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Facilities management firm AFM has recognised 40 staff members who have served more than 650 years between them.
In Guernsey, 21 people from both the facilities management and projects division have been with the company for between 10 and 19 years and eight have served more than 20 years, including Martin Presland one of the projects installation engineers. Client relationship manager, Mark Neville, has notched up almost 45 years.
In Jersey, 11 staff members have served between 10 and 15 years, totalling 133 years between them.
‘We have a fantastic team of dedicated employees at AFM and their commitment to the company is demonstrated by the length of time so many of them have been with us. It’s heartening to hear that the family feel, interesting and diverse work and support from across the company – at every level – has such a positive impact on staff members,’ said managing director, Mark Edgar.
Trading for more than 50 years, the original company, Amalgamated Engineers Ltd, was incorporated in 1964. In 2003 this company merged with Herridges Ltd and Hydrojet Services Ltd, and the company name changed to Amalgamated Facilities Management Ltd.
Mr Neville, started with the company in 1972, and during his career he has been seconded to roles in London and Saudi Arabia. He said he has seen big changes in ways of working over the past 45 years.
‘There have been huge changes in the way we communicate instructions to employees and clients. Back at the start most was verbal or typed letters, which were posted. Then we had bleepers, fax machines and mobiles the size of a brick,’ said Mr Neville.
‘Then along came computers that didn’t work very well, with no installed memory. Now, we have state of the art tablets, computers and smartphones, and we can even adjust equipment remotely.
‘AFM has worked hard to get where it is now. It is a dedicated and totally focused organisation that provides true quality FM and building services provision to all of its clients.’
Ian Spry is one of Jersey’s longest serving members of staff, having been there 15 years. He started in 2002 as a specialist applicator for Hydrojet.
‘I was part of the business transformation into AFM. Throughout the years I have had various roles from building fabric manager to client relationship manager, before starting the internal process of self-delivering the soft services division and turning it into the success department it is today,’ he said.
‘I chose to stay within that organisation because my work always remained an interesting challenge. With each year, I learned new and valuable skills and, from having been there from the beginning, I am fortunate enough to have gained very useful experience in most departments from finance through to client retention.’
