BUSINESS
“some big pot of gold” for
Hartigan when the deal was
completed.
“In terms of Mark’s
potential future package,
nothing is finalised. If Mark
does sign a new contract, we
expect it will be very similar
to his previous contract,” said
Popoli.
A new remuneration
committee would have to
determine any new pay deal.
Popoli is expected to join the
board along with two other
representatives from Bain.
There will be two votes for
LV policyholders: one to
approve the takeover by Bain,
which requires 75 per cent of
the votes cast to be in favour;
and a second that would
allow the takeover to be
approved without 50 per cent
of the members voting.
Popoli said: “I believe the
vote will be approved by the
policyholders. They have
received a lot of information
and will be able to make the
decision for themselves.”
As far as Hartigan is
concerned, LV will not be
able to remain in its current
form. “This is the only deal
that saves the future of LV,”
he said.
“The bottom line that
we’re facing is that we won’t
continue ‘as is’. The board
has made a decision, a
correct decision, that without
further investment, we
cannot continue,” he added.Oliver Shah, page 9difficult recruitment market even worse.
There have been initiatives such as the
Institute of Customer Service’s “service
with respect” and the government’s
“shop kind” campaign. But these
spineless slogans don’t help my
colleagues feel more secure at work. I
doubt they are less likely to be abused.
More CCTV cameras and security
guards are clearly a deterrent, but onlyWhy has it come to this? And what can
we do?
The long-term implications of Covid
won’t be known for many years, but one
thing is clear: it has already had a big
impact on the ability of many companies
to recruit. Countless restaurants, shops
and call centres just don’t have enough
people, and many of the employees they
do have are inexperienced, and in some
cases very young. The knock-on effect is
that sometimes the level of service can
be well below the standard that people
used to expect. The employment model
has been disrupted, and the customer
experience is bound to suffer.
Many people working in a restaurant
or shop are doing their first job. But it
shouldn’t also be their first experience of
being belittled and mistreated. An
increasing number of those who work on
the front line are suffering trauma and
mental health problems, leading to more
sick days, which make an alreadywhen the police decide to take action
against those who give out the abuse. We
have countless examples of incidents in
our shops, shown on camera, that never
get taken further when we call the
police. It shouldn’t be like this.
One way we can all help is by setting a
good example and hoping others see
that customers who are polite and kind
get better service. A smile works so
much better than a scowl. Never assume
it’s a one-way street, where only
customers review the colleagues who
serve them. It now cuts the other way,
too. Uber constantly receives the
passenger ratings of its drivers, but also
measures how drivers rate their
passengers. If this were the case in every
transaction we did, maybe customers
would think twice before dishing out
choice words and being disrespectful.
Thankfully, we have plenty of
customers who show their appreciation
with a warm thank-you and sometimes apiece of cake or even a personal letter of
praise. In turn, we encourage our
colleagues to perform at least one
random act of kindness every day —
something our colleague Debbie did this
moth in our shop in Sainsbury’s
Biggleswade branch in Bedfordshire.
Debbie was so busy, she couldn’t finish a
tricky shoe-repair job while the
customer was doing her shopping, but it
was ready the following day — which was
Debbie’s day off. When the customer
called to collect her shoes, Debbie had
left a box of chocolates with a message
saying sorry for the inconvenience.
Let’s hope the spirit of Christmas sees
more kindness being shown to shop
colleagues, nurses and teachers, and we
start to see a reversal in this worrying
trend of confrontation. After all, good
things happen to good people.James Timpson is the chief executive of
Timpson GroupIt’s time to stop the disgraceful abusing of shop staff
If we reviewed
customers, maybe
they’d think twice
before being rude
O
n one of my shop visits last
week, I encountered an
example of an increasingly
depressing problem: a
colleague had just been
verbally abused by a customer.
She was in floods of tears and
worried for her safety.
She was not at fault. The customer
had incorrectly accused her of making a
mistake, then proceeded to launch a
tirade of foul, sexist language, with
threatening body language on top.
This is a growing problem for millions
of people who serve customers. It is
totally unacceptable and something I
know other business leaders also
consider to be of increasing concern.
The British Retail Consortium reports
that incidences of customers abusing
shop staff have risen to more than 450 a
day, while the Institute of Customer
Service says that more than half of all
shop, hospitality and transport workershave been abused at work in the past six
months. When you sign up to join the
army, you know you’re potentially going
into battle; you don’t if you join a shop.
A GP friend relays similar stories of
patients using foul and abusive language
at his surgery when they can’t book the
exact appointment time they want, or
can’t get their prescription prepared at
breakneck speed. In A&E wards, it’s even
worse, with some patients believing that
the more they shout and “kick off ”, the
quicker they will be treated.
Teachers regularly complain that
most problems aren’t caused by the kids
they teach, but by a small, aggressively
vocal, collection of parents. Verbal
abuse, inappropriate criticism and
relentless contact via social media or
email has even earned this type of abuse
its own name — “parent bombing”.
Parental involvement helps children’s
attainment and progress, but it should
be proportionate and respectful.James Timpson
LV has a deal
to sponsor
English cricketTRUFFLING FOR PROFITS FIELD DAYS
6 Jo Thompson found some “perfick”
locations for The Larkins, right, ITV’s
series charting the adventures of a
happy-go-lucky farming clan. Her
company, Farm Locations, has also
arranged for landowners to earn from
providing backdrops for the Sky series
Gangs of London and music videos by
Ellie Goulding, Kamal and Travis Scott.
Thompson, 49, said farmers can earn
as much as £4,000 a day for a big film;
commercials can command just as
much. Some of the 112 farms on her
books hosted ad shoots for Vodafone,
Waitrose and O 2. Day rates for lower-
budget filming start at about £500.
The most desirable sites are oftenSHOOTING HIGH
close to London, Thompson said, “but
farmers should be open-minded.
Different crews want different things.
Properties with an old, authentic vibe
and perhaps a traditional courtyard can
do well. Right now, I’m trying to find a
medieval battlefield.”6 More than 100 farmers
have let land for open-air
cinemas, mindfulness
retreats and other activities
through Borrowmygarden.
co.uk, a listing service
launched by Claire Lee, 51,
top right, and Jo Hailey, 58,
two years ago. Camping
enthusiasts and yoga
instructors have also hired
land via the platform.
Farmers typically charge
about £200 a day for a family
booking a field for personal
use. Larger events, including
weddings, can bring in asmuch as £4,000. Lee said
that it can be prudent for
landowners to use an event
organiser to oversee the let:
“A farmer may be happy
handling animals, but people
can pose different
challenges.”
The pair have handled
some unexpected requests.
“Someone wanted to
arrange for his mother’s
ashes to be shot up into the
air on a firework,” Lee said.
“One of our farmers was
happy to oblige and that all
went ahead last week.”6 Paul Thomas believes global warming
may create perfect growing conditions
in the UK for truffles. The University of
Stirling honorary professor has a PhD in
the subject, so knows what he’s talking
about. His company, Mycorrhizal
Systems, “breeds” the fungus in
laboratories before installing it on
farmers’ land. Thomas has established
crops on farms in Scotland, Yorkshire,
Lincolnshire, Kent and Sussex.
A site developed by Thomas
recently produced what is thought
to be Ireland’s first cultivated
truffles. Farmers pay about
£25,000 per hectare to plant the
fungus, which usually takes sixyears to grow. Once in production,
landowners can expect an annual yield
of between £16,000 and £20,000 for 20
years. There are other costs for the
farmer. “You need specially trained
dogs to sniff out the truffles,” Thomas
said. “You can’t use
pigs — they’ll eat
your crop.”SKILLED V
UNSKILLED
As far as Chris Greenough is concerned, the
Midlands has a skills shortage. The chief
commercial officer of SDE Technology is looking
for about 10 staff to add to the 100-strong
workforce of his Shrewsbury-based metals
business. He is not only seeking young people who
are out of work to sign up as Kickstarters — Rishi
Sunak’s scheme for the out-of-work young — but
older workers with experience.
“We cannot find the staff,” said Greenough, 51.
He is concerned about the impact on the economy
if the manufacturing sector has worker shortages
at a time of record orders. “It’s stopping companies
investing in plant and equipment,” he said.
While Greenough sees a problem for his region,
in London the local chamber of commerce would
rather not focus on the capital’s situation. “It’s not a
regional problem — it’s about people,” said Richard
Burge, chief executive of the London Chamber of
Commerce.
Steve Hare, at Sage, said that jobs shortages
were being recorded across many sectors:
“Employers are saying it’s taking longer to find
people — it doesn’t matter if you’re trying to find
somebody to wait on tables or to write code.”
Early in the Covid-19 crisis, consultants at
McKinsey found that 50 per cent of jobs at risk
were in unskilled occupations paying less than
£10 an hour — shopworkers, for example, or
those involved in servicing offices. But
furlough ended up protecting more
of these jobs than had been
expected — although the
unemployment rate for the three
months to August of 4.5 per cent
is above the 3.9 per cent just
before the first lockdown.NEW JOBS V
OLD JOBS
Ben Franklin at the Centre for Progressive Policy
posed the following: “Is it just low-quality jobs that
are coming back?” It is a crucial question for a
government with ambitions to create a highly
skilled, highly paid workforce after Brexit.
“My hunch is that it’s probably going to be the
hospitality jobs coming back, and lower-paid
services roles,” Franklin said.
On Friday, the Recruitment and Employment
Confederation (REC) revealed a record number of
job postings in the first week of November. More
than 2.6 million roles were being advertised, with
the biggest rises for driving instructors, prison
officers and forklift truck drivers.
Neil Carberry, chief executive of the REC, said
openings were rising in all sectors of the economy
but there were clear winners — among them, IT,
logistics and construction, at least until recently.
Construction is now slowing because of problems
with the supply of materials, such as timber.
Carberry added a note of caution on inflation.
Price increases are forecast to hit 4 per cent next
year and he predicted that this would lead to
increased demand for pay rises. For now, REC data
is showing a rise in pay for temporary staff and new
recruits, but not for those already on payrolls.
Those staff may start to seek better pay deals to
keep pace with inflation, which is expected to hit
3.8 per cent in the latest data out this Wednesday.
“Will firms be able to commit to new hires given
they are likely to face significant pay pressure?”
asked Carberry. That dilemma may spell a fresh
storm for the jobs market.containers a year by rail by
the end of 2021, up from
65,000 last year.
lABP is making 1,075 acres
of freehold land at about 10 of
its 21 ports available for
commercial development.
Pedersen expects the land —
equivalent to 610 football
pitches — to be used for
warehouses, manufacturing
and green energy.
ABP, which is owned by
big-hitting investors including
the Canadian pension giant
CPP and Singapore’s GIC, is in
the process of obtaining
planning consents for the
developments. The initiative
is likely to create thousands
of jobs in deprived areas of
the country. The largest
development sites will be
located around ports at Hull,
Newport and Grimsby.England has forecast that
inflation will hit 5 per cent in
the spring, and has said that
interest rates will need to rise
over the coming months.
Job postings at recruiter
Staffline show that
supermarkets are pushing up
driver pay to new heights to
ensure they can keep supplies
moving over Christmas.
Waitrose is offering up to £
an hour for HGV drivers
willing to work night shifts
over the Christmas holidays
on temporary contracts.
Sainsbury’s is offering up to
£40 an hour in overtime rates
for temp drivers, who can also
earn a bonus of up to £1,000.
Supermarkets are also
turning to rail freight to
mitigate against the driver
shortage. Tesco aims to be
transporting 90,The boss of LV admitted that
he stands to benefit from a
private equity-style pay deal if
he stays on after the
£530 million takeover of the
insurer by Bain Capital, as
rival bidder Royal London
staged a dramatic last-minute
intervention.
Mark Hartigan, 58, who
was parachuted into LV in
December 2019 to conduct a
strategic review, is expected
to continue to run the
business after a takeover by
the private equity firm Bain,
but he does not have a formal
contract.
“Most private equity
owners give their
management [teams] an
incentive plan to align long-
term success with the success
of the management team,”
said Hartigan. “I’m not going
to deny that should I stay in
Bain in the future, they might
try to do that for LV.
“But any detail of that is
certainly not a driver [for the
deal],” said Hartigan, a
former soldier who embarked
on a career in insurance 20
years ago. He was paid
£1.2 million last year.
“I’m here to serve. And
that’s what I’m doing,” said
Hartigan.
Bain was picked out of 12
potential offers for LV, which
was created in Liverpool in
1843 using door-to-door
agents who collected
premiums to cover funeralthought to involve allowing
Bain to own the brand and
develop the business, while
the with-profits members
could become part of Royal
London. Those with-profits
policyholders would not be
classified as members of
Royal London, even though it
is a mutual.
Matt Popoli, the Bain
executive running the LV bid,
flew into Britain from
America last week and visited
the insurer’s headquarters in
Bournemouth. He said: “We
are the only bidder to have
made a commitment to
maintain LV’s presence at
Bournemouth, Hitchin and
Exeter. We have strong
growth ambitions for the
business, which will translate
into an increase in the
number of jobs.”
Popoli said there was notcosts. LV is adamant that
Bain’s offer is the best option
for 1.2 million policyholders,
who will vote on the deal on
December 10.
They stand to receive £
each, while 297,000 with-
profits policyholders will
receive a 0.1 per cent addition
to their policy for each year
they have held it.
The private equity house,
which was founded by
American politician Mitt
Romney, pipped Royal
London in winning the
approval of the board last
year. But in a dramatic
intervention, Royal London
approached LV again last
week, outlining an idea that
would allow policyholders to
remain part of a mutual.
Royal London declined to
comment, as did LV, on the
idea being floated, which ischain are hampering UK
economic growth, which
slowed from 5.5 per cent to
1.3 per cent in the third
quarter. Furniture giant Ikea
said the disruption would last
for several months and fast-
fashion retailer Primark said
it could stretch into 2023.
Pedersen said ABP’s ports
were still clogged up with
empty containers that Asian
ports were reluctant to take
back because they did not
have the space.
Inflation data this week will
be watched closely. George
Buckley, an economist at
Nomura, forecasts that the
consumer prices index will
climb to 4.1 per cent, citing
the rise in food and used-car
prices and the 12.2 per cent
increase in Ofgem’s energy
price cap. The Bank ofThe boss of Britain’s biggest
ports operator has warned
that supply-chain disruption
is likely to persist until 2023
as the crisis begins to derail
the economic recovery.
Henrik Pedersen, chief
executive of Associated
British Ports (ABP), said he
would be “positively
surprised” if the problem
eased before the end of next
year. “When you have
congested container ports
around the world, it takes a
very long time to turn it
around,” he said. “We have a
shortage of truck drivers in
the UK, and in other
countries, too, so it [the
problem] is in the shipping
leg and the road leg.”
The issues in the supplySupply-chain crisis could last until 2023
Jill TreanorSam ChambersLV boss admits to private
equity pay deal in takeover