And the winner of EMPLOYEE OF THE YEAR is...

At the end of every year our team are given the opportunity to cast their vote for the Employee of the Year award and the winner is announced at our staff Christmas party. We are encouraged to really think about our vote and choose someone who is an asset to our team because of the way they implement our quality standards and core values. The person chosen as Employee of the Year should regularly demonstrate Sunshine Toyota’s commitment to teamwork, continuous improvement, delivering a “best in town” experience and community-mindedness. The winner receives their name engraved on our huge Employee of the Year trophy as well as a trip for two to Hawaii! Pretty awesome huh?!

The tradition has been formed at Sunshine Toyota Christmas Party to announce the Employee of the Year in a creative and exciting way, so that our team are not expecting it. Two years ago at our 1920s themed party the “Prohibition Police” raided the party and pulled a few of our team on stage to ascertain who the biggest “crook” was. As the Chief of Police (our boss, Darren) starting reading the rap sheet, we all realised he was actually reading lovely comments from our guests about our New Vehicles Sales Consultant Jon. And so Jon was our 2015 Employee of the Year!

Last year Darren asked our Service Coordinator Candice to give him a hand with the big announcement. He told us he had clues as to who the winner was and handed Candice the clues one-by-one and she read them out on the microphone. The last few clues started getting very obvious to us that it was indeed Candice (I actually think she was the last person in the room to figure it out!) with the final clue being “it’s me”. We all cheered and Candice cried! And so Candice was our 2016 Employee of the Year!

This year, our team gathered on the dance floor of our White Christmas themed party and Darren asked us if we were ready to find out the Employee of the Year. We all cheered and then…. were very confused when he put up an umbrella…. Until we realised that a ton of large white confetti was falling from the sky like a beautiful snowstorm! And wait! There was a name printed on the confetti! It took a few seconds before everyone started screaming “Josette!!” “Josette, you’ve won!!” It was a pretty magical moment! Poor Josette was not wearing her glasses and her partner Russell had to tell her it was her name! And so Josette was our 2017 Employee of the Year!

Josette, our beautiful Service Advisor at Sippy Downs is a deserving winner. She is well liked by our team and our guests and puts in 110% to everything she does. When reading the feedback our guests leave for us, it becomes apparent that she is known as many things. Kind, caring, friendly and efficient are words regularly used to describe her.

Josette has an interesting heritage as her mum’s side of the family is French and her dad’s origins are Spanish. Josette was born on Aussie soils then moved to France where she lived from age 5-13. When asked if she feels more French, Spanish or Australian Josette said she feels like a “cocktail” of them all! She gets her “speaking with her hands” from the French, her passionate nature and temper (not really) from her Spanish ancestors and her salt-of-the-earth, easy going nature is True Blue, Dinky-Di Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Josette’s parner Russell (who is a stuntman- so cool!) is one of her biggest supporters and their story is fantastic! They met when they were very young, still at school. In fact, Russell was Josette’s first boyfriend! They lost contact after school as you do and it wasn’t until about two years ago that they recconnected and are now about to celebrate two years together! Josette is a real family woman and speaks a mixture of French, Spanish and English at home with her tribe. She has two children and two grandchildren and she loves spending as much time with them as possible.

Josette has worked at Sunshine Toyota for about two years now and is involved in both our Kaizen Committee (dedicated to the continuous improvement of our organisation) and our Social Club Committee, which is fitting considering when she is not with us she is working with her event company called The 3 Petals. Josette told me her favourite part of doing events is making other people’s dreams come true. She loves to make people feel special and important and as I have seen her do at Sippy Downs a number of times, she likes to exceed guest’s expectations.

Congratulations to you Josette! We are all delighted and proud that such a fantastic team member was voted Employee of the Year.