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Written by Guest Blogger

Tell us a little about yourself and what you do within the company?

I am Robert McGregor (everyone calls me Rab) and I work in the company’s warehouse as Packaging and Distribution Technician. My main responsibility is to manage the incoming and outgoing stock by ensuring it is all stored correctly with the right paperwork, loaded onto lorries etc. Of course, I also make sure to cheer people up every day.

How long have you been working at Scott and Fyfe?

I have been working at Scott & Fyfe for over 17 years now and plan to retire in the next few years. I was going to retire this year but I enjoy my job so decided to stay on.  When I joined the company I worked in our flooring department where we stitch bond, print and crepe paper for the carpet underlay market. However, the majority of my years were spent making our loop reinforcement fabrics for the abrasives market. It was more recently that I began working in the warehouse as a result of an injury. This injury saw me off work for 51 weeks…. what I call my “gap year”!!!

What changes have you seen over your 17 years at Scott and Fyfe?

Employee ownership has been a great change for us. I believe the company can be even more successful which will allow each of the individual employee owners to benefit. I have also seen the company takeover Flemings Textiles which is now our Composite Department here at Scott & Fyfe.

In what way has becoming employee owned been a great change?

Being a part of an employee owned company to me means that if we succeed then we can all benefit in this. It also means that people who go the extra mile are recognised for it. I have actually won Employee of the Month twice over the two years we have been doing it, the first time for working my holiday to ensure we got a customer’s order out on time and the second time was for finding a company who would pay us for our old pallets when before we were paying out to have them removed.

Is there something/someone who inspires you?

My wife and kids inspire me.  Being able to come home and have my loved ones close by as support - my family is a huge inspiration to me.

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• employee ownership
• guest blog

• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Guest Blogger

Over the next few months, we want to introduce you to the owners at Scott & Fyfe – the employees!

Now in the fourth of our employee profiles, please meet Peter Thomson, employee owner, chair of the Employee Forum and much more.

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

My job role at Scott & Fyfe is project technician of knitting and development and I am also chairman of the Employee Forum. The forum is a group of nominated employees who are tasked with driving engagement within the company. This manifests itself in many ways including improving communications, organising social events and improving the working conditions.  

How long have you been working at Scott and Fyfe?

I have been working here for almost 16 years now and in that time I have covered a lot. I was brought in primarily to develop the knitted product range for the company as they had not been heavily involved in knitting to that point and I had a strong knitting background. My role then expanded into more development work where for example, I worked on a projects developing woven and extruded products such as our flexible micro drip irrigation solution and a range of stitch bonded products for the Composite POD. 

Have you seen many changes during your 15 years at Scott and Fyfe?

In regards to change, employee ownership has been a big change in the company over the past few years and it really was a step in the right direction as it is beneficial for both the company and employees.

Another key change over my time is that the company is now more innovative, we tap into the resources that we always had but never used. An example of this would be that we now take advantage of the varied skills of our employees and this has resulted in drastic changes from the markets we go after to the way we now recruit new and different types of people.

Is there anything interesting about yourself others might not know?

There's lots, I was previously a member of the Arbroath Royal British Legion Pipe Band as a part of the drum core. I never set out to join this but whilst taking my son to his lessons there was a space available and a need to fill it so I stepped in. After that I kept going back and enjoyed it thoroughly for many years. In doing this we became Grade 4B Champions in 2001 and I was fortunate enough to play my last gig centre spot on Murrayfield for a Scotland Vs Italy match!!

I also used to break and school horses alongside my day job which is fairly different.

What has been the highlight of your time at Scott and Fyfe so far?

We used to make a side impact air bag product and the previous owner of Scott & Fyfe wanted to film the whole testing process which was to increase the pressure until the bag burst. So he brought in his camera and three of us tested this constantly from 9am to 3pm with no breaks, painstakingly increasing the pressure by 0.01 bar at a time. Finally the bag burst at 3pm… only for us to realise he hadn’t taken the lens off of the camera so had shot nothing the entire day!! I think his exact words were “well guys, I will see you again tomorrow morning” I have never laughed so much in my life.

• company
• employee ownership
• guest blog

• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Guest Blogger

Over a three month period we want to introduce you to the owners of Scott & Fyfe – the employees!

Therefore, each Wednesday we will be sharing one to one interviews with 12 of our employee owners so that you can get to know us a little better.

Now in the third week of our employee profiles, please meet Michelle Quadrelli, Business Director of our Pipe Fabric Technology POD. 

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

Hello, I am Michelle Quadrelli my role in the company is Business Director for our Pipe Fabric Technology POD. I am entrusted with the leadership of this business area and look after the customer base, performance and strategic growth. Market areas range from irrigation to infrastructure repair.

How long have you worked at Scott and Fyfe?

I have worked here for over 12 years now. As a Textile Design graduate from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, Dundee University, I started working with Scott & Fyfe in 2003. Over that time I have worked in various roles. I started with the company as Sales & Marketing Assistant and progressed through our Sales & Marketing Department to Sales & Marketing Manager. I then moved into a Business Management role before taking on my current role as Business Director.

Have you seen many changes during your 12 years at Scott and Fyfe?

There have been a lot of changes during my time here. In fact I can’t think of many things that haven’t changed. The most significant changes I have seen has been our company structure and way of working along with the move to Employee Ownership.

Our change in structure allowed Scott & Fyfe to move from a traditional textile company to a design led enterprise with innovation at our core. I have moved from working within an enclosed single office environment to being based within an open plan inspiring innovation space working alongside colleagues from different areas, experience and backgrounds in multi-functional teams. The move from departments to our Pod Structure has also given me the opportunity to personally progress with my career and enabled me to start up a completely new business within Scott & Fyfe which focusses on Pipe Fabric Technology. All the products we make within this business area, we did not make 5 years ago and it has been the fastest growing business area within Scott & Fyfe.

Changing from family ownership to employee ownership has really supported our change in structure. Employees or should I say shareholders feel empowered to speak up and influence how the business is run and suggestions on improvements that could be made are welcomed. Returns on our efforts and hard work go straight back to us as individuals.

Is there anything interesting about yourself others may not know?

I was the Primary 7 badminton champion at school.  I was also born with no knuckles for the pinkie fingers on both my hands, weird I know!

What has been the highlight of your time at Scott & Fyfe so far?

There has been many highlights at S&F however one of my main highlights was winning the Phillip Baxendale Employee Innovation Award in 2012. I was nominated by our chairman Nick Kuenssberg for the communications campaign that I put together for the announcement to our employees that we would be moving to employee ownership. It was a great campaign I was privileged to be involved with and as well as creating a separate website for employees on Employee Ownership, I also created boarding passes for each employee to receive during the announcement, which had tear off shareholder business cards and a ticket for their journey to employee ownership.

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• employee ownership
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• Company
• Employee Ownership

Written by Guest Blogger

Over the next few months, we want to introduce you to the owners at Scott & Fyfe – the employees!

Therefore, each Wednesday, for 12 weeks we will be sharing one-to-one interviews with 12 of our employee owners so that you can get to know us a little better.

This week we are pleased to introduce you to David Nicoll in the second of our Meet the Owner, employee profiles.    

Can you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

Of course, I am David (Davie) Nicoll and I work in the weaving department within S&F. Overall I operate and carry out maintenance of our weaving looms however, I have worked in quite a few departments including extrusion, coating, slitting and beaming. In coating for example, we are currently purchasing a new extrusion coating machine that will see me working on acceptance trials and installation. This will be taking up a lot of my time next year.

My role is varied as we are a fairly small team, another project I am working on at the moment is a waste reduction initiative. Here I am working in a team to identify areas that produce the most waste for the company and we are putting in new processes to improve this.  

How long have you worked at Scott and Fyfe?

I have actually been working at Scott & Fyfe for over 30 years!

I started with the company as an apprentice engineer, this took four years and I spent the next four as an engineer. I have been a weaving technician ever since although I also work significantly within development. During my 30 years I was fortunate enough to spend time in Switzerland training with Sulzer to further my knowledge of weaving.

Have you seen many changes during your 30 years at Scott and Fyfe?

Ow yes definitely, with the move to employee ownership employees have gained more benefits from the company and it is fair to say I have seen a huge difference over the past 5 years alone. For example, the Innovation Space where the offices are based used to be a storage area with pieces of old equipment and bales which actually went on fire back in 1986 – this is why there is a more modern roof in this part of the building.

Over the time I have also watched the company grow from a small company with a small product range to its present state, a much bigger company with a rapidly expanding product range.

Is there anything interesting about you others may not know?

In my spare time I am a member and stage manager of the “Tayport Amateur Dramatic and Musicals Society” building the set and props for the 2 shows the society holds each year. This year the Christmas show was Alice in wonderland and I have been spending almost all of my spare time working on the set design for this – the shows ran from the 9^th of December til Saturday the 12^th of December.

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Written by Guest Blogger

As a doctoral researcher from St Andrews University, I was fortunate enough to accompany Scott & Fyfe in their journey to becoming a truly innovative company. Since November 2014, I have been coming into the office three days a week, taking on the role as a ‘fly on the wall’ (not a nasty one, of course) and observing how employees go about their daily affairs. My activities have ranged from engaging informally in conversations, asking endless (and probably at times somewhat dull and annoying) questions about their working lives, attending meetings and conducting scientific interviews. Without putting you to sleep my thesis examines a variety of things, primarily however I attend to working practices and how people work together in collaboration.

I experienced Scott & Fyfe as a fascinating place. I was amazed by the way the physical appearance of the innovation space facilitated creativity and collaboration. Every POD (business unit) has a designated space within the innovation space, equipped with whiteboards and flipcharts – a homeport of sorts. As is conventional wisdom, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here, meetings and creative sessions such as brainstorms etc. are conducted. Because each POD has its own space, one doesn’t have to wipe out all that’s been accomplished at the whiteboard during the meeting. Instead, people leave it on, returning to it later as a group or on their own and continue where they left off.

Because Scott & Fyfe work in cross-functional teams, the collective is overly emphasised. I found this to facilitate knowledge sharing and impact greatly on leadership. ‘No one person has all the answers’ I was told frequently. People therefore are encouraged to step up to challenge conventional wisdom and routine (the nemesis of innovation), share new ideas or offer better insight. More often than not, the person best equipped to make a judgement call, instead of the person who may chair a certain meeting guides future actions. At any rate, I experienced Scott & Fyfe as a democratic environment where all people have a stake in the game for better or for worse.

Speaking of environment, I’m lacking words to describe the atmosphere at Scott & Fyfe. ‘Pleasant’ might be an understatement. I was welcomed astonishingly warmly from day one, and despite being a stranger encountered no reservations whatsoever. This may be the opportunity to extend a huge thank you to all employees who made my time so enjoyable and particularly those who endured the agony of me asking endlessly ‘may I record this meeting?’, ‘would you agree to another interview?’, and ‘what is the meaning of this that and the next thing?’ I don’t think I can say it enough, so thank you Scott & Fyfe, I hope you will have another 150 prosperous years ahead of you!

Christopher Mueller