Roxan Wais-Shirley – doing well at Guardsman Group – Part I

On Sunday, we celebrated Mother’s Day and took time to honour and appreciate those who gave birth to us and also raised us.

There are those who, on reflection, marvel  how our mothers endured, their astonishing resilience, the way they faced every challenge thrown at them

Some had us on their hip while working or shopping, and some brought us to school with a packed lunch before making their way to work.

In today’s world, there are women ascending the corporate ladder while minding the household, raising children, and tending to their partner’s needs.

The ability to effortlessly multitask is commendable.

A young woman who embodies this while looking graceful and always gracious is The Guardsman Group’s Executive Director of Corporate Growth and Client Experience, Roxan Wais-Shirley.

More often than not, young executives have peripatetic careers, moving from company to company every couple of years, always looking for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

Loyalty to a corporation and taking the decision to stay put and build a career at one place is an anachronism. To many these days. Some might say that thinking would subject one to ridicule.

With a frenetic generation bound to their mobile phones and laptops with short attention spans, Roxan Wais- Shirley’s growth path is not what currently prevails. Her arc sets her apart from many of her contemporaries. 

She joined Jamaica’s leading security company, the Guardsman Group in 2012, as a Business Development/Customer Service manager, and her ascent is a testament to what is described in Japanese corporate culture as” ichido-koyo”. 

The company you work for will trust and reward you if you earn it, if you can show character, have the ability to be civil and work with others, contribute to the collective, and endure during tough times.

“When I joined Guardsman, I was young and eager. I was placed in a role that required me to establish relationships with all Guardsman clients. I am naturally an introvert so this was going to be a challenge. I was on the road, meeting with clients, engaging with them, dealing with operational security issues, and collaborating with clients to come up with security solutions. I was placed in a job that required me to be sociable, and I ended up loving it. I became more outgoing and more empathetic, and that created the platform for my future growth. Guardsman offered me an opportunity to come out of my comfort zone and excel. It turned me into the professional that I am today.”

She remained in that position for five years, distinguishing herself, honing her customer service skills, and becoming an asset to Guardsman by winning friends and influencing people. Roxan made a mark with sales, and her qualities as an executive with a lot to offer were noted.

She was promoted to Head of Sales for the entire Guardsman Group, which by then offered a panoply of security solutions, making it the undoubted leader in its field. 

After two years, she became General Manager for Sales before rising to become General Manager for Sales, Customer Service and Marketing- a big and demanding portfolio. She executed with aplomb, continuing to be a key executive of Guardsman, willing and able to bring in new clients and burnish the brand.

Roxan Wais-Shirley’s star was on the rise, and two years ago, the Board made the decision to appoint her as its Executive Director of Corporate Growth and Client Experience. She laid the ground for this senior position from the work she did in the preceding years. She earned the right and was not just shoed in because of a vaunted reputation or was the flavour of the month. All too often you see executives in Jamaica with no proven track record or can’t point to any significant accomplishment- just hype in the press.

Roxan had, for over a decade, demonstrated she had the right stuff. The top brass at Guardsman was not taking a chance here on an unknown they had heard about. 

Today, Guardsman comprises 15 companies across the Caribbean with all of its disparate marketing, sales and customer service arms reporting into Roxan. 

Historically, each department had its own customer service professional, but Roxan realised that customer service is at the epicentre of an organisation and so acted accordingly.

 The senior Guardsman executive recalled: “There was a void and we needed to create a department with an excellent group of client-relationship executives that would go out and engage with our clients. I created such a unit in 2018, bringing in professionals from both the hospitality industry and banking and trained them myself. I am very proud of that initiative.  I look at customer service through a different dimension. I think many companies see it as a call centre waiting for a problem to arise, then reacting to it. When you have a problem, you then call customer service, and the problem is fixed. We don’t wait for problems-our teams are out on the road and proactively call clients. 

“If a client has to call you, that’s a problem. Don’t let a client have to call you. Why? Because you are always out on the road, knowing what is going on and seeing to the Guardsman clients’ needs. You have to be proactive, not reactive. Our teams spend about 70 per cent of their time actively engaging with our clients. What we found with this approach was that customer service improved dramatically. At Guardsman, we make it known that we care.  We have client mingles every quarter, we remember birthdays, we fete, and we celebrate. That is part of the Guardsman DNA. We show our appreciation always. 

A few years after setting up the client relationship unit, Roxan saw a need to replicate it for the Guardsman security officers, who are the backbone of the business. Their concerns also needed to be addressed. Roxan saw the need and got right on it.

“At the time, our security officer count stood at 7,000, and they too have queries. They represent the company and are the ones carrying out the core work.  They have issues that we as a company would want to respond to. So I created a customer-service team called “The People Experience” for or our security officers, mirroring what I did for the clients. We had a team go out in the field, meeting with officers, introducing themselves as their personal, dedicated people experience executives, so that if they had a question or problem, they don’t have to stand in line, call the office or go see H.R. to get an answer. We have a team that can come to them. Our security officers now have a WhatsApp number they can call and ask a quick question and get a rapid response.  It could be their uniforms, their pay, or they simply want a day off. They can do this now electronically and have their issues resolved quickly, just as our clients can,” explained Roxan.

In both instances, Roxan Wais-Shirley exhibited executive drive and problem-solving abilities. She wasn’t content to settle for the status quo,  too afraid to change existing norms.