Rip it up and start again

Darren Burns is the National Recruitment Ambassador at Timpson. It is one of the oldest family-owned businesses in the UK, founded in 1865. The Timpson Group is the largest service retailer in the UK employing 5,500 people in over 2,500 UK sites. As well as the well-known locksmith and shoe repair chain of retail outlets, their businesses include Snappy Snaps, the dry cleaners Johnsons and Jeeves Of Belgravia. 

I started by asking Darren how he got into his current role.

‘I genuinely believe I've got the best job in the world. I've got quite a long pompous title, as the National Recruitment Ambassador. All that means is that I find amazing colleagues to join the Timpson business. I look after the Timpson Foundation where we provide training, and employment opportunities for marginalised groups, predominantly ex-offenders. I spend lots of my time meeting great people with super interesting stories. Typically we find them at the lowest points in their lives. We kind of pat them down and offer a second chance. We bring them into our business. When they're there, we give them all the support, guidance and everything necessary for them to make a success in our business. That's pretty much what I do in a nutshell.’

Since not many businesses have programmes for employing ex-offenders, I was interested to hear about the recruitment work Timpsons does for this group. I think there's a lot of fear in recruiting people with a criminal record. I asked Darren why Timpsons employs ex-offenders?

The background to this is that the Timpson Foundation was founded by our CEO, my boss, James Timpson. He is passionate about prison reform and giving people a second chance. In 2002, James was invited to a local prison in the north-west of England, HMP Thorn Cross. It was James' first-time visiting a prison. I think it's fair to say he didn't know what to expect. James was shown around the prison by a serving inmate, a young guy called Matt. James liked Matt. He thought he was intelligent, articulate and would be a great addition to our business. James gave him a business card and said, "Matt, when you get released, give me a call and we'll see if we can get you a job."

James was good to his word, as was Matt. A few months later, Matt had come to work at a Timpson business. James thought, "Well, if there's one really good guy like Matt in one small prison in the north-west of England, surely there are hundreds, if not thousands of people who just need that opportunity. From that moment on, we began to proactively recruit ex-offenders into the Timpson business.

I'm proud that we are now one of, if not the largest, employer of ex-offenders in the UK. 10% of our workforce is made up of people who we've either recruited directly from prison or who've declared they've got an offending background. That roughly equates to about 650 people who work across the business in various roles. There are more people with an offending background who work in the business because people drop off that foundation colleague list after two years of service. We estimate we've currently got around 1200 to 1300 people across the business who’ve come from an offending background.’

I was interested to know what advantages Timpsons sees from recruiting ex-offenders, and how do they add to the business as colleagues? 

It’s a huge advantage. We split this into three main areas. Firstly the benefits of employing ex-offenders, for us, is that we genuinely believe it's the right thing to do for society. There are 11 million people currently in the UK with a conviction more serious than a driving offence, so that's roughly one-sixth of the UK population. As an employer, to throw one-sixth of the population on the employment scrapheap and assume that they're worthless or they're inherently dishonest, they've got nothing to offer, they can't make any positive contributions, we just think it's madness. Lots of other employers will actively discriminate against this cohort, but their loss is our gain and we look past that to think where they're going in the future.

The other benefit to society is that re-offending reportedly costs the UK taxpayer ￡18 billion a year. That’s made up of custody costs, probation costs, police costs and the fact that many people, even if they were working before they went into custody, aren't contributing to the tax system whilst they're in there. Anything we can do to divert people away from crime and back into employment, means everybody wins, including the taxpayer. It’s also widely accepted that employment is a key factor in reducing re-offending. Statistically, 61% of prison leavers will re-offend within two years of leaving custody and that's been proven to be reduced to 19% of people who've got full-time employment. So employment is a key factor to stop people offending. It's not the only factor, but it's a very important one. People also need somewhere safe to live and they need the support of friends and family too. When people are committing less crime, our communities are safer and most importantly of all, there are fewer victims.

One of the other reasons we do it is because it's good for the individuals that we help. The fact that they're not going into prison anymore means that they can lead law-abiding lives. They can achieve more and families also benefit massively too. So those are the benefits to society and the individual. But the bottom line is something we identified early on - it's really good for our business. We don't shy away from the fact in Timpsons, that we are first and foremost, a commercial business, we're not a charity. People that we employ from these marginalised backgrounds, do exceptionally well in our business because they are highly loyal and productive. They stay with us longer than colleagues recruited from all other streams.

I get reports every year from our Head of Security, which tells me how many people we've dismissed for gross misconduct, stealing from the till essentially. The number of foundation colleagues or ex-offender colleagues that would get dismissed for that offence pales into insignificance compared to colleagues that we've recruited from more regular streams. Statistically, these colleagues are more honest. We believe the reason for that is because they've often been turned down again and again by other employers and when we give them that trust and we show them that we're giving them opportunities, they're very reluctant to kind of go back and not to mess it up. They grab on to these opportunities with both hands.

We find people tend to be more resilient as well, and that's often because they've been through hellish times in prison. If you can go through a prison sentence and come out and everything that it entails, then anything we could throw at them, they tend to deal with it quite easily. Another kind of interesting, quite amusing, reason why we take in ex-offenders as well, is that we find that lots of ex-offenders are able to turn their criminal tendencies into entrepreneurship. We see transferable skills that mean colleagues can make deals with our customers. So we'll cut you a key, we'll cut you the second one at half price, we'll repair one pair of shoes with a second pair of shoes, we'll repair for free. That’s a huge benefit to our business.’

It’s clear that Timpson has embraced this group wholeheartedly, but I imagined that Darren would come across other employers that have plenty of fears and concerns. I think if employers can be helped to move beyond those obstacles and those fears, then they can tap into a huge amount of potential. The statistics that Darren has shared are staggering. To me, it’s just a no brainer, for the success of businesses.

I asked Darren what are some of the concerns that he hears from other employers about recruiting ex-offenders?

‘What we try to do is we try to encourage them and help them to see the benefits of working with these marginalised groups. Some of the questions we get asked are, "Can you guarantee me that if I challenge one of these people for being late or for a minor disciplinary issue, can you guarantee me that they are not going to assault me or head-butt me? Can you guarantee me that they're not gonna pinch my wallet or my handbag from the staff room?" All these sorts of questions, which, I don't like to call them daft questions, but the answer is, is that we can't give any guarantees.

But we can't give guarantees with anyone from a non-offending background either, because it's free will and people will be people. All we do is we give them positive examples. I mean for all the years we've been doing this now, we've never encountered any of that. We've never had any kind of major emergencies with the people we've taken on.

We've never had any instances of our colleagues being assaulted by people we recruit from prison. We haven't had any examples of any kind of personal thefts. We've had people pinching money out of the till, but we get more people pinching money out of our tills who we recruit through the jobcentre. So we try to allay these fears and we explain that ex-offender colleagues are ordinary people. Often, they've made bad choices and mistakes, but we ask employers to overlook the headlines of what people have done and try to speak to them. That will help establish what kind of mindset they were in at the time when they were making these offences and more importantly, what's changed.

One of the most frustrating things for us as a business, when we're working with other organisations, is that they often present us with these HR policies, which say that they cannot employ ex-offenders. In our experience, these policies were written 25, 30 years ago. They aren’t relevant in today’s society and often don't stand up to any scrutiny.

We advise people to take these policies, tear them up and start again. With 84,000 people in prison, we have a huge untapped pool of talents out there. Lots of really good people who only need that opportunity.’

Timpsons is now famous for its ex-offenders programme, but they also run other talent programmes. I asked Darren to tell me more about these.

‘We've partnered up with several agencies and military charities, and our policy at the moment is that we will guarantee any military service leaver an interview with Timpsons. Again, we find that lots of people who've left the forces are a great fit for our business. That's because some of the old cliches are true and these employees tend to be very presentable, punctual, ambitious and hard-working.

We also deal with long term unemployed people who've been out of the labour market for some time. Again, we’ve found that self-esteem and self-worth can be so low for some people who haven't worked for 10 years or more. Through us gently introducing them into our business and back into the world of work, they are so grateful and end up being fantastic colleagues. We also work with disabled people. We've worked with Mencap in the past, we work with an organisation called Work Fit, and we've got some colleagues with learning disabilities who work in various roles at our HQ which is Timpsons House in Wythenshawe.

We also work with some charities which support refugees. We've taken on Syrian refugees over the last couple of years. All have gone on to do fabulous things in our business, get promoted and work in various roles. We've also got our company charity, which is called the Alex Timpson Trust. What we do there is champion opportunities for looked after children, so people who've been through the care system. Again, we employ them since lots of the people in care, unfortunately, are over-represented in custody as well. Giving diverse groups of people these opportunities to improve their lives works very well for our business and the individual.’

What I think is cool about this approach is that not only does Timpson’s have all these talent schemes but the culture of the organisation is familial and inclusive. I asked Darren for his thoughts about how Timpson’s culture has got to that point?

‘I can't take any credit for it. Our CEO, James Timpson, is an amazing leader. James is passionate, not only about prison reform but about helping other marginalised groups. James' genuine belief and the way he leads, it becomes easy. All that we do is now embedded within our culture.

Going back to the ex-offender piece, when James first took on Matt, back in 2002, James was faced with a decision. His initial thought was to kind of sneak Matt into the business and say, "Matt, for God's sake, don't tell anybody you're from prison that it would cause chaos." But James didn't do that, James was true to his beliefs. He announced to the whole business that "We are going to be working with people with an offending background. You'll basically have to like it, get on with it, embrace it, or find your happiness elsewhere."

That leadership from James is just permeated throughout the whole business. Any of our colleagues in any of our branches across all of our businesses, if you speak to them about working with ex-offenders or ex-veterans or disabled people, it's just completely usual to them. They'll say, "Oh, yeah, I work with Dave, who was in prison, I work with Jane, who is an ex-military veteran." It’s what we do.’

The key takeaway for me is that bold leadership from the top of the organisation that said, we are being inclusive in this case of somebody who's an ex-offender, whether you like it or not, this is what I want the culture of my organisation to be. It's been driven by that senior sponsorship.

‘I'm not oblivious to the fact that we're in a fortunate position as a family-owned and run business. So whatever direction our CEO James Timpson and John Timpson, our chairman, want to take we all get on board with it. We don't have any shareholders that we need to placate. We're able to make these decisions and it's proven extremely positive.’

I asked Darren what his advice is to other organisations who want to employ ex-offenders?

‘One of the first things we advise is to make an appointment to visit one of your local prisons. Offenders suffer from this horrific stigma, so people think that everybody in prison is a thug who can't string a sentence together, or they're dangerous and they're not to be trusted. Nothing could be farther from the truth. So we invite people to go into their local prisons and make contact with the resettlement department which every prison has. Go in for a visit, meet some of the men or women. Quickly, you'll realise that people in prison haven't got two heads. They're just normal people like you and me, who've made a bad choice or a series of bad choices. But if you show them that trust and give them the opportunity, it can work wonders for your business.

There are lots of other organisations set up to help smooth the transition. I sit on the leadership panel for an organisation called EFFRR, which stands for the Employers' Forum for Reducing Re-offending. It’s a group of forward-thinking businesses who meet every month. We spend lots of our time encouraging other businesses to move into this space and see beyond the headlines and offer people opportunities.

There's also a fantastic initiative run by the Ministry of Justice, called the New Futures Network. These guys are specifically set up to help employers that go into a prison, identify talent and bring people out of custody directly into the workplace. They've got lots of fantastic information on their websites.’

As I was talking to Darren for The Inclusive Growth Show, I was interested to hear what his thoughts were on what inclusive growth is?

‘I think inclusive growth in our business is providing opportunities for everybody through the investment that we've made for our colleagues as our business has become more successful. I think lots of other businesses make the mistake of not treating their colleagues well enough. We believe that by recruiting from a diverse range of backgrounds, it enriches our business completely. This has taken us into all sorts of weird and wonderful directions, which have been nothing but beneficial for our organisation. For me, it's all about taking care of your colleagues. I mean, we do wonderful things. We've got lots of financial benefits, lots of welfare benefits. The headline-grabbing ones include that Timpson colleagues never work on their birthday and always get it as a day off. 

If any Timpsons colleagues get married, they get a week off work, ￡100 bonus in their wages and they get to use the company limousine as the wedding car. We've got interest-free staff loans too. If any of our colleagues need a loan in an emergency, if the boiler breaks, the car breaks down, anything like that, we offer them interest-free loans. We have holiday homes throughout the UK and Europe which are free to use for our colleagues and their families. We do a great scheme called Dreams Come True, whereby colleagues across the business write to James. It can be absolutely anything. It could be, "Dear James, my family and I have always wanted to visit Disney World in Florida... or go on a Caribbean cruise,” and we're able to make that happen. Some of the ones I've been fortunate enough to be involved with through the Foundation, we've paid court fines for people. We've paid for cosmetic surgery. We've paid for IVF, which is quite a nice one, so we've got a few Timpsons babies now. It's just really good to look after your colleagues. Not only do we believe it's the right thing to do, kindness is a key element of our culture, but it's also good for business as well. It stands to reason, if you look after your colleagues, they will look after you and work hard for you.’