Blocked Drain Engineers

We say our drainage engineers are fully experienced, and we are able to retain our employees.

Let me tell you why and how.

After spending a significant amount of time and money investigating the causes of employee turnover, including many extensive interviews, to find out why people leave, if we as a company can identify the reasons, it could:

• Work to hold our valuable employees.
• Enable us to give dependable, excellent, experienced service to our customers.

As well as our company obtaining valuable information from interviews, we eventually realised this approach is only one side of the coin—the termination side. 

The other side of the coin is the value we can give our customers if we keep our long-time employees of 10 to 20 years.

At ASL Limited, we have many departments specialising in certain aspects of drainage, including blocked drains, private drainage discharging into the land, and treatment plants into rivers, as well as pumping stations that pump to the main public sewer.

Why is this important to your Blocked Drain?

Well, because: we train our blocked drain personnel by sending them to work with the crew that puts in septic tanks and treatment plants. On other occasions, they help the team that installs pumping stations, or go on a service to assist an electrician in servicing the pumping station; they may never be electricians, or never be experts in this field, but they’ve certainly had a working experience, and are very familiar with their surroundings when they go to a house that has a blocked drain or problems with a private system, pumping station or a main drain connection to the public sewer.

That’s how and why we have so many fully experienced personnel who can unblock drains.

We should also study the reasons for retention and continuation to keep our employees. From the viewpoint of a company’s written policies on employment and turnover, the reasons why people stay in their jobs are just as important as why they leave them. An obvious point in evidence is that one individual will stay in a position under conditions that would cause another to leave.

From my interviews, what I concluded was the most common cause of disillusioned employees searching for another job was that they felt they were not valued. The employees were treated as troublesome and deemed too slow to learn. The leaders and their managers had no value for the employee. They had no patience, forgiveness, or understanding.

Some managers had the mindset of days gone by of 'command and demand'. Rather than leadership which is, “How can I support you? Is there anything you need” and, of course, agreed rules.

Our experienced, valued drainage engineers provide a complete range of drainage services at domestic and commercial properties:
Clearing most blocked drains in less than half an hour, they will also:

• Solve problems of slow-running waste or clogged soil pipes.
• Clear bathroom, kitchen and dishwasher drains.
• Descale drainage pipes.
• Repair drains with “No-dig” methods, such as drain lining.
• Excavate to repair drains.
• Complete new installs, including gullies.
• Carry out drainage CCTV camera surveys.
• Clean drains to maintain and prevent blockages.
• Unblock all types of drainage and clean; roof drainage; gutters; and downpipes (including rainwater systems).
• Install soil and waste drainage.
• Seal sewer and manhole inspection chamber lids to avoid rainwater entering the sewage system.

Our employees had to work to get here.

They had to work to become the experts they are today. Especially in the training to handle adversity, and will probably have to work to become their future, with each step up in level. I’m sure they see the benefits of doing so. 

Gaining new knowledge is building muscle in the mind, making it more receptive, making it more versatile, and making it more efficient. Learning – especially thinking – isn’t always a pleasant experience in the beginning but the reward is a great feeling and satisfaction.

The advice to the managers

ASL Limited employees all have one thing in common; they really do want to serve the public; so the best way to enable that is to provide the equipment they need, explain the objective and the standards and then get out of their way. Becoming our future selves requires some discomfort to a manager and his followers.

But the overarching goal is great service to the community, our customers, and our employers.