Employee Loyalty: Alan Gilbert 30 years at Variohm Eurosensor.

Here at Variohm we are delighted to be described as a â€family" business.  The proof of this philosophy is that we have many long serving employees who have been part of the â€family" for ten or twenty years.

This month, however, we are celebrating one employee – Alan Gilbert – who has served the company for an amazing thirty years.  He is our longest serving employee, only beaten by the founders Roy and Joan Moffatt.  We like this kind of loyalty so we have taken the opportunity to celebrate.

Alan’s career at Variohm

At the age of seventeen, after completing a placement as a lab technician, Alan went to the careers office looking for a permanent position. This is where he was first introduced to Variohm Eurosensor and where his thirty year journey began.  After two interviews he was offered a job manufacturing and loading printed circuit boards.  As time went by we moved premises and Alan’s position evolved; we gradually moved away from producing printed circuit boards and into distribution. Variohm was a small company so Alan’s job meant that he worked in different departments and did a variety of tasks.  This is normal for a small organisation with few employees; everyone just pitches in to get the job done.  Alan would quite often spend his morning doing admin tasks such as raising purchase orders and invoicing, then go on to despatching in the afternoon. Four to Five parcels a day was the average output.

How has Variohm Grown?

As you can imagine, a lot has changed in the last 30 years, including; location, people, atmosphere and Alan’s job role. Employee loyalty is recognised here at Variohm and Alan is now the Logistics Manager with the responsibility to keep goods moving in and out of our workshops and stores, he spends most of his day managing his stores-people and his department.  According to Alan his job is never stagnant “There are constant challenges to be met and improvements to be made”.  As we have grown so have our warehouses, we now have three, and we are always looking for ways in which we can improve our service to our customers.  According to Alan “We will never have enough space; we’re growing so quickly that if we had six warehouses we would fill them.”

Why has Alan stayed so long?

“Variohm is a very fair and ethical employer” says Alan “there is an atmosphere of give and take, if you give a little extra you will get a little extra back”. Alan also really enjoys the family atmosphere we have; it’s something he feels that as a manager, he needs to grasp, hold onto and pass on to his team.

What has Alan learnt in his 30 years?

Thirty years is a long time. Everything that Alan has learnt about business has been through Variohm. “I feel like I have grown with the company, I have learnt so much that it couldn’t fit onto paper”.

As a celebration of his thirty years with Variohm, Alan received a delicious chocolate cake (to share with the team of course) and a bottle of fizz to take home to his family.  According to Roy Moffatt “Alan has been a very loyal employee and has long been considered to be part of the family”

We thank Alan for his dedication and hard work for the company and look forward to more of our Variohm family reaching this fantastic land mark in their employment.