For many years I’ve been reading about the work UK retailer Timpson does to hire ex-offenders and other marginalised groups. What they do is a win win win situation. It’s a win for the ex-offenders who get a job, it’s a win for society as employment is a crucial part of breaking the re-offending cycle, and it’s a win for Timpson as they get access to a large talent pool.
Now more than ever, employers need to be challenging traditional policies and beliefs to think differently about hiring. With that in mind, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Darren Burns, Timpson’s National Recruitment Manager and Head of The Timpson foundation, to the show. As well as running Timpson’s own ex-offender hiring initiatives, Darren also advisors other companies looking to do the same, and he has some unique experience and advice to share
In the interview, we discuss:
• The work of The Timpson Foundation
• Timpson’s motivations behind recruiting ex-offenders
• Breaking the re-offending cycle
• Working with prisons in the recruiting process
• The benefits of employing ex-offenders
• Advice to other employers
• Accelerator prisons and prison reform
• What’s next for Timpson
Listen to this podcast in Apple Podcasts.
Interview transcript
Paradox (Ad) (0s):
Support for this podcast is provided by Paradox, the Conversational AI company helping global talent acquisition teams at Unilever, McDonald’s, and CVS health get recruiting work done faster. Let’s face it, talent acquisition is full of boring administrative tasks that drag the hiring process down and create frustrating experiences for everyone. Paradox’s AI assistant, Olivia, is shaking up that paradigm, automating things like applicant screening, interview scheduling, and candidate Q&A so recruiters can spend more time with people, not software.
Paradox (Ad) (40s):
Curious how Olivia can work for your team? Then visit paradox.ai to learn more.
Matt Alder (1m 5s):
Hi, there. This is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 393 of the Recruiting Future Podcast. For many years, I’ve been reading about the work UK retailer, Timpson, does to hire X offenders and other marginalized groups. What they do is a win-win-win situation. It’s a win for the X offenders who get a job, it’s a win for society as employment is a crucial part of breaking the re-offending cycle, and it’s a win for Timpson as they get access to a large pool of talent. Now more than ever, employers need to be challenging traditional policies and beliefs to think differently about hiring.
Matt Alder (1m 49s):
With that in mind, I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Darren Burns, Timpson’s national recruitment manager and head of the Timpson Foundation to the show. As well as running Timpson’s own ex-offender hiring initiatives, Darren also advises other companies looking to do the same thing, and he has some unique experience and advice to share. Hi, Darren, and welcome to the podcast.
Darren Burns (2m 13s):
Good morning, Matt. Good to be here.
Matt Alder (2m 16s):
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Darren Burns (2m 21s):
Yes. My name is Darren Burns and I’m the Head of Recruitment for the Timpson group. I’ve got a really interesting job. Essentially, I look after our ex-offender employment scheme on the Timpson Foundation, which provides training and employment opportunities for marginalized groups, predominantly ex-offenders, but also military veterans, long-term unemployed people, and disabled people.
Matt Alder (2m 42s):
I’ve got so many questions to ask you about that and the work that you do. Let’s just start with a bit of context for people who are listening. There’ll be people outside the UK listening who may not have heard of Timpson before. Could you just give us a bit of introduction to the company?
Darren Burns (2m 57s):
Of course, yes. Timpson is one of the oldest businesses in the UK. We were founded back in 1865 by our current chairman, John Timpson’s great, great grandfather, William Timpson. All those years ago, we had one single store in Oldham Street in Manchester, where we used to manufacture and sell shoes. Obviously, over the years, we’ve managed to diversify and expand them. We offer lots of niche services now to the public. The services that we offer the public now are shoe repairs, key cutting, watch repairs, engraving, dry cleaning, photo ID, tablet repairs, phone repairs. Again, because we’ve constantly evolved and diversified, we’ve been able to maintain opposition on the UK high streets.
Darren Burns (3m 38s):
Over the years, we’ve had a number of quite important acquisitions. Probably the most notable and arguably the most important is back in 2003 when we acquired Mr. Minute. They were effectively our only UK competitors. Mr. Minute actually still exists not in the UK anymore. We also acquired our photo businesses back in 2008, namely Snappy Snaps and Much Spielman. They provide photo processing, digital photo gifts, marksman, canvasses, photo ID. In 2014, we acquired Johnson’s Dry Cleaners. We’re now the largest dry-cleaning business in the UK too. In addition to that, we own a number of pubs and restaurants.
Darren Burns (4m 17s):
We have a chain of barbershops. We’ve got facilities in China. We’ve got the largest mobile locksmith business in the UK so quite a big and diverse business. We employ about five and a half thousand colleagues. We turn over up seven to eight million pounds a week.
Matt Alder (4m 35s):
It’s an absolutely fascinating business with such an interesting history. Talk us through the foundation and the work that you do.
Darren Burns (4m 42s):
The Timpson Foundation was founded back in 2002 by my boss, James Timpson. James was invited to a local prison with a number of other business leaders. It was James’s first time in prison. He didn’t really know what to expect. James was shown around the prison by a serving inmate, a chuck called Matt. James was really impressed by Matt. He was a very intelligent, very articulate, and really great personality. James gave Matt a business card and said, “Matt, when you get released, please give me a call and we’ll see if we can get you some work.” James was good to his word as was Matt. We’re very pleased to say that he’s still with us today and is one of our more successful branch managers. From that moment on, James realized if there’s one really good candidate like Matt in one small prison in the Northwest, surely there’s going to be hundreds if not thousands of people like Matt, who just need that opportunity, just need that second chance.
Darren Burns (5m 31s):
From that moment forth, we began to proactively recruit ex-offenders into teams and businesses. I’m very proud to say that we are now one of, if not the largest employer of ex-offenders in the UK. Currently, between 10 and 12% of our whole workforce is made up of people who were either recruited directly from custody or who’ve come to us undisclosed that they’ve gotten offender backgrounds. That equates roughly to about 650 people
Matt Alder (5m 58s):
Really interesting stuff. I suppose that from a business perspective, there are a number of reasons why you do this, aren’t there?
Darren Burns (6m 6s):
Absolutely, yes. The reasons behind why we employ ex-offenders, it’s split into two main groups of reasons. The first one has been the societal reasons. We’re basically big business but we’ve got a big social conscience. It very much fits in with our culture of kindness and compassion to offer people a second chance. We genuinely believe that people do deserve that second chance. It’s important to know, Matt, that reoffending cost of UK taxpayers is an estimated 18 billion pounds a year. Anything that we can do as a business to break the offending cycle, divert people away from crime and into employment, we believe it’s got to be a good thing. Statistics prove that 61% of the prison leavers will re-offend within two years of leaving custody and that is reduced to as little as 19% if they’ve got full-time employment.
Darren Burns (6m 51s):
There’s clear evidence there that employment is a key factor to reduce reoffending. It’s not the only factor because obviously people, first and foremost, need somewhere safe to live. They need a support network, friends and family, people to look out for them, care for them, love them. After that, employment is a key factor. For us, it’s simple. By offering people a second chance and offering them jobs when they get released from prison, everybody wins. The offenders win obviously because they’re not in prison. They’re given jobs with great opportunities. The families of offenders win because they’re not losing loved ones, the long prison sentences. The taxpayer wins because the 18 billion pounds a year tax burden is reduced. Perhaps more importantly than that, to society in general, everybody wins because our communities are safer.
Darren Burns (7m 36s):
Fewer crimes are being created and ultimately there are fewer victims so we just believe it makes real sense.
Matt Alder (7m 43s):
I know that you’ve been doing some work in some prisons there this week. Talk us through the practicalities of your job and how it works.
Darren Burns (7m 53s):
It’s really interesting, Matt. I get to meet some absolutely fascinating people and hear their stories. I think I’m professionally really nosy so I get to ask people lots of questions about, obviously, why they’re in prison and how they find themselves there. Just ask them about themselves and their other lives. These people often really open up to me and we’re able to make an informed decision at the point of the interview. In most cases, we’re often able to offer people a second chance and a job with us. We’ve got four main recruitment streams with the Timpson Foundation. The first one is a huge funnel. It’s a scheme called Rotl or ROTL, released on temporary license. This is effectively where we’ll establish that we have a recruitment need and any location in the UK.
Darren Burns (8m 36s):
It could be Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, or wherever it might be. Because of that recruitment need, I will make contact with a local prison governor and I’d say, “Hi. I would like to come in and interview 10 men or 10 women for some of our local vacancies.” We’ll go in. We’ll interview people. We’ll carry out a dynamic risk assessment to the point of interview. Then the interviews continue as normal from there. Our interviews are really informal chats just to get to know people. We ask lots of big, open questions such as tell me about yourself. When we’ve interviewed the 10 candidates, I will then feedback to the prison governor and I’ll say, “Listen out to these 10 people that I’ve interviewed today. I think three or four of them have got what it takes to be a really good fit for the temps in business.
Darren Burns (9m 16s):
We’d like to offer them a position on Rotl.” The prison governor will then go away. They will draw up what’s called a license and that individual then be released from prison every day. They’ll do a full day’s work in one of our high street stores before returning to prison in the evening. That can continue and the last 12 months to two years of somebody’s sentence. We honestly believe that’s the most effective and safest way to reintegrate people back into society following a prison sentence. What against selfishly as a business, we get to recruit great people. We get to know what makes them tick, and we get to build a rapport with them before they come and work with us full-time. It’s a real credible string of recruitments. Again, the reason I think it’s so successful is because, often when people are incarcerated, they’ve lost everything.
Darren Burns (10m 3s):
If you think about it, releasing somebody back into the community after a long sentence can be really challenging and traumatic for them. By coming out with those on Rotl in a safe and understanding environment with an ability to earn money that they can send to the families or they can save so they can put it towards a deposit for a flat or a car, it just gives them a genuine opportunity to come out and build up slowly. They can have the best chance of succeeding upon release.
Matt Alder (10m 33s):
In doing this job, which I know you’ve been doing for a little while now, what surprised you the most and what have you learned through the experiences that you’ve had?
Darren Burns (10m 42s):
I think what surprises me the most is that I get to do lots of work with all the businesses who were keen to employ from this cohort or essentially to employ people with convictions. It’s been really good lately because of the national labor shortages. There are now more and more businesses who are keen to engage with those with convictions. I think prior to that, Matt, I think my biggest surprise is how employees will openly admit to the scrutiny to look into those convictions. I think it’s as high as 70% of employees openly admit to not giving anybody an opportunity once they disclose they’ve got conviction. Application forms are effectively torn up and thrown in the bin. I’ve always been a bit surprised by that given that there are so many talented individuals with lots of experience, both personal and professional experience, lots of transferable skills, which would be a huge asset for any employer, but the application forms are just casually tossed into the bin and they’re not even considered so yes, I’ve always been a bit surprised about that
Matt Alder (11m 40s):
I suppose that brings me nicely onto my next question, which is with all the skill shortages that are happening all over the world at the moment, many employers are struggling to find people to come and work for them. I think one of the positive things that have come out of this is employers are opening their minds and starting to think differently about where they can find people for their business. You mentioned there that you’ve done some work advising other employers on how to access this cohort of workers. What would your advice be to anyone listening who’s considering looking into this as a way forward with their talent acquisition?
Darren Burns (12m 15s):
I think that the first piece of advice that we normally offer to somebody who’s trying is to make an appointment to visit your local prison. I know that sounds a bit left field. Lots of open prisons now in the UK, both male and female estates, regularly have open days. They will welcome employers to come and meet with the prisoners, talk to them, and assess them to see if they’re going to be a good fit for that business. It can be really handy because I think, generally, people build up a picture of offenders as they’re really scary individuals, heavily tattooed thugs, constantly in a sentence together, inherently dangerous, and dishonest. It’s simply not true. All these stereotypes are just perpetuated by the media.
Darren Burns (12m 55s):
Assuming somebody does go into a prison to meet with somebody serving a sentence, all of these stereotypes and myths just fall away instantly when they discover that these people are just regular people who have fallen foul of the law. Essentially good people can make bad choices and find themselves in custody. The other thing that we do, which is really useful, is that we introduced to our colleagues that we’ve recruited from prison. We’ve got some amazing colleagues that I’ve mentioned before. We’ve got an excess of 650 colleagues who’ve joined us from prison in the Timpson business in various roles. Lots of them are very professional, very credible, very intelligent, very articulate. As soon as we introduce our own colleagues from each of the businesses, straight away, they’re thinking, “Well, we’d employ somebody like that in a heartbeat.”
Darren Burns (13m 41s):
That can make a really useful tool in our box. I think one of the other main stumbling blocks as well for other employers is often that a preexisting HR policy. I meet lots of employers who will say, “Well, we’d like to employ ex-offenders, but we can’t because our HR policy says we can’t.” Often, these policies are written 20 or even 30 years ago. In some cases, they aren’t really relevant. They’re not really reflective of today’s society. We just advise people to change the policy, as simple as that. Take the existing policy, tear it open, and compile a new one. Once that’s done, people are able to meet people with convictions, find out that they’re not already scary and really dangerous, and they’ve got lots to offer, it can be really beneficial to their business.
Matt Alder (14m 28s):
One other thing that I find really interesting here is that, obviously, as an organization, you’re thinking very differently about the whole recruiting process and how you ascertain who’s right for your business in the process that you go through to do that. That looks very different from the way that a lot of companies traditionally recruit. What lessons do you think there are in what you do for talent acquisition as a whole in terms of finding the best fit for people in organizations and thinking differently about recruitment in general?
Darren Burns (14m 58s):
I think one of the most important things is focusing on some of the benefits that employing ex-offenders offenders can bring to a business. Something else that you have to bear in mind, Matt, is that there are 11 million people in the UK with a conviction more serious than a driving offense. That’s roughly one-sixth of the UK population. To throw that many people on the employments scrap heap and assume that they’re worthless, they’ve got nothing to offer, they’re inherently dishonest, they’re dangerous, it just doesn’t make any sense. The reason why it’s so successful is that we’re very realistic. We understand that not everybody in prison is job-ready. Lots of people, unfortunately, in custody have got lots of complex needs and issues surrounding mental health, homelessness, addiction issues, or a combination of all three.
Darren Burns (15m 41s):
Whilst we don’t want to consign those people to the scrap heap, obviously these people, first and foremost, need help. They need access to abstinence-based recovery. They need to be off drugs and alcohol. They need somewhere safe to live. Once all these boxes have been ticked and all these issues have been addressed, then employment is the next step. That being said, there are lots of people who haven’t got those issues in prison. These are the people that we meet on a regular basis and offer them an opportunity. Well, again, anecdotally, the people that we recruit from prison are very hard workers and very loyal. They stay with us longer than people that we recruit from other streams. We’ve got a retention rate with our foundation colleagues or ex-offender colleagues of about 85%.
Darren Burns (16m 23s):
85% of these people that we recruit from custody are still with us two years after starting with us. Statistically, they’re even more honest, which is always a strange one, but I get a security report from our head of security every year. On this report, we’ve got a list of colleagues, thankfully, a fairly small list of colleagues who’ve been dismissed for gross misconduct. In all business, that usually means they’re stealing from the till. I’m pleased to announce that the amount of foundation colleagues or ex-offender colleagues that appear on this list pales in insignificance when compared to colleagues recruited from other streams. We believe that the reason that ex -offender colleagues are more honest is that they don’t want to betray that opportunity, that chance we’ve given them.
Darren Burns (17m 5s):
They realize that their options are limited. Not many employees will engage with them and see past plastic conviction. Because we’ve seen them fit to do that, they don’t want to betray that trust. They’re statistically more honest. It’s also safer to recruit people with convictions as well. Depends on how many businesses recruit, whether they do DBS checks or enhanced DBS checks. If you don’t, you’ll completely ran reliance on somebody being honest with you. The strange quirk is everybody we take on from prison, we know everything about them. We know about their offense that they’re in from. We know about previous convictions. Whereas somebody who joined us from the streets or the job center, if they haven’t ticked that box on the application form, they’ve got no conviction, we’re not going to know and we’re not going to ask.
Darren Burns (17m 51s):
It’s interesting to me. We’re also able to attract more talent into the temps business as well. Let’s be frank, we’re able to attract people who normally wouldn’t consider work at the Timson, but because they have committed an offense, they find themselves in custody, the options are limited. Again, we’re able to meet and recruit some very talented former professionals. Interestingly enough, Matt, I always think that people who we recruit from prison not only bring a great deal of life experience with them but a personal resilience as well. For me, anybody who can navigate the way through a prison sentence and come up the other end is outstanding. Anything we can throw at them as an employer, they’re going to in a thrive and retail environments, they’re able to deal with easily.
Darren Burns (18m 34s):
It builds up that personal resilience from getting through a prison sentence. One of the other benefits of employing ex-offenders is not many of them were able to turn their criminal tendencies into entrepreneurship. An example of that might be that we will employ somebody who’s been convicted of dealing drugs or once, they’re used to selling drugs and doing deals for illegal substances. Now they’re able to channel that into more legal avenues that “Instead of dealing drugs, then I’ll do deals with our customers for a half-price set of keys or a half-price shoe repair so they tend to be a really good fit.
Matt Alder (19m 8s):
Final question, what’s next? What’s your focus for the next year or two years? How is Timpson moving forward with this?
Darren Burns (19m 12s):
We just want to do more of it, Matt. I seem to be spending more and more of my time now helping other businesses to set up processes and to see the value and the benefits of employing ex-offenders. We think we’re going to be doing a lot more of that. One of the other interesting things that I’m involved with is establishing what’s called accelerated prisons. These prisons essentially have got a real focus on employment because what I mentioned before, obviously, employment is a key factor to reduce re-offending so my boss, James Timpson, is working hard on that to set up employment boards in various prisons up and down the UK. The idea is that external business people will comment on and help set up these boards with a big focus on employment so that more men and women in custody can leave prison with a job or certainly a prospect of a job.
Darren Burns (19m 57s):
I’m really excited to be involved with that and we think it’s going to be very successful.
Matt Alder (20m 4s):
Darren, thank you very much for talking to me.
Darren Burns (20m 7s):
You’re very welcome, Matt.
Matt Alder (20m 9s):
My thanks to Darren. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow the show on Instagram. You can find us by searching for Recruiting Future. You can search all the past episodes at recruitingfuture.com. On that site, you can also subscribe to the mailing list to get the inside track about everything that’s coming up on the show.
Matt Alder (21m 2s):
Thanks so much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
