September 7, 2015

Values Award: We seek to understand needs and find a way to help

Earlier this year, we asked you to submit nominations for our employee values awards. Once again, we received some fantastic examples and stories of the wonderful work and contributions across PSS. It wasn’t easy but with help of our judging panel, we have chosen our 2015 winners.

This winning nomination describes how this employee has a great understanding of the needs of PSS and as a result, how he has added value not only within his team but the wider organisation.

Winner: Karol Zwolinski

Karol Zwolinski, seen here on the left, has worked for PSS for over nine years, he currently works within the Wellbeing’s Mi Service as a Project Worker. Karol had established trusted relationships with supporters and understood the importance of treating people as individuals.

As a manager, Karol promoted open and honest communication. He sought advice / guidance to be confident that he was doing everything possible to better understand an individual’s needs, including helping staff through difficult personal circumstances and enabled them to return to work knowing that they were fully supported.

Last year, one of the projects within our Scotland services was experiencing difficulty. We took the decision to temporarily close the service. This was a critical time but thankfully everyone’s hard work paid off. This was certainly a joint effort involving input from many people and Karol was a very important part of this.

Using skills, experience and knowledge he had acquired in his current and past roles, Karol contributed in every way he could including providing support, reviewing processes, training etc. He ensured that he fully understood the areas for development / improvement and was able to recommend the best solutions to move forward – but most importantly he did this with people and not to them.

Being a member of Your Forum and taking part in many health and wellbeing activities / initiatives, Karol is very passionate about employee engagement. Karol also takes the lead in organising our end of year staff party. This takes time to plan, often with limited resources but he has bags of energy and creativity. Whilst meeting the needs of his own role, you can bet that he is still the first to set up and the last tidying up – just happy with the notion that people have had a good time and enjoyed themselves.

If I could bottle Karol’s enthusiasm, I would do this in truck loads. Often a lot of his contributions are behind the scenes (as they say), yet he honestly has no want or need for recognition. I am personally so proud to have a friend as understanding, selfless and caring as Karol in my life. Professionally as his colleague, I think that he is one of our many shining examples of a PSS person who is always willing to go above and beyond to seek to understand needs and find a way to help.