Living in Accommodation (LIA) Contact Centre Base Liaison Officer, Thomas Martin, spent the early part of July 2019 bunking down in RAAF quarters in Townsville for Exercise Talisman Sabre. Four months later he was presented with the Outstanding Customer Service Award and named Employee of the Year at DHA’s Annual Awards.

Both honours are tributes to Thomas’ exceptional record of service to key Defence customers and his commitment to improving DHA’s processes and procedures in line with our customer service charter.

Thomas joined the team at the LIA Contact Centre in 2015 and his work has been integral to building and maintaining strong relationships with key stakeholders at Defence bases across the country.

His determination to deliver the best outcomes for the ADF, DHA’s primary customer, has never been more evident than during Exercise Talisman Sabre—the largest military exercise on the ADF calendar, involving thousands of Australian and international Defence personnel.

RAAF Townsville is command centre for the exercise and Thomas was requested specifically to provide hands on assistance with LIA requirements for participating forces. Thomas attended twice daily briefings for the planned exercise activities to provide regular reports on accommodation availability or alternate LIA solutions. Thomas drew on his understanding of base policies and processes to help provide unique solutions to accommodation issues. Additionally, Thomas’ work demonstrated that our LIA booking system is capable of handling the large number of special requests required during the course of a major exercise.

Another of his key achievements has been the process he developed to improve efficiencies by creating automatic LIA allocations for incoming trainee ranks at Defence bases nationally.

DHA’s Annual Awards recognise and celebrate outstanding team and individual accomplishments in the service of DHA’s strategic priorities. Recognition is an important part of the overall priority we place on people at DHA, as is championing team work and collaboration.