Baker joined both of his parents and his older brother at the business in September. His father Steve Baker is managing director while mother Mandy Baker is both finance manager and chief happiness officer.
His older brother, engineer graduate Harry Baker, joined the business in 2018 and runs operations within BakPac, the new flexible packaging division of Baker Labels.
“Although Tom has only been here a couple of months he has already made a massive difference to the future workings of the business. We have been talking about the idea of a training academy for Bakers for several years but Tom has been able to take that idea and get things rolling,” said Steve Baker.
“This will now develop at a fast pace over the next few months which will have a real positive effect on everyone in the company, not just new recruits, to enable us to have a far more knowledgeable, flexible workforce which is vital to our ongoing success.”
He added: “The boys have never been under any pressure to join the business but it feels really good that they are both here. I genuinely feel that we can go from strength to strength so the Bakers of the future is an exciting prospect and majorly stronger having Harry and Tom on board.
“A family business has a different feel to any other type of business for customers and employees; knowing that there is history, a family story and responsibility ensures you do the right thing.
“It also means all decisions can be made quickly without having to refer back to head office regardless of if it’s to do with equipment, redesigning the factory or supporting the community and local charities etc. If it’s a good idea it can get done without faffing about on a corporate level.”
The business was initially established in 1973 by Roy and Marian Baker, with Steve Baker joining his parents at the business straight from school at the age of 16 and succeeding his father as managing director in 2000.
Tom Baker graduated from Reading University in July 2019 with a first-class honours degree in business and management.
“I had always imagined joining Bakers eventually. My initial plan was to try and work in London to gain experience and more skills that I could later bring to Bakers, however, given the current situation this became unlikely. When the opportunity arose to be a leader in the development of the Bakers Academy, I realised how lucky I was to be in this situation and took on the challenge.
“It is my job to build structured content that will help our employees to train and better themselves. With my own technical knowledge being low (for now) I understand the necessity of extracting the information from Bakers’ experienced and skilled staff.
“We are hoping for the academy to use our in-house expertise combined with top-class external sessions to improve the training and development across all parts of the company.”
Based in Brentwood, Essex, Baker Labels employs nearly 100 staff and has a turnover of £10.6m.
