Uckfield Entrepreneurs
Timpson has been a family business since 16-year-old William Timpson started a shoe shop 160 years ago in Manchester. The business now concentrates on shoe repairs, with over 2,000 branches around the country, also offering key cutting, engraving, watch repairs, dry cleaning, shoe-laces, and sundry bits, bobs, and pieces. The company also owns most of the ID photo booths in the UK, Snappy Snaps, Max Spielman Photo Prints, Tesco’s photo business, and the dry-cleaning companies Morrisons and Johnsons, and Jeeves of Belgravia.
Timpson is unusual. Its “upside down management” culture gives store managers significant management freedom, including on pricing. It has a progressive employment policy that focuses on finding can-do people who understand how to make customers happy, and who can work magic.
Timpson is proud of its Fair Tax Mark, a government accolade in these odd times when tax avoidance is seen as clever and creditable. The award means that the company pays its due tax promptly and transparently, and understands the fundamental truth that tax is the price of a civilised society. Timpson actively promotes social mobility. Few others could claim that. 10% of its managers are ex-offenders, proving that they are as good at the job as anyone else, and quite possibly better.
While I was interviewing Andy Lovell, store manager of Timpson in the Tesco car park, he managed to satisfy or amaze several visitors, from mending zips on their expensive boots to providing a new battery for a van key, and much good advice in between, all in a shop space the size of a bathroom.
Andy’s calm and cheerful ability to resolve random problems must surely make him an exceptional store manager in the Timpson network, but he reminded me that everyone is encouraged to develop their personalities while receiving the same skills training and instruction, set out in a remarkably detailed “skills ladder”. I still thought he was a bit like a kindly wizard at a children’s show, miraculously making everyone happy.
A resident of Nutley, Andy has worked on and off for Timpson for many years, having learnt to repair shoes in New Zealand and having worked for other companies. He keeps coming back and must start on his “skills ladder” again each time he returns. They must think he’s a good store manager, as do the many people he certainly satisfies every day.
One last question – why can’t every company be like Timpson?