Doug Squires, Squires Gear and Engineering
Doug Squires, 71, shares what it is like to work with son Tim, 35
We are a typical family-owned SME in the West Midlands. My dad and I started the business together from a lean-to in about 1985. We extended it at each end and took over a little shed and gradually built it up.
My son Tim has been working with us for about nine years now. He always had his hands in the factory, even as a youngster. He has the respect of the workforce, and is a very good front man. He heads up our quality department, HR and sales and has his hands quite full.
We have had quite an entertaining business journey. We were doing really well up until 2007 and then our business fell off the edge of a cliff. Nobody wanted trailer axles any more in Europe. We had to look at our business, see what the situation was, and sadly had to lose some of the labour force, but we have reemployed some of them since.
We had to relearn the meaning of “lean”. In many ways it did us a favour because we have had to seek new markets. It is never easy. You have to make your own luck, as in any business.
When Tim joined it was a fairly straightforward transition, although Tim had a bit of adjusting to do. It was a whole new scenario for him. Sadly his grandfather, my father, never saw him with us.
The factory is run to a good standard, that to me is everything. If I have a clean factory floor that says a lot about the way things are being operated.
When Tim started I had to respect the fact that he is his own man. He needed to bring his own ideas into the firm, the same as I did when I joined my dad. With my dad, I did suggest we got a computer at one stage, but all I got was a glassy stare.
I like to pop in a couple of days a week. I don’t see me being ever completely away from the firm. It is your baby and you want to see it succeed.
It is nice to have continuity in the family – the banks like it, the customers like it. It is important because we have a good track record of 30 years. When you are selling your own name it is far more credible than if you are selling somebody else’s. You have total commitment.
Alex Gorringe, director at Carr & Westley
Alex Gorringe, 30, runs the women’s clothing business with his mother, Judy. His father recently retired
We are a classic ladieswear company. The business has been around since 1919. Some things have not changed at all – we still have the original factory. We are based in Hadlow, in Kent, in a water mill.
We used to operate fully out of the water mill, which was a perfect setting but not the perfect place to do business. We got to the point where we didn’t have anywhere to put the stock.
The mill was the factory, downstairs was the offices, and upstairs was where we lived. So I grew up with the business. When I joined the company one of my main priorities was to grow the business enough to get it out of that environment.
When I first got involved I had a year or two working in conjunction with my dad. When I took over there was quite a lot of pressure, although I had the confidence of youth on my side. I could see that quite a lot of things were broken and it was obvious what had to be done to fix it.
With the factory it would have been very easy to go in and say let’s move it abroad and seriously reduce our costs overall. But you are talking about the livelihood of people who were my babysitters growing up. So instead we have invested the time into things to differentiate us from competitors.
As with everything there are positives and negatives to working for a family business. The first thing to say is people don’t tend to leave so we must be doing something right. Because we are based in a village, a lot of our staff walk to work, know each other, and grew up with each other.
The negative side is we don’t have a HR department. Things are done informally – our meeting processes could be better – but it’s difficult trying to break the habit of a lifetime.
The big challenge at the moment is achieving growth without giving up the core of the business. I couldn’t do a normal job now. I like being a jack of all trades.
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