Did you join Ulster Carpets with a mission to make it responsible?
I didn’t really need to. Right back to its founder, George Walter Wilson, in 1938, the company has believed in investing in its employees and the community.
Has this helped build good relations with the local community?
Definitely. Based only a stone’s throw from Belfast’s Garvaghy Road, we operate in a very sectarian environment. About ten years ago we sought to engage local community leaders and clergy because we realised that many Catholics felt they wouldn’t be welcome at Ulster Carpets. This process got the message across that we’re totally committed to equal employment. Catholics now comprise a fifth of our workforce, bang on the community demographic.
Something else we’ve instituted is the £1.2 million Mayfair Business Park. The site, built on a derelict factory that we bought, is in a Catholic area where about seven in ten people are unemployed. 250 people are now employed there.
What other benefits have you derived from your CSR commitments?
It’s certainly helped our reputation as a company that people want to work with. We’ve produced a brochure highlighting our CSR policies. It’s tailored particularly for the US market where large corporations more actively seek out suppliers with good ethical records. Nowhere does it mention the price of our products, or even have a picture of a carpet, yet it’s generated huge interest! We’re deeply committed to social responsibility, and I see no problem at all with marketing ourselves as such.
How have you kept the company’s ethos during recent expansion?
One of the most successful ways that we’ve found of building a common culture is our employee-of-the-month scheme. The winning employees are sent on a fortnight’s trip to meet our partners in South Africa, where they do one week’s work and have one week’s holiday. Likewise, winners in South Africa get to visit Northern Ireland. Finally, does Ulster Carpets have anything to teach larger companies? Every large business knows that the more prosperous and harmonious the community is in which they do business, the more likely they are to be successful. Supporting smaller companies like ours is, I believe, an important part of building communities such as these.
Mike Mills joined Ulster Carpets as chief executive in 1988, after an eighteen-year career in the oil industry. Since that time, he has seen the company grow from a relatively small Northern Ireland-based carpet manufacturer to an industry leader in carpet design and manufacturing technology. Now employing 1,600 people in five different countries, Ulster Carpets is the world’s second largest manufacturer of Axminster carpets.
Under Mike’s direction, the company has reinforced its social and environmental credentials. In 1996, Ulster Carpets won the UK Quality Award for Business Excellence, as well as being a finalist for the European Quality Award. The company was also listed in the most recent Sunday Times’ Best 100 companies to work for in the UK.
Mike is the immediate past Chairman of Business in the Community, Northern Ireland, and currently represents a number of national and international industry bodies. He also finds time to act as a governor for a Belfast Girls’ Grammar School, sit as a trustee for the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland and fulfil his duties as a director of the Emerging Business Trust which provides loans to start up businesses in economically deprived areas. Mike adds the Business in the Community Ambassador Award to his OBE, which he was awarded in the Queen’s 2001 Birthday Honours.
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