Meet Martin Bretnall, our August Engineer of the Month

This month we're introducing our first ever blog dedicated to our Engineer of the Month Award.

After running the Employee of the Month award for almost an year we realised that we needed a separate award, focused on our engineers and their contribution.

Our first Engineer of the month voting happened in August, and encouraged engineers and colleagues to recognise the high quality work, positive attitude, and dedicated work our Rightio engineers demonstrated daily.

Our first official winner was Martin Bretnall, who won the majority of the votes and there is a good reason (or a few) why:

"Martin goes above and beyond for customers and Rightio. Martin recently completed a go-back for another engineer. After completing the job, Martin bought the customer a bunch of flowers to make up for the mistake made and left the customer really happy. Martin is hard working and is always willing to help. Martin is an asset to the business even though he hasn't been with us long. Martin is definitely deserving of this award, to prove we recognise outstanding behaviours."

"Always looking out for his customers, keeps them all in mind even though operations deal with his queue and goes above and beyond for his customers. Always gives prompt responses to queries about jobs and is always friendly over the phone and in person."

Martin says winning the award really made him feel like his hard work and effort are being recognised:

"I have been out to a few go backs for other engineers and helped resolve some very interesting issues. Travelling all over and completing jobs in a fairly decent time. I like to think of myself as a problem solver.

Some of the jobs I have completed were as short as 3 minutes, I love a good blocked toilet job and have some cracking tools and techniques"(such as his mop technique you can see on the picture.

Martin believes in being caring and friendly, and tries to lift up the mood when he senses someone's feeling off:

"When I take on jobs sent to me by the Logistics staff I can sometimes pick up on somebody having a bad day. After confirming job details I always like to ask how people's days are going, and drop in the odd 'dad joke' which are normally so cringe worthy it's hard not to laugh!

Like everybody I do have bad days, so it's good to have a good support system in place. John F., Sufi and Yoko are the main people I talk to, and I know they are all only a phone call away, if I need them. Cheers guys!"

When he's not on the tools, Martin has two young children that he loves dearly. He likes red wine, real ale, junk food and he's left footed but right handed. After a long day you'll see him have a "ridiculously" hot bath and sleep.

His biggest dream so far is to win the lottery, and take everyone on a holiday but until then he'll keep "plodding on". Martin's not a reckless spender though - his £50 Amazon voucher was spent on a nice ironing board.

His message to everyone, and the September winner is: "Head down and dig in, take the rough with the smooth and be happy."