Timpson chief executive on why it pays not to be prejudiced
Best known for its shoe repair shops, Timpson believes in ‘great service by great people’ and that includes ex-offenders. Here James Timpson, chief executive and chairman of the Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-offending, explains why giving people a second chance is good for them and good for business.
How many of your staff are ex-offenders?
We don’t call them ex-offenders, we call them foundation colleagues because we fund that work through the Timpson Foundation. We think we are the largest employer of [known] ex-offenders - 10 per cent of our colleagues are. Actually the largest employers of ex-offenders are the biggest employers, like the NHS and Tesco, but they don’t know they are employing them because they lied on their application form.
Why employ ex-offenders?
For two reasons. Firstly, we do well and make money when we have great people who are great at serving customers. I’m not prejudiced where I find them from - I’d be mad to turn away profit because I don’t want to employ someone who happens to have been to prison for a bit of their life. The second thing is you can be nice and run a good business.
How do other colleagues react?
When I first started [employing ex-offenders] I didn’t tell anybody. When I did a couple reacted with ‘that’s a bit of a shock, I’m not sure what I think of that’, a couple were ‘that’s a relief because I’ve actually been to prison and I daren’t tell you’ but the majority were ‘this is good’. It basically comes down to if they are good, reliable and a nice person to work with, fantastic. If they’re not, we’ll get rid of them.
Tell us a bit about how you recruit from prisons
Timpson recruits people as they leave prison. We go in [to prisons] and we ask normal questions that we would ask at any interview and if we like them we offer them a trial. We also take people who are released on licence and currently have six shops being run by people who go back to prison at night.
We also have three training academies in prisons – so if you go into Liverpool prison today you will see men in Timpson uniform being trained – and we have a number of workshops where we employ prisoners to do work for our supply chain [in conjunction with ONE3ONE Solutions launched by the National Offender Management Service].
Do ex-offenders make good employees?
The retention rate is exactly the same as those we recruit off the street. What that hides is when it goes wrong it goes really wrong but when they’re good they’re really good. The way we run the business is based on trust and for many of them it’s the first time they’ve been trusted and they like it, it makes them feel they belong. They give that back to you, especially when they are serving customers. It is quite heart warming.
To find out more about the Employers’ Forum for Reducing Re-offending visit www.effrr.co.uk
Timpson blog: http://www.timpson.co.uk/blog/article/79/john-timpson-we-are-making-a-difference-to-the-lives-of-ex-offenders-