Welcoming our 100th colleague!
It was just over five short years ago that myself and Sam established this business. We’d both left big, multi-disciplinary organisations and knew we wanted to pioneer something different, that was completely dedicated to fire engineering.
Our ambitions were modest, and back then our team was small. A few wonderful people we knew from the past joined us, and before long Sam had relocated from Manchester to London to handle an increasing client base there.
By 2018 we’d hired 40 new colleagues and rebranded as OFR. We’d built up an impressive portfolio; we were no longer a fledgling business and wanted to acknowledge that by repositioning ourselves and competing against the more established businesses in the industry.
That rebrand and restructure was also a chance to reward our colleagues; we became wholly owned by a team of internal shareholders, meaning it was about all of us and our shared values and commitment to pioneering new ideas.
We cultivated a super flexible culture that allowed our people to just do great work from wherever they were based. Hybrid and flexible working’s the de rigeur way of doing things now, but we’ve always done it.
This brilliant team helped grow our portfolio, with schemes far flung as Angola, and Antarctica, not to mention a whole load of homegrown projects such as the Museum of London, Ascot Racecourse and Twickenham Stadium.
And now, through lots of hard work, and by investing in great new colleagues, we’ve reached this next big milestone — hiring our 100th team member, as we welcome this year’s intake of graduates to the team.
OFR people really are at the heart of all that we do and I’m so proud to have welcomed so many brilliant colleagues into the team. We are committed to investing in our colleagues to ensure that they can stay at the top of their profession, and we offer initiatives such as ‘Better Days’ which allows colleagues to take time away from their day jobs to go and do great things — such as charitable work.
There’s always more we can do (believe me, we’re always looking and open to change) but I think that we’ve done a lot right in our first five years, and with this bolstered 100-strong team around us I’m even more excited about the future…
