It’s now June and we are all enjoying the start of Summer and loving the warm weather and freedom this brings, especially with UK lockdown restrictions easing even further. Although the pandemic has been extremely busy for MAN Commercial, it has now been over a year since we last provided our services at a large-capacity public event and it is safe to say we have definitely missed them! Luckily, during May we were inundated with enquiries for the upcoming months and it’s really exciting to be back doing what we do best within a sector of the industry that we really love and have been experts in the longest. Over the Summer we will be working at the London Marathon, Championship Boxing events, large music and sporting occasions along with weddings and school proms closer to home.

Progress on our new office space at 7 Highlands Court is progressing at an immense pace, with the finishing touches to the initial renovation being completed this month. May saw our construction partners working tirelessly on the project, with brand new meeting rooms, reception area and break spaces now in place. Our branding has also been added to the building and our new parking spaces. We have also added two electric vehicle charging points in our expanded car park, allowing us to look at options to reduce the emissions of our fleet vehicles going forward which is an area we are hugely passionate about.
With the new office space nearing completion, plans have begun for refreshing our existing home. Now we have larger office space available, it gives us room to extend our Control Room and we have exciting ideas for the design and expansion. The 24-hour Control Room is the hub of our business and the new update will include the latest state-of-the-art equipment and technology.

With our continued growth and a second office now to fill, we have been recruiting for further head office personnel throughout May. Our recruitment team itself is expanding, with two new Recruitment Assistant roles created. These new recruits will help the team create its own department in our new office over the coming months. Finding the right people is essential at MAN Commercial and we are proud of teams across the UK – our recruitment team work hard to ensure we are filling vacancies, often at short notice, with excellent, high-calibre Security Officers.

We are also expanding our ever-busy HR team, and are also actively recruiting for additional general office administration support. Our continually increasing turnover has led to the appointment of a Finance Controller; we are pleased to welcome Fiona who joins us in July. In another people update, our Finance Manager Barbara welcomed her baby daughter last month. Congratulations to Barbara and family!

In April we held training at head office for our recently recruited Transport Safety Officers and the newly-qualified officers began work in this role in May. This is a particularly exciting opportunity for us, as the Transport Safety Officers are based across the West Midlands travel network, offering support to the public and working closely with West Midlands Police on a day to day basis. Transport Safety Officers have proved successful in Manchester and these positions are a first for Birmingham, so we are delighted to be involved thanks to our close working partnership with West Midlands Combined Authority and Transport for West Midlands. The officers popped back in to see us last week and they are all very much enjoying their new opportunity.

You may have spotted us sharing our recent feature in last month’s edition of Business Focus magazine on our social media channels. The publication interviewed our CEO Iain on the importance of MAN Commercial’s personal touch and why a focus on people will always be important for success in the security industry. It’s a great read, you can view it by following the link on the news update below.

Our keyholding portfolio grew again during May with another 40 keys now safely in our care for alarm responses, regular locks and unlocks, property inspections and vacant premises checks. These sites are in the West Midlands, but our keyholding team can cover all areas.

Last month we announced that we were successful at the regional stages of 2021 British Security Industry Association (BSIA) Awards and we are delighted to be able to share more details now the regional stages are complete.

Steve, who is a MAN Commercial Assistant Operations Manager at the large, busy Longbridge shopping park in Birmingham was named winner in the ‘Service To The Customer’ category for the Midlands region. Steve was nominated for his excellent performance supporting the client and the day to day successful running of the shopping park faultlessly throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Our second regional champion is Rich, who was successful in winning ‘Security Manager of the Year’ for his region, East of England. Rich manages the MAN Commercial security team at a very large distribution centre in Peterborough, run by one of our biggest clients. Rich has a big team but always maintains a very hands on approach to management and has worked closely with his officers to offer additional training and opportunities. Rich’s team has consistently achieved 100% KPI scores and has received a wealth of positive client feedback.

Huge congratulations to both Steve and Rich on their awards, it is a massive achievement to be recognised by the BSIA, who review hundreds of nominations each year.

Both Steve and Rich will now progress to the national finals, which are set to take place on 30th June. Good luck guys!

Thanks to the popularity of our recent #MANmerch branded merchandise we have now produced branded silver thermal flasks, and have lots of ideas of other promotional items coming soon!