Until the pandemic, the jeans brand Hiut Denim was on target to grow by 40% this year, according to cofounder David Hieatt. After selling his previous business – the sports brand Howies – to Timberland in 2006, he set up Hiut in 2012 with his wife, Clare. Based in Cardigan in west Wales, the company is located in the former premises of what was the UK’s biggest denim factory, which sadly closed its doors 10 years prior.
Hieatt’s aim? To re-employ some of the 400 or so “grandmasters” – his term for the highly skilled and experienced factory workers responsible for creating garments – who lost their jobs in 2002. Thanks to soaring demand, there are now 30 people on the payroll. With a focus on sustainability and ethically made fashion, the future looked promising. Alongside initiatives such as “free repairs for life”, the brand has launched inventive ranges such as jeans made from banana fibres. Then Covid-19 struck.
“If you’re a business owner who’s spent a decade or two building up your company, the idea of it all disappearing in the space of a month or so is heartbreaking,” recalls Hieatt. The announcement that the UK government would provide support came as a huge relief.
“I’m not sure what we would have done without the support,” he says of the coronavirus job retention scheme, which allowed Hieatt to furlough all manufacturing staff, covering 80% of their wages (the remaining 20% was topped up by the company). “To the credit of the government, they acted decisively in that moment and probably saved a lot of businesses,” he says.
The scheme has been extended to the end of October, but from 1 August, while employees will still receive 80% of their salary, the UK government’s contribution will be cut to 60%. Hieatt also took out a bounceback loan, which offered up to £50,000 of finance with no interest or fees for a year. “This gave us a safety net, because we didn’t know what the future would hold,” he says.
But the company’s production line didn’t completely shut down during the crisis. Hieatt’s team used their skills to make NHS scrubs. “We thought we should try and do something, so we bought fabric and made stuff, giving that to the NHS,” he explains. Garments were sent to the Royal Free in London, as well as local hospitals. “The one good thing that has come out of this is a sense of trying to help each other,” Hieatt adds.
With the production team now back in full swing, the company’s future looks positive, despite the challenges. “Demand still seems to be strong and we’re in a pretty specialised market – super-high premium denim,” says Hieatt. “People might not be buying much, but they do buy special things. It feels like we might just come out of this strongly …”
Archibald Young
Alongside running a firm set up by his grandfather and seeing his company’s castings crop up everywhere from sculptures to submarines, one of the things that Andrew Young is proudest of at his Kirkintilloch foundry is its low turnover of staff. Ever since Archibald Young set up his eponymous firm in 1959, by buying a secondhand furnace for £5, its workers have had a tendency to stick around.
Step inside the foundry today and you could meet an employee who has worked at the firm for 41 years, having started as a 16-year-old. Or the thirtysomethings who joined as teen apprentices and haven’t left. Earlier this year, the economic fallout from Covid-19 threatened to tarnish this remarkable retention rate. “To lose any of our staff would be hurtful,” says Young, the managing director. “We’d do anything to stave off redundancies.”
It’s a problem the third-generation firm averted thanks to the UK government’s multi-billion pound job retention scheme, which has so far protected 8.5 million workers and 1m businesses. Having furloughed 27 out of Archibald Young’s 29 staff in late-March – Young and a finance manager stayed on – everybody returned to work after just three weeks.
“Given April was pretty much wiped out production-wise, having 80% of staff wages covered was an enormous help,” says Young. “Among our workers, there was also gratitude at the time they’d spent with their families without being unduly punished in their own pockets.”
The word foundries may summon up Peaky Blinders-style visions of fiery furnaces, twisted metal and ash falling over murky towpaths. But these factories that produce metal castings (objects made by pouring molten metal into a mould) form an industry valued at more than £2.2bn and employing 17,000 people. By recycling scrap metal into new components, foundries help boost the circular economy too. Over the past 61 years, the foundry has made doors for the UK’s iconic red telephone boxes and a bronze St Cuthbert statue for the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Today, it produces castings for customers in marine, civil and general engineering, shipbuilding and mining. It also makes nickel bronze castings for the UK’s submarine fleet.
“Yes, our stuff is found at the bottom of the ocean,” jokes Young. “But at least it’s still operating.”
Given Archibald Young’s work in the energy sector, as well as for the Ministry of Defence, its business was deemed “essential”; so all employees were able to return from furlough on 20 April.
The story doesn’t end there. Although the company is currently busy, Young notes that its robust workflow is largely the result of staff working on contracts predating the Covid-19 pandemic. The future is less certain. “One of the reasons we came back in April is because our order book was pretty healthy, but that’s based on what customers required before entering shutdown,” he points out. “But it’s taking a dip now. General engineering will see things go quieter over the next quarter. Based on that, I can see the possibility of us utilising the job retention scheme again.”
However, he doesn’t envisage placing the majority of Archibald Young staff on furlough as he did in March. Instead, he intends to rotate them. Under the job retention scheme, employers have the freedom to rotate their workforce (with the minimum of three weeks off, then three weeks on). It’s given businesses reassurance that most of their employees’ wages will be covered should demand wane. From 1 July, companies will also be able to bring furloughed employees back to work part-time.
“Things aren’t over yet,” says Young. “The job retention scheme was absolutely helpful for Archibald Young and we’ll be dipping back into it, no doubt … Business has been reasonable to the family for 61 years, and long may it continue …”
This advertiser content was paid for by the UK government. All together is a government-backed initiative tasked with informing the UK about the Covid-19 pandemic
