Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
JAMES TIMPSON RUNS his family business.
Since 2011, he has been chief executive of the Timpson Group, a string of retail outlets which are spread out all across the UK.
The Timpson Group owns a wide range of different retail outlets. The companies under the group’s banner include cobblers, locksmiths, photo shops and dry cleaners.
In total, they have about 1,850 outlets spread out across the UK (as well as a small number in Ireland).
The group employs about 4,000 people across all of its outlets. What’s notable about the company is that 10% of these people are ex-convicts.
Timpson is an equal opportunities employer. As the the company started to expand in recent years, management found it difficult to fill the wide range of posts opening up.
Just over 15 years ago, James Timpson was invited on a tour of a young offenders open prison in Warrington. He was impressed by his tour guide (a 19-year-old serving three years) and would later go on to hire him.
Following this, Timpson started visiting prisons across the north west of England aiming to recruit people to the business. Initially, he had some issues.
“I made loads of mistakes because I didn’t know what I was doing,” Timpson told a seminar in Dublin earlier this week.
“I was recruiting some of the wrong people. There was one guy I paid off his drug dealer three times.
My mother-in-law looked after someone’s dog for six months.
Recruiting prisoners
As he progressed in his recruitment, Timpson began to learn the right and wrong things to do. Today, the company employs over 400 people with convictions.
“Over time we just developed a system,” he said.
Timpson was the keynote speaker at a seminar in Dublin this week organised by the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) around the topic of hiring people with a conviction.
The IPRT campaigns for the rights of prisoners and for progressive reform of Irish penal policy.
The purpose of the seminar was to highlight the recruitment potential of people with previous convictions and to try to combat the stigma against hiring people who have committed crimes in the past.
“As Ireland moves towards full employment, finding the right staff is an increasing challenge for employers,” said Fíona Ní Chinnéide, director of the IPRT.
People with convictions for offending behaviour can offer huge potential to any workforce, and are highly motivated when given the opportunity to work.
Chinnéide said however that preconceptions from employers prevented them from “seeing beyond the conviction”.
“These preconceptions can stray into recruitment for education and training courses. Because of this, having a criminal history can present life-long obstacles to work, education, training and other aspects of life,” she said.
Studies show that being able to access employment and training is crucial in preventing a return to offending, which, in turn, strengthens communities and makes society safer.
Hiring prisoners
Ireland currently close to 4,000 prisoners in the system.
There are a number of advocacy bodies and groups providing support as they finish their terms and return to wider society.
The Irish Association for the Social Integration of Offenders (IASIO) works with people to help them avoid re-offending and re-imprisonment in the future.
It provides a number of key services to work with prisoners to help them find employment and integrate better back into society.
Speaking at the seminar, Paddy Richardson, chief executive of IASIO said it had 3,000 people referred to its services every year.
He said that in general the organisation found that the reception from employers in Ireland was generally “very good” around hiring people with convictions.
“We find that when we are open and honest… our employers in Ireland would be certainly open to recruitment,” he said.
We know that employment is the single greatest product in reducing reoffending behaviour.
Richardson, said however, that the cost of insuring someone with a conviction can be very high and that this needed to be addressed.
For James Timpson – who is also chair of the Prison Reform Trust was granted an OBE for his work with former prisoners – its important to change the culture around hiring people with convictions.
He said that the Timpson Group hires people based on ability and personality, and not on judging their past.
“It wasn’t just about recruiting great people into the business, it was also about changing the culture and the tone of the business,” he said.
“Because what you’re saying if you’re recruiting people from prison you’re saying we are recruiting people based on ability not based on prejudice.
And for me the people we recruit from prison are on average more loyal, more honest and stay with us for longer than the people we recruit off the street.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Not the only kind of snow that there will be plenty of there this week.
The rich really like to rub our noses in it.
63 inches of snow?
None of my 3 kids have ever even seen snow.
@Phil O’ Meara: And who’s fault is that? You could take them to Lapland for a few hundred euros if you set your mind to it!
@Neal Ireland Hello.: whoosh
@Hall Monitor: Don’t mock. It’s snow joke…
@Phil O’ Meara: Oh dear. What happens if they get stuck there and can’t get home? Helicopters at the ready?
Yes I am jealous snow, great food, good chat and a helicopter ride at the end of it all.
And no doubt they’ll be there to discuss global warming
Who cares?….These darlings won’t be shivering in bus queues….
Mother Nature Trumps Money
@Willie Bill Bryan: Trumping Trump also.
@Arfer Daly: It’s the heaviest snowfall in almost 20 years. Snow here is, of course, expected in Winter, especially in the mountains, but this amount is not normal. Zermatt has been cut off twice this month already, there are landslides and avalanches across the Alps. It’s definitely unusual.
@Arfer Daly: It is unusual in that the snowfall was so heavy. A once in 20yr event. Just accept your first comment was incorrect and move on. No shame in not reading the entire article and then posting a comment from a position of ignorance. It happens a lot around here.
No chance of an avalanche..
Delighted. And Leo and paschal will be late. Hurray.
An omen.
Poor devils
Luckily inside the volcano is quite warm. All the villains that attend can watch poor people being lowered into the piranhas tank in comfort.
Jesus god help them. 2 whole hours at one particular moment in time to travel the last 12 Km’s. There souls must be destroyed. I, like many others, endure that twice a day, 5 days a week on the M50. Go and pull the other one would ya
that’s tomorrow’s peasant hunt canceled so,ah feck
have your say