Blairs Staff News Archive
Blairs on the BBC
Blairs was featured on the BBC Reporting Scotland news programme on Tuesday 9th January 2007 with Managing Director, Owen Quinn commenting on "Age Positive" employment practices. Owen told the BBC:
Blairs is 99 years old in 2007 and we employ 158 people in our Greenock factory. Our employees cover the entire age spectrum from young people just coming into the workforce to people considering retirement. In advance of last October's legislation we had already been working with our employees to consider retirement age and its implications. We have one employee aged 67 who opted not to retire at 65, and this very week we recruited a new employee who is 64 years old. Older employees have valuable experience to bring to their job and to share with younger colleagues; they have great values and that very rare commodity common sense. All of which are extremely useful to any company so why deny yourself access to these qualities because of a date on the calendar.
At Blairs of Scotland we don't and won't discriminate against people on the grounds of their age.
We take great pride in our local roots and consider ourselves to be a family company, not necessarily a family owned company but a company that is a family. That means we like to look out for one another and this is reflected in our general recruitment policy. For example we have 41 employees who are related in some way, these relationships include, husband and wife, father and son, brothers, cousins, brothers in law, nieces and uncles, nephews and uncles. We even have one family where Grandad, mum and son work at Blairs.
These close relationships are win/win for everyone involved, the young person benefits because the workplace is less daunting, the older relative is able to guide the younger family member and that benefits the company. Discipline is no longer an issue and the family has a younger member with a rewarding career. But best of all the company generates goodwill and receives loyalty in return. And of course this benefits not only Blairs but the national economy as well.
The news report can be found on the BBC website
