Timpson has recruited hundreds of employees from prisons and boss James Timpson thinks other retailers should do the same.

I remember my grandfather telling me that the easiest way to make money out of shoe retailing was to have a bloody good manager in every shop. Thirty years on, and despite now being shoe repairers and photo processors, this is still the case today.

“12 of our shops are run by excellent colleagues who go back to prison each night”

James Timpson, chief executive of Timpson Group

I also learnt that you can train for skill, but you can’t train for personality. This opened up a new world because lots of cobblers in the 1990s were great at cobbling, but didn’t tick the personality box.

So we started recruiting solely on personality and set up a big training programme to teach the technical skills needed to give great service.

And it worked. We now have 3,500 wonderful colleagues with loads of personality in our 1,350 shops, and as of yesterday we had only two vacancies nationwide.

Another opportunity happened in 2003 when I was walking around a prison near Warrington – I was a visitor not an inmate – and I met Matt, a 19-year-old local lad serving a three-year sentence for ABH.

He was brilliant, just the sort of personality I like – sparky, fun and interesting – so I slipped him my business card, he joined, and he’s still with us today.

This started a journey around other prisons recruiting hundreds of inmates to work in the business, either at the end of their sentence, or even better on day release.

Today, 12 of our shops are run by excellent colleagues who go back to prison each night. We make money when we fill our shops with amazing people, I’m just not prejudiced where we find them.

Every big retailer employs ex-offenders. Some do it knowingly (Greggs, Halfords and Sue Ryder being great examples), but most don’t. Many ex-offenders lie on application forms because they know that some businesses won’t even consider anyone who has been to prison.

From my experience you miss many great people this way. We know who we are getting from prison because we are open about it. We don’t recruit sex offenders or those with significant health problems, so in effect we are looking at about a third of the prison population. We currently employ 340 wonderful people we were fortunate to meet when they were in prison.

Over the last 10 years we know of only three colleagues who have messed up and have gone back to prison. The retention rate is the same for someone we recruit off the street as it is for someone we recruit from a prison, so despite it being unconventional it makes good business sense.

So I challenge anyone to come with me on a prison visit to see for yourself what I have found. It’s not everyone’s idea of a good day out but I’m sure it will open your eyes to the great potential there is inside our prisons.

Great shops need great people to work in them, maybe a prison has just the right superstars for you?

  • James Timpson is chief executive of Timpson Group and chairman of The Employers Forum For Reducing Reoffending