Category: Industry News

A World FM Day Celebration – Stuart Beards, Security Operations Director

Posted on by daireleonard

Stuart is an OCS Operations Director for the Security Division, he ensures our operational teams are delivering the highest standards of contract delivery for our customers, whilst supporting our front-line colleagues with the resources and equipment to perform their jobs safely. This strategic position within the division supports and manages the strategy set by the MD and Business Director. 

Continuing our celebrations of World FM Day, we are focusing on Stuart’s FM career, how his security expertise integrates within the wider FM business and how he sees the FM industry shaping up in the years ahead. 

After leaving the Royal Marines in 2017, Stuart started his journey in security and FM as a security officer and over the following four years continued to progress, becoming the duty security manager of the largest nuclear construction project in Europe. But Stuart’s progression wasn’t limited to his security career, he also pushed himself academically, achieving qualifications like NEBOSH, an honours BSc Degree in Risk and Security Management, and PRINCE 2 project management among others. 

Stuart’s passion for security and protection continued to drive his progress, leading him to London as a security risk manager and then to Atalian Servest as a regional security operations manager. Shortly after joining Atalian, Stuart’s academic qualifications were crucial in supporting his team’s planning and successful delivery of two major events G7 and COP 26, which led him into a regional director position. More recently, following the merger of OCS and Atalian Servest and the subsequent acquisition of Profile Security, Stuart took on a new position within the business as the security operations director for South UK.

Stuart’s continued inspiration comes from a thirst for knowledge of all things security but he is also driven by the daily challenges that our industry presents, and helping customers find the right answers. “Our customers are coming to us for a solution, and I get to be part of the team that finds the right solution” 

The FM industry is about people, and Stuart is very much a people person which is important in a team-based environment. ”I enjoy visiting customers across various sectors as I get to see some amazing projects, buildings and people. The most inspiration that I take from the FM industry is the people who work within it. We are very much a people-led business”

“OCS has given me everything I need and more to ensure that I succeed. I have been fully supported by my line manager and was very lucky to be officially mentored by our UK and Ireland CEO, Daniel Dickson, whose insight and feedback were instrumental to my success”

While his drive and passion for learning have been the primary factors in his academic achievements, Stuart is quick to acknowledge the impact of having a supportive team that mentors its members and the vital role an organisation plays in its people’s personal development.

So for those considering a career within FM, how can Stuart’s lived experiences offer insight? Having started on the front line as a Security Officer, it was Stuart’s hunger to succeed that kept driving him forward, to continue learning and developing. He firmly believes that hard work pays off, and that attitude is often more important than ability. “It’s so important to have passion for what you do, that hunger to succeed is more important than ability if they lack that drive. You do need to work hard, learning and development should be continuous, and take all you can from the mentorship offered by your management team. No one knows everything, so build relationships with those who can support and guide you.”

For Stuart, the FM industry is heading towards an exciting future, where technology and automation will play a huge part in advancing and impacting the industry. In security, E-Guarding is the new exciting space being implemented, a blend of technological solutions and people to provide the best outcome for our customers, driven by data and insights. People will always be central within the FM industry, however, the more advanced technology becomes, the more we can tailor our services based on data, providing cost savings to our customers and improving site security through AI-detected threats. 

OCS Facilities Services

A World FM Day Celebration: Carl Gage, Regional Director, Hard Services

Posted on by daireleonard

Carl is one of the Regional Directors within Technical Services that sits within the overall OCS Hard Services Business, responsible and accountable for six key customers across a number of services.

As part of our World FM Day celebrations, we are doing a deep dive into Carl’s FM career, to provide insight into the industry and inspire the next generation of FM professionals.

Carl’s entry into FM was varied, from catering in the military to becoming a Health and Safety Advisor, following his father’s footsteps. Eventually, Carl quickly moved into operations, which he has worked in for 8 years of his 12-year career in FM. “I have been extremely fortunate in my career to date and have been given some fantastic opportunities which I have grasped with both hands”. 

The world of FM is different every single day, but the main benefits are that you get to work with talented and like-minded colleagues and customers. What inspires Carl to work in FM is that many people bring so many different skills and experience which makes for a great team. “Every day is a learning experience which enables us to work smarter for our customers ultimately making the experience for their end users better each day”.

OCS gave Carl opportunities to grow by giving him autonomy and the ability to influence change, two crucial factors in facilitating career growth. 

“OCS is a fast-paced business and is growing all the time, which means the opportunities to grow come thick and fast which I will always take and run with”.

Carl’s key advice for anyone looking to get into FM would be to be open-minded, take nothing for granted and grasp all the opportunities that come your way. A career in FM has endless possibilities and many different paths that can be taken.

In Carl’s opinion, the future innovations in FM will vary from automation, data analytics, and many more, which will all impact our customers positively, but ultimately one thing to remember is that what makes FM so unique are the people that deliver the service to our customers. “Our people ultimately are the ones that make our customer experience greater daily. That is one of the reasons I’m passionate about OCS’s TRUE Values”. 

OCS Facilities Services

A World FM Day Celebration – Tony Parkinson, Sector Director, Hard Services

Posted on by daireleonard

Tony is responsible for directing the Technical Services division within OCS, which has 1,000 team members delivering planned and reactive maintenance across a range of contracts and buildings throughout the UK.

As part of our World FM Day celebrations, we are doing a deep dive into Tony’s FM career and journey, to provide insight into the industry and inspire the next generation of FM professionals.

From a young age, Tony had taken a keen interest in physical elements and how things worked. This led him to start his career as an electrical engineer, he then worked his way into management in his early 20s. Naturally, Tony’s career progressed into the FM industry to lead large and diverse teams for over 25 years. Tony’s most recent experience has been supporting growth strategies including the evaluation and mobilisation of new opportunities in the UK and our global regions.

“Our customers are committed to ensuring they have safe, efficient, and pleasurable buildings for their end customers and employees. This drives the FM industry to be an innovative market and suits my desire for advancement and making a difference in the environment”. Tony has been fortunate to work with inspirational teams who make a huge difference to our customers’ buildings and enforce the moves towards a more sustainable and ethical future.

“OCS has a positive people culture and has empowered me to manage my business and ultimately our customer requirements and promises”.

Tony saw OCS as an innovator, pushing high-quality service delivery at our customer sites, and overall OCS has the scale and drive to reach ambitious growth targets.

FM is a wide and diverse arena, and future FM professionals should spend time considering what elements excite them the most and aim for the vocational and academic path that suits their needs.  “My advice would be to start with a specialist area to focus on and gain the FM experience whether soft or hard services or wider support functions such as commercial, financial or procurement”.

OCS Facilities Services

Tony sees three key innovations as part of the future of FM; Automation, data analytics and building intelligence. “We have strong targets to help the government and customers meet their strategic carbon reduction commitments. These commitments need a solid understanding of data to support the investment into smarter, more efficient buildings. In turn, this will also ensure space is managed effectively and aligns with core requirements of FM”

A World FM Day Celebration – Razvan Paun, FM Contracts Manager – An FM Career Ignited

Posted on by daireleonard

Razvan is an FM Contracts Manager within Ireland’s Leinster region, ensuring customers are delivered with a full suite of hard and soft services, overseeing planned and reactive maintenance and delivering operational requirements in line with contractual KPIs and SLAs.

As part of our World FM Day celebrations, we wanted to do a deep dive into Razvan’s FM career and journey, to provide insight into the industry and inspire the next generation of FM professionals.

Razvan’s journey, like many others within the industry, started as a frontline operative within cleaning. It wasn’t long before his consistently high standards were noticed, and his career progression started. After a few months, Razvan became a supervisor, then an industrial cleaning manager, an area manager and then a regional manager. It was at this point he joined OCS, as a cleaning contracts manager.

“My contracts were both standalone cleaning services and part of wider TFM contracts”. It was at OCS that opportunities opened up for career progression. As a global FM provider, the size of the OCS business provided the opportunity to work alongside different disciplines within the same organisation, allowing Razvan greater collaboration and learning.

“I worked closely with my colleagues from the FM team, and began to learn more about the FM operations”. FM operations might have been a new area for Razvan, but he quickly knew that it interested him and was something he wanted to explore. As his interests and experience grew, Razvan jumped at the opportunity to become an FM contracts manager last year, “It was the use of innovative systems and the technology supporting a customer’s entire building that appealed to me”

Razvan’s continued inspiration comes from the collaboration between other business units, contractors, and the customer, and being the individual responsible for overseeing the whole contract and ensuring the best outcome for the customer.

The transition in any role can be challenging, having the necessary support structures in place is vital for development and progression. Razvan is grateful for the support he received and attributes his success not just to the training and development provided by OCS, but also to the close mentorship individuals provided in the early stages of his new role.

“OCS provided me with a comprehensive training plan including online, onsite manager training courses and external training identified by management. My biggest support though, was the mentoring and coaching I received from my manager. They put the time in to ensure I understood every aspect of the role, from the operations, financial and business development side. This gave me the confidence I needed to make decisions and use my initiative, knowing my manager was there to support and advise me.”

This year’s World FM Day is themed heavily around inspiration, and driving people towards a career in FM, and Razvan was keen to highlight the benefits of an FM career. Although he admits it’s a little cliché, Razvan points out that no two days are the same and that satisfaction continues to inspire him every day.

“FM is a very attractive industry, you will learn something new and unexpected every day. You’re always connecting with new people, and the sense of achievement you get from the job is what I love the most. You will never regret choosing a career in FM, it was the best professional decision I made.”

The future is bright for Razvan, and in his opinion the FM Industry too, with an increased focus on carbon reduction and sustainability, he believes this will continue to drive innovations within FM. ”Everything needs to be considered, the most minor aspects, reducing paper usage, greener lighting, energy usage, travel reduction, waste collections, the list goes on. But this is what makes FM such an exciting space to be involved in right now and into the future.”

Unity: Arthur McKay to operate under OCS banner

Posted on by ameliaroberts

The OCS TRUE values – Trust, Respect, Unity and Empowerment – have been the driving force for us as we have transformed as a business following the merger of OCS and Atalian Servest.

Arthur McKay, a leading building support service organisation, was an Atalian Servest company that provided smart and integrated services to over 1,000 client sites around the UK. As part of the consolidation of our operations and unification of our purpose and vision, Arthur McKay will no longer existing as a separate entity and is instead operating under the OCS banner.

We will continue to provide the same services and solutions – mechanical and electrical, fire protection, building fabric and data networks, to name just a few. Our 1,500 colleagues from Arthur McKay will continue to utilise their specialist knowledge and skills to ensure that customers benefit from a solution tailored to their specific needs, but now have the additional benefit of the backing and support of the OCS business.

The unification of Arthur McKay and our Hard Services division is an exciting change and one in which we hope will take us one step closer to achieving our mission of making people and places the best they can be.

“Bringing Arthur McKay and the rest of the M&E and Hard Services businesses together as a single OCS division will provide a far greater depth of capability and capacity. This will ensure that our customers receive the very best service and enable the drive for innovation.”

Nick Maggs

Managing Director – Hard Services

Group CEO, Rob Legge, outlines the OCS Best Strategy and Approach

Posted on by ameliaroberts

The international facilities management landscape has been dominated by the same global players for a number of years. However, when OCS Group and Atalian Servest’s operations in the UK, Ireland, and Asia merged, it created a new company which had the potential to act as an industry leader and disruptor.

I have been involved in facilities management for close to three decades and it has become a real part of my DNA. Our merger earlier in 2023 was an opportunity to drive forward not only the business, but the entire industry. With our newly expanded, critical scale, we saw the opportunity to take stock of our purpose and values and ensure we were building the most compelling offering for our customers.

Our approach

When formulating a plan for the next phase of OCS’ journey, we established a collective vision of wanting to be the partner of choice in the industry, providing the most valuable service to any customer we worked with across each of our geographies. The culmination of this work was the formulation of OCS’ new strategy, BEST. It has been established to enhance how we serve our customers, empower our workforce, and contribute to the well-being of the communities we touch.

Today, our mission at OCS is clear: to make people and places the best they can be. We’ve embarked on this journey with the aim to create exceptional experiences, enhance productivity, refine our practices, foster communities, and ultimately, deliver outstanding outcomes. These aspects form the core of our strategy and are reinforced by our TRUE values.

Trust, Respect, Unity, and Empowerment—these values are the foundation of everything we do.

They guide our interactions with customers, colleagues, partners, and the communities we serve, ensuring a cohesive approach to our mission.

In an ever-evolving world, we believe that creating exceptional experiences is paramount. We understand that the value we bring is not just in our services but in the experiences we create. From a well-maintained office space that enhances productivity, to a clean and safe healthcare facility that promotes well-being, OCS is dedicated to improving every aspect of the human experience within the spaces we manage.

Our business is powered by best practice, consistency and our unique attention to detail. Ultimately, we will look to set the benchmark for our industry, harnessing the power of technology, innovation, and human expertise to create efficiencies for our customers.

However, this is not a one-step change but rather a continual process. To succeed in our mission, we must consistently look at improving our practices and ensure that our work aligns with the highest ethical and sustainability standards. Our commitment to best practices guarantees that we are not just compliant, but we set the standard for excellence in our industry.

Empowering our workforce

Overall, OCS is made up of 120,000 individuals, most of whom are workers on the frontline. These are the people who sit at the core of our business, and it is only by empowering them that we can truly thrive. We encourage our colleagues to take ownership, make decisions, and shape the future of our business. This not only elevates the service we provide, but also gives our workforce the opportunity to progress their careers in our business.

As a business we have a fundamental commitment to social mobility. We ensure we recruit from the widest possible talent pool; we offer each of our colleagues ongoing training to support their career progression and we foster and invest in a diverse and inclusive culture.

Serving communities

Last but not least, we consider ourselves integral parts of the communities we serve. Our goal is to create a positive impact on the people and places we touch, fostering a sense of belonging and well-being. We aspire to be responsible and sustainable members of every community we serve.

We adopt this mindset right the way through the business and are continuously looking to evolve our approach to each of the ‘E’, the ‘S’ and the ’G’. It runs from our 2040 net-zero commitment, down to the work we do to supporting the individual communities we work in across each of our geographies.

OCS’ BEST strategy and TRUE values are at the heart of our mission to make people and places the best they can be.

We also believe they will be fundamental to our future growth as a business and industry leader – our commitment to this strategy and our values sets the stage for us to set a new standard in the industry. OCS is in a unique position and is primed for growth. We are a dynamic business and it is my ambition to make this company the market leaders in the facilities management industry. Reflecting on the first 6 months of my role as Global CEO, I believe we have the team to deliver on this ambition.

 

Rob Legge, Group CEO

OCS Group launches OSCi Academy to offer colleagues world-class training in data skills

Posted on by ameliaroberts

OCS, a leading global facilities service provider, has invited employees from across its business to become part of its newly created OCSi Academy which is designed to help develop vital data skills and support career progression. It forms part of the Group’s commitment to empowering its people, giving them the tools and support to thrive.

The training will be delivered by Multiverse, a tech company focused on high-quality education and training through applied learning. In an initial trial, 15 OCS colleagues will enrol on a 15-month data apprenticeship, with plans to expand this next year. This investment by OCS into these apprenticeships aims to improve data-driven decision-making and efficiency across the business, supporting clients and employees to deliver better outcomes.

It comes as research within the company found that most employees whose role requires some data analysis spend a considerable amount of time each week wrangling data. 91% of respondents said they wanted to improve their data skills.

Daniel Dickson, Chief Executive Officer, UK & Ireland, said: “As part of our OCS TRUE values, we are committed to ‘empowering our colleagues through excellent working environments’ and providing these opportunities for developing new skills, is key to that. Our colleagues are already using data heavily to inform their decisions and deliver results for customers, and this new training will empower them to do so more efficiently and effectively. Not only are these vital skills that will help them in their job, but they are skills that will support them throughout their careers.”

Euan Blair, CEO of Multiverse, said: “The OCSi Academy has been designed to transform careers for the individuals that receive this world-class training while transforming their ability to make data-driven decisions and use technology to drive efficiency and results. Through meaningful, applied learning, apprentices at OCS will gain the relevant skills that will propel them forward in their career journey, and support them in their role today and in the future.”

Multiverse delivers world-class training in a wide range of qualifications in tech, data and engineering. Apprentices benefit from coaching with an industry expert and are supported by a thriving community with events, socials, mentoring and leadership programmes.

Gill O’Riordan Commences as ISIA President

Posted on by daireleonard

OCS are thrilled to announce that Gill O’Riordan, Director of Strategic Solutions has commenced her Presidency of the Irish Security Industry Association (ISIA). This is an outstanding personal achievement for Gill and everyone here at OCS Ireland is incredibly proud to call her our colleague.

OCS has a long and proud association with the ISIA and we are privileged to have the serving ISIA President and recent outgoing President, Lorraine O’Neill, Director of Security Services, in our team, pictured above with OCS Ireland Managing Director Aine Mulcahy.

The ISIA has been representing the needs of the private security industry for over 40 years and is the only trade association representing the full spectrum of companies in the private security industry.

Ann Rogers-Bell welcomes Acting President of Stamford International University to PCS head office

Posted on by ameliaroberts

On 4th August 2023, Ann Rogers-Bell, Managing Director of PCS Thailand, warmly welcomed Dr. Apithep Saekow, Acting President of Stamford International University, to the PCS head office.

Dr. Apithep Saekow attended the office for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony. The signing ceremony was witnessed by Dr. Manjiri Kunte, Programme Director at Stamford International University and Phassanai Doyle, Human Resources Director at PCS Thailand.

The MoU focused on internship programmes, industry research and employment opportunities. It provided a fantastic opportunity for PCS Thailand and Stamford International University to exchange both knowledge and expertise with one another.

Atalian UK, Ireland and Asia operations to merge with OCS Group to create new, leading international FM provider

Posted on by ameliaroberts

Following the recent acquisition of OCS Group by Clayton Dubilier & Rice, Atalian confirms the sale of its operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Asia to the private investment firm.

In a move that will create one of the world’s largest international facilities service providers, Atalian Global Services has confirmed the sale of its UK, Ireland and Asia operations, along with its specialist automotive division Aktrion, to Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CD&R), the private investment firm that recently acquired OCS Group, with the intention that the businesses be merged over the next twelve months, opening a new chapter for the two firms.

Atalian’s Group CEO Rob Legge will become Group CEO of the newly merged businesses.