Maxim Messenger: June 2023

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President's Message

Greetings and welcome to our June 2023 Maxim Messenger.

The timing of this Maxim Messenger comes on the heels of our Senior Leadership Team’s annual Kickoff meeting where leaders from all divisions and branches met in Winnipeg to review last year’s results and discuss our forecast for next year.

We continue to experience interesting times, working with our suppliers to increase/secure production for equipment to sell, lease and rent to our valued customers. Some current challenges range from:

1. Still being on allocations (not enough equipment) in some parts of our business
2. Production delays (continued frustration)
3. Inconsistent pricing in the market for sold and stock units (sales volatility)

Despite the aforementioned, I want to thank our sales teams for going above and beyond to do what you can to satisfy the needs of our customers. It is our hope that we will see trends of increased stability and potential opportunities as it relates to the production from our valued suppliers.

It has been said that the greatest asset to a company is its people, and with another year behind us, I would like to thank all our employees for your contribution to getting the job done. Many issues that we faced day-to-day were beyond our control, but I appreciate all your efforts as we worked to look after the needs of our customers, to the best of our ability. Whether you were newer to Maxim or a seasoned employee, if you showed up with a positive attitude and did your best to make things happen, I want to thank you for your efforts in making Maxim a great place to work!

For our sales and financial results, our sales volume was ahead of forecast and up slightly year-over-year (YOY) and our financial results finished ahead of forecast. Although we remain optimistic, we are forecasting a decrease in financial results for Q1 & Q2 vs the previous year.

We always like to recognize performance and our Top 3 Branches for overall financial performance and improvement year-over-year were:

In the December Messenger, I mentioned that we are always “On the Lookout” for great people and we wanted to reward employees that are introducing great people to the Maxim team! We extended the Employee Referral Program to include ALL Maxim positions, and I’m happy to share that we had our biggest year ever for employee referrals. I would like to thank all of you that contributed to adding new members to the Maxim Team!

I am delighted to share that on June 8^th we hosted our annual Charity BBQ in support of the Harvest Manitoba food bank. While I’m proud of the $26,500 that we raised for a great cause, I am extremely proud of the Maxim Team of employees who volunteered to make this event a success. There are many people required to make this event happen and I would like to thank-you for making a difference and Giving Back to help support people in need. Thank you!

Wishing all of you and your families a safe and healthy summer!

Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Troy Hamilton, President

 

Service and Operations

The purpose of this memo is to give you all a quick update of how Maxim Service and our Fleet Maintenance Group fared since our last newsletter (in December 2022).

Service Financial Results

Service finished Fiscal 2022-23 with results slightly ahead of the same period last year (up 2.1%)

Top 3 Performing Branches	Top 3 Most Improved Branches
1. Winnipeg Trailers	1. Winnipeg Trailers
2. Winnipeg Southside	2. Winnipeg Southside
3. Regina Trucks	3. Saskatoon

 

Fleet Maintenance

• The supply chain challenges we first experienced during COVID continued to have an impact on both parts’ availability and the delivery of new/replacement units for our Lease and Rental Fleets.
• As a result, our fleet required more maintenance and experienced more downtime than we would normally see.
• These factors, combined with the fact that Maxim’s shops across the country remained quite busy throughout the year, created a challenge for Maxim’s Central Fleet Maintenance Team as they worked diligently to ensure our trucks and trailers were serviced/maintained to our high standards.
• However, as usual, Gillian Giesbrecht and her team (Eddy Bianchi, Roger Calladine, Donna Suehsschlof, Anthony Javier, Kelly-Rose Diegel, Melvin Acapuyan, Paul Weiss, and Brian Goleski) managed this challenging situation well and kept our customers safely on the road with as little disruption as possible to their operations.

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In Memorium

• On Sunday, February 26/23, long-serving Branch E Service Manager Wayne Myers passed away peacefully in his sleep. Wayne spent nearly 30 years with Maxim, and was a loved and respected co-worker, colleague, and friend.  He will be sorely missed and fondly remembered. You can see Wayne’s obituary HERE.

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Included below is an update related to new employees and changes in key positions since our last newsletter:

Transfers & Promotions

• Jagdeep Pandher - technician who moved from Branch 6 to Branch E (Edmonton)
• Jashandeep Bhangu – technician who moved from Branch B (Regina Trailers) to Branch E
• Kyra Reyes – transferred from the CFM Group to Branch 7 - Recycling
• Eddy Bianchi - promoted from CFM Advisor to CFM Supervisor
• Myles Kerney – promoted to Lead Hand Body Repair Tech at Branch 7 - Collision
• Warren Cox – formally Shop Foreman at Branch E was promoted to Service Manager

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New Employees

Heavy Truck Technicians

• Chris Boyle - Tereck
• Terence Thacker – Branch S - Saskatoon
• Kevin Duncan – Branch C - Calgary
• Anthony Peters – Branch S - Saskatoon
• Matthew De Kluyver – Branch 1 – Winnipeg Main
• Jagmeet Pannu – Branch E - Edmonton
• Remi Fiset – Branch M - Montreal
• Lino Matthew –Branch C – Calgary
• Gurpreet Dayal – Branch C - Calgary
• Neil Wilkinson – Branch C - Calgary
• Eric Staver – Branch J – Thunder Bay
• Shane Hawkins – Branch C - Calgary

Collision & Recycling Technicians

• Alora-Lee Wideman - Body Repair Tech – Branch 7 (Winnipeg)
• Andrew Morais – Body Repair Tech - Branch 7 (Winnipeg)
• Rylee Kelsch – Body Repair Tech - Branch 7 (Winnipeg)
• Alastair Ross – Body Repair Tech - Branch 7 (Winnipeg)
• Peter Elizaga – Body Repair Tech - Branch 7 (Winnipeg)

Trailer Technicians

• Oleksandr Grekul – Br 6 – Winnipeg Trailers
• Oleksii Baliuta - Br 6 – Winnipeg Trailers
• Dapinder Bassi - Br 6 – Winnipeg Trailers
• Tate Jeannotte - Br B – Regina Trailers
• Rupinder Singh – Br 6 – Winnipeg Trailers
• Carlo Caraan – Br 6 – Winnipeg Trailers
• Rodrigue Bourgeois – Br C - Calgary

Mechanic Helpers

• Matti Tiitto - Br J – Thunder Bay
• Wolfe Blanchard - Br J – Thunder Bay
• Harjot Singh – Br 1 – Winnipeg Main
• Joshua Hyde - Br E - Edmonton

Service Writers

• Samantha Priestley - Br 9 - Brandon

Yard Persons

• Giulio Legare - Br M - Montreal

Congratulations to all of you and we appreciate you taking on these new challenges within Maxim! 

Closing

We have had an early start to summer in many parts of the country and I hope each of you gets to enjoy some of this beautiful weather with friends and family.

Finally, I appreciate all you do for Maxim each day, and I am proud to call myself a member of this team.

Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kyle Cuthbert, Senior Vice President of Service & Operations

Parts

For our sales and financial results, The Parts division finished ahead of last year’s results, and we had a great year overall. We have grown sales and profit three years in a row and are positioned to continue that growth trend. The increase in sales can be attributed to the new route optimization program and salesmen metrics that were put in place several years ago. This has been a huge part of our improvement. As I always say, you get more out of what you measure. It took our entire parts team pulling together at critical times over these past three years to see these continuous successful results.

We have replaced our Calgary Parts Manager position with Jeff Paynter, who is a welcome addition to the Calgary parts team. Jeff started at Maxim last July and has been working diligently to clean up the branch and make it his own, I am looking forward to seeing wonderful things from Jeff this year. We have added a new Sales member this fiscal year Andy Haight in Brandon. Andy has been working with the Maxim team as a delivery driver, travelling three times a week doing deliveries in the sales area that he is now taking over officially as of May 1, 2023. In Andy’s part-time role over the past three years, he has gained the knowledge and skills required to be a full-time outside part salesperson and was a natural fit to take on that position. I look forward to watching Andy develop and foster new growth in his position as an outside part salesperson.

Head Office Warehouse

This year at the Main branch has been challenging and we had warehouse space issues and volume issues that we had never seen before. We could not keep up with the volume of sales along with the added volume of interbranch stock orders that were required for the branches outside of the Winnipeg market. Changes were necessary and we decided to invest in an especially important part of our business growth. We added an Interbranch picking position that not only does all the picking of orders for all branches but also took on the duties of answering all phone and email requests. This additional position allows one phone call or email to get all information regarding the interbranch product status. Michael Quiring has done a great job in his new role and these changes are being noticed by the Maxim branches.

We also added two other positions to the warehouse that includes an afternoon lead hand position as well as a night shift person. This will allow these two staff members to catch up from the busy day’s events and get cleaned up so that the day shift can have a clean start each and every morning. We believe this was necessary and will be a Win-Win for all branches as well as improve our overall customer service to all customers throughout Canada.

Aside from the people investment we also added about $15,000 dollars in warehouse racking and a new stand-up reach fork that has double reach capabilities, this investment is worth around $60,000. These investments will increase our warehouse space with 104 additional spaces for palletized inventory, which will keep our warehouse more organized and have less clutter within the main aisles. This project will be phased in over the next three months and will be ready to go early fall. These changes will give us a safer, more organized place to work.

The last warehouse change will be the hiring of a new Warehouse Manager, Kelvin Sanchio, who has been with us just over 4 months and was most recently our warehouse afternoon shift lead hand. Kelvin has done a wonderful job in his position and has earned the opportunity to lead the warehouse into these new improved developments that are underway. I look forward to seeing Kelvin’s growth and seeing the improvements as time goes on.

Recycling Branch # 7

Steve Rossnagel had a tough year with staff turnover. He is the last of our parts Recycling staff members and had to fully re-organize our recycling business. We have an entirely new staff, and we are fully restructuring the business around this new team. I am looking forward to seeing the development and seeing that branch fall under the regular Maxim processes and procedures. This will be our best opportunity for the Recycling branch since I took on that responsibility two years ago. Our newer team members are:

• Debbie Lewicki
• Kyra Reyes
• Stephanie Muswagon

Join me in welcoming these new staff members to the Maxim recycling team, I am looking forward to seeing their development and growth over the months to come.

After 17.5 years of working in our recycling division as a Dismantler and jack of all trades, Antonio (Tony) Tomei has decided to hang up his wrenches and enjoy the finer things in life. Please join me in congratulating Tony on a well-deserved retirement as he navigates his new chapter in life. Congrats, Tony. We're going to miss you around here.

Tereck Diesel

After 29 years Blair Haas decided to hang up his hat and ride off into the sunset. We wish Blair all the success as he slowly adjusts to life after working a highly successful career at Tereck Diesel. When Blair gave me this news six months ago, I was not sure where to start, as finding a replacement for someone like Blair would be a tough assignment. I reached out to Calvin Aliwalas and after our conversation, we were excited for him to return to the Maxim team. After six months in his new position, Calvin has proven me right and has done a great job leading the team over at Tereck Diesel.

We also had Scott Kilpatrick from Tereck retire in December and we wish him well as he adjusts to life after working with us for 18 years. We have started recruitment for Scott’s replacement and are very close to bringing someone on board. Stay tuned and watch out for the Maxim announcements to see who it is.

I would like to thank our entire Parts team for the results we achieved this past year. I appreciate everyone’s effort and commitment to satisfying our customers’ needs. When I see your dedication on the front line’s day after day throughout these challenging times makes me proud to be part of this team.

Great work and congrats to all!!!!

Thank you and I wish you all a great summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steve Young, Vice President of Parts

Sales, Lease and Rentals

The Sales, Lease and Rental divisions (SLR) year-end financial results finished ahead of forecast and ahead of the prior year’s results. With another year of uncertainty behind us, every member of the SLR team worked extremely hard to achieve these results.

Multiple factors continued to cause disruptions in our day-to-day business.  The primary causes were equipment allocation, lack of production and material price increases. The SLR team was still able to get the job done and continue to take care of our customers.

Our top three branches for overall performance and our top three branches for year-over-year improvement are:

Top 3 Performing Branches	Top 3 Most Improved Branches
1. Edmonton	1. Saskatoon
2. Regina	2. Calgary
3. Winnipeg	3. Prince Albert

 

Truck sales results finished 20% ahead of forecast but could not match the year prior as they saw a 5% decrease when compared to the prior year’s results.  Multiple factors outside of the team’s control contributed to equipment not arriving on time that would have certainly pushed us ahead of the prior year’s results.  The net results achieved were a great reflection of everyone’s combined effort to generate more from selling less.  The top three segments leading the way were Used, Severe and Medium duty.  Used truck sales finished 98% above forecast and 24% ahead of the prior year.  Maxim’s used truck team did a great job managing the available inventory and maximizing margins.  A huge thanks to Kevin Bowen and Kirk McCuspey for leading their teams to another successful year and job well done to the entire new and used front-line truck team for their efforts this year.

Maxim was awarded the Presidential Truck Dealer & Diamond Bus Dealer Award. This was Maxim’s third time winning this award. Read about it here.

Maxim Winnipeg has been a certified Navistar EV dealer for almost two years now and we have had the privilege of testing two fully electric eMV medium duty trucks.  Gardewine Transport has been putting one of the trucks through some real world testing and it has just completed a full cycle of cold weather running.  The trucks performance results have been positive and we are happy to report there have been no major issues and the driver’s feedback has been extremely positive.  We have shown the Maxim branded eMV unit at three large customer events, fourteen in customer demos and the truck team also hosted four lunch and learns with multiple customers.  We currently have two sold eMV units and are continuing to look for customers who are interested and ready to make the technology change for their business.

Trailer sales results finished 30% ahead of forecast and 32% ahead of prior year.  I want to welcome our new National Trailer Sales Manager Kurt Pepper, who came on board on Feb 21^st, 2023.  Kurt took over for Jason Stubbs and I want to wish Kurt all the best in the years ahead in his role at Maxim.  The trailer team was faced with many of the same roadblocks from the prior year like production delays to reduced inventory allocations, multiple price increases and transportation delays. Our sales team did a great job in maintaining customer expectations and managing to sell more from less.

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Maxim’s trailer division was the back-to-back recipient of the Great Dane King Pin award for top dealer in deck sales. Read about it here. Tom Klassen did a great job in managing and leading the deck sales team to this back-to-back award. Congratulations to the entire Trailer division team on a fantastic year of results and I am looking forward to that success continuing.

Rentals finished the year 124% ahead of their forecast and 29% ahead of the prior year’s results. The lack of available new trucks and trailers going into the fleet continued this year from the year prior, but the team did and incredible job in inserting several select used trucks into the fleet to meet the needs of our customers. The current day-to-day operation is not a reflection of how traditionally Maxim’s rental fleet operates but a pivot in strategy paid off greatly as there was no new ordering programs available. A job well done to Andy Haugen (National Rental Manager) and all the branch Rental Managers this year for managing your fleets and servicing your customers.

Full Service Lease results finished 5% behind forecast and 7% behind the prior year’s results.  A lot of factors outside of the team’s control contributed to the results falling slightly behind. Equipment delays continue to be the biggest factor. Margins continue to remain strong and contribution profit hit an all-time high for the lease division. Congratulations to Jordan Harvey (National Lease Manager) and all the branch lease account managers for another strong year of results and I am looking forward to the year ahead.

Maxim Excellence Club

I am pleased to announce Maxim had a record number of Account Managers achieve Maxim Excellence Club this year and I want to congratulate them all for their efforts and a job well done.

Platinum

• Ray Saruk, Rachid Ouahib, Mark Carlson, Ken Bilous, Tom Wingert, Mark Bilan, Bill Heuchert, Rodney Fewchuck, Scott Kinsman

Qualifying

• Maddison Mcewan, Phil Whelpton, Larry Would, Lindsey Fennell, Shane Garwood, Brian Laboucane, Andy Dubort, Hemal Pendaya, Terry Stribbell

I want to thank the entire SLR team for their hard work and contributions to a great year for sales and results. We faced many challenges as a team but like all great teams we worked together, stayed focused, and the results proved that. Thank you all again for everything you do for SLR and for Maxim and I wish everyone a safe and enjoyable summer with your families.

Take care,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ryan Sapach, Vice President of Sales/Lease/Rentals

Marketing

Since our last newsletter in December, Maxim has been active hosting and attending events to promote our products, services and community spirit. The list of events includes:

In addition to events, Maxim’s Marketing focus includes a heavy emphasis on technology-enabled tools like our website, our ecommerce, our CRM system and our proprietary Maxim APP. Working in concert with our IT/Systems group, we are plotting to have our data from a multitude of sources including Google, Karmak, Synnrg, Shopify and more integrated into meaningful dashboards that give us key insights into customer behaviors and preferences. This gathering of data is setting the stage for us to test the Articifical Intelligence space.

As always, we post regularly to our NEWS STORIES on our website as well as to YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER and LINKEDIN so click on any of these links to get up to speed if you aren’t already.

Enjoy your summer,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harry Dornn, Vice President of Marketing

Lightning Round

With nearly 500 employees spread across 17 branches from Vancouver to Montreal, it's hard to know everyone at Maxim. For each issue we feature two employees answering our fun Lightning Round questions so you can get to know Maxim employees from other branches. Be ready for when your turn comes for the Lightning Round.

IT Systems

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alan Sealey, Chief Information Officer

 

Human Resources

HR Team

We are to help you with a variety of topics, including Recruitment, Employee Relations, Employment Legislation, Performance Management, Policy Development, Disability Management, Training & Development and Compensation.

Maxim Workforce – Did you know?

• 82.8% male and 17.8% female
• 32.5% of staff are Technicians
• The average age is 44.6 years
• The average years of service is 9.4 years

Across our Maxim branches, we hired 139 new employees this fiscal year!  Overall, we gained 15 staff, 8 being Technicians which lowers our attrition rate by 2%. 

Recruitment

Maxim is looking for over 20 employees over various branches.  Refer a candidate for any vacant role to Maxim – if they are hired and stay at least six months, YOU will receive up to $1,500!

This past year, 23 new employees were referred through this program! Listed below are just some of the Maxim employees and the people they referred to work at Maxim.

• Dereck Crossman (Br S Tech) referred Parris Ackerman (Br S Tech)
• Claude Fontaine (Br 6 tech) referred Albert Cruz (Br 6 tech)
• Albert Cruz then referred Carlo Caraan (also Br 6 tech)
• Athanus Mwathi (Br 1 warehouse) referred Dunstan Keswick (Br 1 warehouse)
• Yaroslav Harasymyak referred Danylo Ruzhynski (both Br K techs)
• Brad Zabalotnuk (Br 6 service counter) referred Rylee Kelsch (Br 7 Body Repair)
• Myles Kerney (Br 7 Shop) referred Andrew Morais (Br 7 Shop) & Peter Elizaga (Br 7 shop)
• Michael Christie (Br J shop) referred Eric Staver (also Br J shop)
• Debbie Lewicki (Br 7 parts) referred Stephanie Muswagon (Br 7 warehouse)
• Shane Hawkins (BR C Foreman) referred Kevin Duncan (Br C tech)
• Adryan Enns (Br S tech) referred Anthony Peters (BR S tech)
• Taylor Schwam (BR E Tech) referred Josh Hyde (Br E mechanic helper)
• Jess Nix (Br 1 parts) referred Chris Amyot
• Dilbagh Singh (Br 6 tech) referred Rupinder Singh (br 6 tech)
• Jeannie Malapit (Br Z Accountingt) referred (Santa) Christina Miranda (Br Z accounting)

Welcome to Russ Woods who came on board April 17, 2023. With a background in retail management and three years as a Recruitment Consultant for a staffing firm, Russ is direct sourcing (also known as headhunting) candidates for various hard-to-fill roles. He also develops job-related content for social media platforms and monitors our employer branding from a recruitment lens on areas such as Indeed and Glassdoor.

Congratulations to Brandi Sims on her recent promotion to Human Resources Advisor. Brandi has been working with us for one year, showing growth and enthusiasm.

A big thank you to Breanne Caufield who has been working with me for close to four years. Bre shows incredible dedication and commitment to her role and has a special interest in HR technology. 

With two HR Advisors, HR services are moving back to Client Groups:

• Breanne – Service (non-Techs), Parts, SLR, IT/Systems
• Brandi – Technicians, Accounting, Marketing

Please contact the appropriate HR team member for your group for your HR needs. 

Outstanding Service Award

Recognize your colleagues who go the extra mile by forwarding a nomination to maximhr@dlhgroup.ca. All nominees receive a $25 gift card and one will receive a $100 gift card through random draw.  The award is given out monthly.

The OSA program is a peer-to-peer recognition program and is not meant for managers to recognize their own direct employees.

For more details and to see a list of recent winners, please visit: https://synnrg1.maximinc.com/synnrg_cms_maxim/index.php/help-center/hr/outstanding-service-award - You will need to be on the Maxim network to view this link.

Have a fun and enjoyable summer,

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lisa Parent, Director, People & Culture

 

Health & Safety

Maxim Truck & Trailer has adopted a cloud-based online Safety Management System called Bis Trainer into the DLH Learning Center for conducting daily inspections, monthly meetings, reporting of incidents and complete training assignments, expanding our incident investigation processes and most of all improving our document management.

Bis Trainer allows our staff to spend less time on paperwork and more time identifying hazards, interacting with employees, and identifying opportunities with a 360-degree view of our entire safety program.

Our staff can now easily assign, track progress, and submit all safety related documentation through the Safe Tapp 2.0 app using their mobile devices. These documents comprise of Safe Work Procedures for training, Hazard Analysis Worksheets, Safety Talks, Joint Health, and Safety Committee Minutes. The app will alert staff in real time, when an employee has a safety concern or identifies defective equipment while conducting Vehicle Circle Checks, Forklift & Crane Pre-Use Inspections allowing us to be more responsive.

As we expand the safety management system the DLH Learning Center will continue to be the central hub for training and development for all employees. This will allow us to control direct costs while ensuring our employees receive quality training. All training must continue to be approved and assigned through the DLH Health & Safety or HR Departments to ensure the credibility and quality meets or exceeds the applicable federal or provincial health and safety regulations in each business unit.

As we continue to improve the health and safety program, I would like to thank all of you for your commitment to safety and for your dedication to Maxim Truck & Trailer.

Should you have any questions please contact me by e-mail at jwest@dlhgroup.ca or by phone, 204-805-1655 

Did you know…

500,000 Canadians will miss work this week due to mental health illness

44% of workers say they have or have had a mental health issue or illness

Only 1/3 of those facing mental health challenges access help, largely due to stigma

The total cost from mental health problems to the Canadian economy exceeds $50 billion annually

Mental health problems, such as anxiety and depression, account for 30% of short-term and long-term disability claims and 70% of disability costs

Fact

• 1 in 5 Canadians experience a mental health problem or mental illness each year
• Only 23% of Canadians feel comfortable talking to their employer about their mental illness for fear of facing discrimination or dismissal.
• 2 out of every 3 people suffer in silence, afraid that they will be judged or rejected

6 Things You Can Do Today…

• Pay attention to the words you use
• Educate yourself about the facts and myths surrounding mental illness
• Be kind. Even saying hi or small acts of kindness can make a difference
• Learn to listen. Sometimes that is all someone needs
• Talk about it. Not about them but mental illness in general.
• Starting a dialogue can make mental illness part of normal conversation

Resources

Employee Assistance Plan (EAP)

Stressed about work, finances, relationships, retirement, or health concerns?  Contact Lifeworks, Maxim’s EAP service. It’s a free, confidential, 24/7 counselling service supporting you and your family.

Centre of Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)– www.camh.ca

Canadian Centre of Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) – www.ccohs.ca

National Standard of Canada for Psychological Health and Safety in the Workplace - www.mentalhealthcommission.ca

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority/ Adult Mental Health -https://wrha.mb.ca/mental-health/

Workplace Compensation Board and Safe Work Manitoba (WCB)- https://www.safemanitoba.com/Education

Sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Jeff West, Health and Safety Manager