OCS Employee Honoured for 50 Years of Service

23 November 2011

OCS is proud to congratulate Frank Stevens who has worked with the company for 50 years as a window cleaning operative.

Frank Stevens joined the company in 1961 when OCS was a well established cleaning company. At the time, he lived in Southampton, Hampshire, and built up a window cleaning round of retail outlets in the town centre. Today, 68 year old Frank still continues his rounds, supporting stores around the county of Hampshire with both external and internal cleaning.
Since Frank began his career, the window cleaning industry has seen many changes which have brought untold benefits in terms of Health and Safety and service efficiencies for clients. The Bosun’s Chair has been replaced by abseiling; three part ladders by water-fed pole systems; and rope cradles – where the window cleaner’s partner literally pulled them up the building on a rope - by electric cradles.
One of the newest systems that has transformed both the industry and day-to-day working, was the introduction of the PDA system by OCS in 2008. The PDA system replaced the traditional paper-based work bill or work instruction and allowed continuous review of work practices and performance by both operational management and health and safety teams within the company.

The PDA system acts as a continuous prompt, and records the fact that a safe and systematic approach is being used. Window cleaning team managers now electronically acknowledge and sign off instruction and review procedures, so that if any are by-passed, the system actively locks out a task and stops the work bill being issued to the hand-held PDA.

Ted Jasper, Frank’s manager comments that he can always be relied upon: “He is a fantastic, model employee and I could do with another 10 like him! He is a very dedicated worker and I can trust him to get on with things. He is always keen to help out and sorts out any problems with no worries or grumbling.”
Martin Gammon, Managing Director of OCS said: “The Company has seen a lot of changes over the last 50 years and it’s amazing to know that Frank has been with us the whole time. People like Frank, enable us to provide first class customer service through their dedication and commitment and by really knowing the business inside out.”