual Sun Run. Congratulations to those who ran with other teams, too.
WE’RE HIRING! CHECK OUT THESE POSTINGS
- Evening Part-Time Service Worker – #29554
- Evening Part-Time Service Worker – #29597
- Evening Full-Time Service Worker – #29598
- Assistant Supervisor, Custodial – #29619
- Electrician – #29603
- Electrician – #29604
- Operator/Driver Heavy Equipment – #29575
Quick Updates
SHHS MOVE OUT IS FROM APRIL 26 TO APRIL 30
NPS SCORED INCREASED TO 79% WITH 4 NEW PROMOTERS.
FRANCOIS DESMARAIS BLUE ZONE FM FROM MAY 7 – JUNE 22
LEAVING UBC: JARNAIL SANDHU