The Emirates Group recently awarded its highest staff recognition to 12 employees for going above and beyond their call of duty.

The ‘Najm Chairman’s Award’ was presented for seven individual and team achievements by Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, chairman and chief executive of Emirates Airline and Group at an awards ceremony at the Emirates Group Headquarters.

The winners were cheered on by an audience that included hundreds of colleagues, families and friends as Sheikh Ahmed presented them with the much coveted Najm Chairman’s Award trophy as well as a monetary award.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, HH Sheikh Ahmed said: “The Najm Chairman’s Award honours the individual and collective achievements of our employees who have not only made outstanding business contributions to the group but also those who embody our core values of service excellence and innovation. It is through the efforts, commitment and the determination of our employees that the group continues to achieve success. It gives me great pleasure to celebrate the outstanding achievements of this year’s winners.”

Najm, meaning ‘star’ in Arabic, is the Emirates Group’s rewards and recognition system that recognises employees throughout the year for their commitment to excellence and innovation. More than 8,500 employees were recognised through the Najm framework from April – December 2016.

The Najm Chairman’s Award is the highest employee recognition award and is awarded annually. Award nominations go through a rigorous selection and voting process by department heads and senior management. Since its inception in 2008 over 60 Najm Chairman’s Awards have been presented for individual and collective staff achievements within the Group.  

Stories of Excellence

A range of outstanding achievements were recognised by this year’s Najm chairman’s Award. Winners were awarded for saving lives, quick and decisive thinking in challenging circumstances and coming up with innovative solutions for business.

Leo Auga, supervisor Emirates Airport Services, received the Najm Chairman’s Award for saving the lives of not one but two customers in the airport by putting his first aid training to good use. In both instances Auga was able to start CPR on customers who had collapsed in the airport. His efforts in those minutes until the arrival of paramedics were crucial to saving the lives of the customers.

Mark Fraser, service operator dnata at Perth, was able to avert a serious incident when a fire broke out under the conveyor of an arriving flight followed by a smaller fire in the engine compartment. With his quick thinking and decisive action Mark was able to put out both fires before they could risk the safety and lives of passengers onboard the flight.

Edwin Jason John Emmanuel Sekar, Kassam Mohamedali Ayub Bakhrani, Mohamad Ayoub, Sandeep Sudhakaran Pillai and Niall Michael Kinirons from Emirates Engineering devised a new planning process to break down and estimate maintenance tasks on the Emirates fleet of aircraft. Once fully implemented in Emirates Base Heavy Maintenance, the new process was able to deliver significant savings in terms of man hours and attain an on-time delivery rate of 90 per cent. - TradeArabia News Service