At today’s online security conference by the services contractor OCS, Bob Taylor, the CEO UK, Ireland and Middle East, was among those who paid tribute to the company’s ‘security heroes’.
He told the event: “We should never take what our staff and our people do for granted – these events are a very small recognition, of us just saying ‘thank you’, and making sure that their contributions to the business are rewarded.
“During the last nine months we have heard many brilliant stories of the excellence of the security provided not only by OCS but many security providers across the industry. It’s right we should honour these heroes in all walks of security, not just our own.”
Steve Gardner, OCS’ head of security and the arranger of the day, read out citations for the ‘heroes’ nominated by clients. The first was from the Birmingham NEC, pictured, the venue for the 2019 conference. Felicity (Flis) Reeves answered an urgent request to open a covid testing centre at the exhibition centre, an OCS client; the centre was operational from April to September. It was operational in ten days, overseen by Flis, assisted by Steve Haines, Nadine Donald and Alison Christoforidou. Flis has done on to open GP referral centres across Birmingham.
While others nominated have seen their work changed by the pandemic, notably in healthcare, it was striking that the citations showed customers’ appreciation of the ‘heroes” qualities, as seen in doing tasks and responding to issues, that arose the same before covid-19.
Also cited – and the webinar saw photos of some presented with their certificates of appreciation yesterday – were Sukhy Singh (Birmingham Airport), Peter Jones (Central Way), Alexandra Schafer (North Westminster Community Mental Health Hub), the A&E team at Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan; Jacob Rochester (Birmingham Children’s Hospital), Southmead Hospital; Derek Armstrong (The Capitol, Aberdeen) and Iaon Harbagiu (Napier House, London; M&G Real Estate), and Alex Powell (Great Ormond Street Hospital – the webinar heard that an online forum run by GOSH had the security team most liked last month).
Bob Lloyd closed the conference by calling the last nine months the most unprecedented in our lifetimes, where many OCS teams have been working in exceptional circumstances. “Our security staff in line with all other services in the business have garnered trust of many people throughout this period – clients, their own colleagues and also the general public at large.
“We have said thank you a lot, but I just want to take a second and reflect on the enormity of what has been achieved. Listening to the citations make me feel very humble indeed in terms of the organisation we work for, and the people within that organisation, and what they achieve, day in, day out. We should never take that for granted.”
Speakers
Earlier, Bob Lloyd opened the conference, which heard from Mike Reddington, chief executive of the BSIA; Adrian Dennehy, the Wales regional chair of the heads of university security association Aucso; from the Security Industry Authority (SIA), John Montague, acting director, inspections and enforcement; Samantha Smith, group data protection and privacy manager at OCS; and on security programme apprenticeships at the contract firm, Paul Lawton-Jones, of Mercury Training, and Toni-Marie Vaughan, apprenticeship manager at OCS. Suppliers Trackforce, Dallmeier, Digifort and Scan-X gave presentations. Naz Ali who gave a presentation on counter-terrorism at last year’s conference was not able to attend; Steve Gardner stood in to give an update on CT.
