Group SCS turns 25!
We’re going to be publishing a series of articles on our website in the run-up to the anniversary of Group SCS , looking back at our work over the years.
Group SCS was established in 1992 as Smoke Control Services and has grown to become one of the UK’s leading providers of ventilation, building management and smoke control solutions. From day one we’ve focused on our customers, providing the best service we can and offering impressive technical capability and the right resources (such as in-house manufacturing and customer service) to deliver projects on time and on budget.
The company was formed by a coming together of specialists in smoke control, control panel manufacture and BEMS. That solid foundation has meant we can handle and deliver multiple packages including BEMS, fire alarms and smoke control. While the business has grown, we’ve grown in numbers too from just a few staff working in one office in Cardiff back in 1992 to now having around 50 members of staff working across the UK, with offices in Cardiff, London, Dorset and Portsmouth.
The Group SCS team
At Group SCS our staff are happy, motivated and highly engaged. We attain a high standard of industry-leading customer service because our employees enjoy what they do and that shines through. The skills shortage is a genuine threat to our industry – to us, our customers and our competitors, so we’ll keep looking after our staff in the knowledge that it simply makes business sense. On top of that we offer our staff an impressive benefits package – and we’re not the only people who think it’s impressive – in December 2016 we won the Best Reward and Recognition Scheme category at the Construction Investing in Talent Awards.
Our Managing Director Allan Meek has been at the helm right since day one, while many of our other staff have also worked at the company for a long time including our Contracts Manager Chris Connolly, based in Cardiff, who joined the company in 1997 as a trainee Project Engineer. In fact, out of all our staff, four have been here for 20 years or more, two for 15 years or more and six for ten years or more. That’s a lot of experience!
Like another family
Allan said: “I started the company with a co-director and one employee in a room above a shop in Cardiff. We’d been made redundant when our previous employer went into administration and thought we would give it six months and see what happened.
“I was an experienced project manager at the time so I knew how to run a job and we were very organised from day one. The best thing about starting the company was that my wife and I gave up smoking as we could no longer afford it on my reduced salary.”
He added: “As for running a business and leading people, I’m still learning that.”
Allan says he is proud of his staff and takes great pleasure in seeing people develop. He explained: “People tend to stay for a long time and it’s almost like another family.”
