Honoring Our Unsung Heroes
As we watched UG2 flourish and grow in recent years, my team and I committed to making a series of site visits where we could get to know more of our frontline employees and set up real-world photo shoots to capture our employees in action. UG2 teams are a close-knit community, and we work to build and maintain our “family ties” with each other just as we do with our customers. Nurturing those connections not only makes our work more fulfilling, but it also helps us ensure we are meeting the constantly changing needs of the people we serve—inside and outside of the company.
In planning the site visits, I knew it would be beneficial to see employees in their “home” settings —the offices and facilities they service. I did not realize, in those early discussions, just how much the “home” part would resonate throughout every visit.
In true UG2 fashion, the supervisors, and frontline employees we visited welcomed us as though we were arriving for a long-overdue family reunion. Those enthusiastic receptions were all the more joy-filled because it was not so long ago that we emerged from the restrictions and limitations wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. The UG2 employees we met—full-time or part-time, new to a building or marking 36(!) years in—were all thrilled to show off their “home” facilities, and the tremendous pride they have in the work they do for our customers shone through, from the moment we arrived on site.
The care and respect of those frontline employees filters down to the finest details, from fresh air quality to pristine clean surfaces and floors. One area manager pointed out to us the lines between the elevator bays where an employee went above and beyond to clean every crevice in an area most people might not even notice. We witnessed, in person and in real time, how these team members wear their hard work as a badge of honor—and I began to fully appreciate how, behind the scenes at UG2, those employees we visited, and thousands like them are treating our customers’ facilities as they would their own homes.
For me, this realization took on special significance. I am the first in my immediate family to be born in the U.S. As a child of immigrant parents, most of my family members who arrived in this country found, as their first jobs, work in buildings just like the ones that make up so much of UG2’s customer base. They, too, talked about the care they took in their work with tremendous pride. And like my own family members, UG2’s frontline employees approach their jobs with care but also with deep humility. At every opportunity, they share credit with others on their team or point out someone else’s contributions. As we shadowed them in their work, we saw countless, quiet examples of people stepping in and stepping up for each other, whether it was pausing a conversation to help someone carry a heavy load or simply holding open a door with a generous smile.
It was so humbling to me to see how hard they work, often without even witnessing—or being recognized often enough for—the pleasure they are providing the next person who enters a space because of their attention to detail cleaning the elevator buttons or buffing the tiles till they gleam.
I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to spend time with these members of my UG2 family, and looking through the photos we took on those visits never fails to bring me a smile. Just as with the customers, residents, and visitors who benefit from their hard work, they have brought me more joy than they realize.