Manager of the Year
Carmelo Mosca tirelessly strives to improve and streamline operations.
Winner: Carmelo Mosca
Company: Affiliated Monitoring, Union, N.J.
Title: Managing Director, Monitoring Operations
Tenure at the company: 25 years
Although Carmelo Mosca has spent almost a decade in his current position at Affiliated Monitoring, this year’s TMA Monitoring Manager of the Year recipient has progressed through all the ranks, beginning as a central station operator more than 25 years ago.
“He started as a central station operator and was quickly recognized as a talented and intelligent man with great potential,” says Daniel Oppenheim, executive vice president at Affiliated Monitoring.
That talent and potential have translated to Mosca always giving a concerted effort to do the best job he can, while regularly coming up with ideas to better himself, his peers and the organization.
“I can’t take credit for the quote I’m going to give you, but I believe we are in the dealer business and that starts with having happy people work here. That’s my mantra and I try to make sure that bleeds over into our customer interactions,” Mosca tells SDM.
Mosca constantly looks for ways to streamline and improve processes, and, when hiring new employees, he looks for organized, disciplined candidates that have that same level of creative problem-solving. Mosca recently spearheaded a drive to use e-learning assessment tools to better understand how monitoring specialist candidates were progressing and what areas of instruction could benefit from revision and improvement.
Oppenheim says nearly every policy followed within the central station has been formulated, established or refined by Mosca, including drafting operator scripts, standardizing data entry forms and rules, and the forming and management of the company’s training team and standardized training.
“It comes down to those on the front lines when it’s 4:30 on a Sunday and they need to make a judgement call. It’s then that [the monitoring center staff is] relying on their team and all the work that their managers and Carmelo have put in to create a culture of great customer service,” Oppenheim says.
Perhaps one of the biggest ways Mosca’s dedicated, hard-working presence is felt at Affiliated, is through the rapport he has built with employees, subscribers and dealers by taking the time to be a leader, constant communicator and voice of calm and reason, whatever the problem. If a customer encounters an issue, according to Oppenheim, the customer will receive a personal call from Mosca to answer any questions or address a problem.
“Carmelo has built personal relationships with dealer partners,” Oppenheim says. “This is a part of who he is, and often people reach out to him for advice or to check in. That’s not something you can teach; that’s innate. Dealer partners and companies appreciate Carmelo for the same reason we do.”
Learn About the Finalists
Bill Fisher and Shari Wilson were honored as finalists in the Manager of the Year category.
Universal Atlantic Systems’ (UAS) Central Station Manager Bill Fisher meets one-on-one with new hires to gather feedback about the training process. Fisher helped to implement a “Stay Increase” program, designed to encourage dispatchers to stay in their current role by offering them a pay increase every six months for their first two years. The program has resulted in decreased dispatcher turnover since its inception. In another instance, Fisher helped decrease the number of operator-handled alarms by third-shift employees through daily reports, tracking and ensuring proper programming. In 2017, the average alarm count decreased by more than 400 signals a day even though UAS added 1,600 accounts in this time frame.
Since starting out at ADT in 1983, Shari Wilson has had many roles, including installation dispatcher, monitoring supervisor, customer operations director and now senior director of customer care. With her focus on the customer, Wilson has created a culture of accountability at the monitoring center, displaying empathy coupled with strong mentoring skills. For example, Wilson has one-on-one meetings with her leadership team members every week for review of performance and side-by-side coaching. She facilitates focus groups each month called “Sharing with Shari” in order to identify pain points and challenges of front-line staff, and to look for ways to improve their jobs and workplace environment.
