At the end of January I went to Glasgow to meet with Pauline Graham of Social Firms Scotland, and to visit Haven Products, an award-winning Glasgow based Social Firm, with a branch in Inverness. Like many of our members, Haven is a busy and thriving business, with a mixture of long-term and newer contracts.The day David Whyte and Ewan Fisher showed me round, part of the workforce was engaged in making and palleting boxes for The Edrington Group. A newer, but established service, is dealing with WEEE (waste electronic and electrical equipment, mostly computers). Read more...
This is a labour intensive and technical service, as computer hard disks need to be securely wiped. Haven are just about to move this venture to new premises, as it is expanding.
The Edrington Group is not as well-known as its products – they produce whisky brands The Macallan, and Famous Grouse, among others. David and Ewan are particularly proud the Haven Products was recently the highest scoring of all The Edrington Group’s suppliers, competing against private sector companies. Winning social enterprise awards is great for any of our members, but winning awards and recognition that are open to all types of companies is a great accolade.
Running a Social Firm is in so many ways harder than a mainstream business – the social benefit that underpins it means that sometimes quite creative ways have to be developed to ensure that all members of the workforce are able to contribute their 100% to the bottom line. The rewards, however, are so much more. Haven has that special atmosphere that many Social Firms have – a great mixture of energy, enthusiasm and enjoyment. It may be a sweeping generalisation, but I am guessing that there aren’t too many private sector companies that experience just that ambiance. What a great product that would be if we could only bottle it – and sell it to mainstream businesses. I wouldn’t go as far as proclaim that it would increase productivity, clearly private sector companies are just as productive as Social Firms, but it would make coming to work a lot more fun for a lot more people!
My meeting with Pauline earlier in the day was valuable and informative. There is a lot to assimilate in working in a new organisation, and I do appreciate the generosity of people – both of their time and their knowledge. One of the really interesting initiatives that Social Firms Scotland has been involved in in recent years is the Acquiring Business for Good programme, which is about acquiring businesses to convert them to Social Firms. The idea is that existing businesses with proven products and a loyal customer base can provide a sustainable basis for a new Social Firm, or for an expanding Social Firm.
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