The group now offers services ranging from design and digital photography to e-commerce, cartography, mailing and fulfilment. It even has its own products, including content management software that it sells across the world.
Whether service or product, technology remains central, if not dominant, in the Pindar mix. By way of illustration, Jesson says: “As a group, we directly employ upwards of 100 software developers, which is more than pressmen, of which we have about 90.”
Vigorous growth
The group pursued a vigorous policy of growth throughout the 1980s and 90s, adding divisions in Chicago, Illinois, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
More recently, the focus has moved to acquisitions: in 2000 the group became majority shareholder of high-street print chain AlphaGraphics and last year acquired web offset rival Cooper Clegg, giving it a foothold in the business-to-consumer (B2C) magazine publishing market. The group now operates in five main markets: business-to-business publications, B2C magazines, directories, catalogues and what Jesson calls GETI (government, education and travel information), “chiefly differentiated,” he explains, “by the fact it’s acquired through the tender process”.
This solid growth has both supported and necessitated what Pindar has only lately come to recognise as its policy of CSR. “It sounds odd, but we’ve always done this kind of thing; we just haven’t called it the trendy name until recently,” Jesson says.
‘Always’ just about sums it up. George Kyte-Grice Pindar, son of the group’s founder, was well recognised as a benefactor of the town’s civic life. He was twice Scarborough mayor and was made an alderman of the town in the late 1950s; more recently, the George Pindar Community Sports College, partly built with a donation from Pindar, commemorates his status as the originator of the group’s CSR work.
Family values
The current generation of Pindars clearly holds strong views on the role of business in the community and the responsibilities of a company towards its employees. “Andrew [current chairman] and Tom have strong family values that they extend into their working lives,” Jesson says. He describes an employee project he led three years ago: “It was basically about what it means to be Pindar. We worked out that we have only one core value as a company: respect.”
For all the elegant brevity of the statement, Jesson uses a lot more words to describe the concept behind it. “It’s sort of about taking time to understand the work and life of your fellow department,” he says, “like ‘what it would be like to walk a mile in their shoes?’” Interestingly, he says, the group takes the same approach to its customers: “It’s like vertical marketing in another sphere. With our customers, we try to understand their markets, problems and challenges, so we can work productively with them and offer solutions of lasting value. It’s the same inside the company with our fellow employees: we hope to cultivate the ethos of understanding fellow workers or departments, so you appreciate their challenges in the same way. It makes for a much happier workforce and a much more productive working day. Which is of direct benefit to the bottom line.”
Respect is the keynote of Pindar’s CSR activities, which take many and various forms. Ideas come from employees and board members alike, and range from volunteering for the RNLI, Naval Reserve or Territorial Army, teaching youngsters how to unicycle and juggle, and providing resources to local after-school clubs and a school in Kenya.
In a recent initiative, Pindar became involved in the design and build of the new Scarborough Hospice via the civil engineering skills of Andrew’s wife, Caroline. “Basically we donated her to the project for 18 months and she project-managed the whole build,” Jesson says. The completed hospice retains its Pindar links, with Caroline and group financial director John Armistead taking a seat on the board.
Pindar also recently worked with the George Pindar Community Sports College in the middle of the Eastfield estate, one of Europe’s most depressed residential areas. Margaret Lumby, Andrew’s sister, is a governor at the college: she and headmaster Hugh Bellamy worked together on an emotional intelligence (EI) project designed, in part, to eliminate bullying. Pindar sponsored the project, part of which enlisted the help of Scary Guy, a tattoo-covered EI tutor who “gets the EI message over in a cool way that appeals to the children,” says Jesson. The project was hugely successful, not only in reducing bullying at the college, but in raising awareness of EI. “Successful people in life are often emotionally intelligent, even if they aren’t necessarily academically intelligent. We wanted employees like that,” Jesson says. Pindar employees have become mentors for the scheme, which Pindar rolled out to other Scarborough secondary schools in 2005-6.
AlphaGraphics, the high-street quick-print chain acquired by Pindar in 2000, supports the government-led initiative Junior Achiever, which aims to put local secondary school-age students in a commercial setting and help them develop business skills for their future careers. Pindar has provided funding and staff resources to roll out the Junior Achiever programme throughout the 260 AlphaGraphics branches.
Two years ago, Pindar also became sponsor of a youth development officer at Scarborough’s rugby club. “His role is to spend time in schools to encourage girls and boys to play rugby,” Jesson says. “You can learn about social skills through teamwork. People feel good about it and the rewards are immediate.”
Environmental element
More recently, Pindar’s CSR focus has encompassed an environmental element. The group has become a corporate sponsor of environmental research body EarthWatch, which has led to its sports sponsorship activities being renamed Team Pindar EarthWatch.
The work done by Pindar in CSR also flavours other activities. “Once we started thinking about environmental work, we realised we had to back that up with internal policies and procedures,” Jesson says. Among other projects, Pindar has invested in video conferencing facilities to cut down on the air and road miles travelled to meetings by board members and other staff. By mid-2008, the group aims to set out its Respect the Planet charter, a programme of interlinked environmental initiatives and targets.
For all the strong ethical values that inspire it, Pindar’s CSR work also carries tangible benefits. “Even if it was a loss-maker, we’d do all the CSR work anyway,” Jesson says, “but it’s not just pure altruism. For a start, we’re improving Pindar’s image in the eyes of the general public and promoting ourselves locally as a good employer. That’s important to us, because we get a stronger pool of potential employees.”
But perhaps the strongest benefit is the feelgood factor. “Our staff are proud to work for us partly because we are doing good work over and above our commercial activities,” says Jesson. It’s impossible to get 100% buy-in, “but mainly staff like being able to say ‘I’m a Pindar man or woman’, because we’re known as a good, responsible company. And the knock-on effect on their work is immeasurable.”
Type of printer Sheetfed, web and quick print
Annual turnover £111m (2006)
Number of staff 2,500
Problem Major employer in depressed area
Solution Extended scheme of local community involvement to improve quality of life and company image
INSPECTION LESSONS
Corporate social responsibility
- Work out an integrated policy, rather than just a series of unrelated initiatives
- Make sure the policy relates to your company’s core values
- Promote the programme of CSR work internally and get employee buy-in by soliciting suggestions and training mentors for suitable projects
- Take advantage of the positive publicity generated by promoting CSR projects to local and national press
- Allow the CSR ethos to filter into other areas of corporate activity, such as sustainability and employee relations
- Focus on children and young people: these are the employees of the future
