Business

It'll be a WEA clash of the Tims - but it's all so Innocent!

Tim Dorsett
Tim Dorsett Tim Dorsett

IT'S set to be a right battle royale on a Titanic stage - two Tims vying to win the hearts and minds of the sell-out Irish News Workplace & Employment Awards audience . . . .

In one corner there's Tim Dorsett, culture ambassador at one of the happiest brands on the planet, whose mission is to help people work better and go home happy.

And on the opposite side is Tim McGarry, comedian, actor and TV presenter, who'll likely not Give Anybody's Head Peace next Thursday when he co-hosts (with Karen Patterson) the north's the premiere business awards bash.

The Workplace & Employment Awards, now in their 12th year, attracted a record-breaking entry list of close to 200 this year, including around 50 organisations new to the process.

A total of 21 awards will be handed over when the initiative concludes in front of nearly 600 guests next Thursday (June 14) in Titanic Belfast.

Guest speaker this year is Tim Dorsett, events and internal communications manager at Innocent Drinks, now known all over the world for their amazing smoothies and juices.

No-one can quite tell the Innocent story like Tim, who has instilled an extraordinary culture into his company (one which can be easily transferred to all others): “When we’re all old and grey and sitting in our rocking chairs, we want to be able to look back and be really proud of the business we all helped to create.”

He said: "We started Innocent in 1999 after selling our smoothies at a music festival. We put up a big sign asking people if they thought we should give up our jobs to make smoothies, and put a bin saying 'Yes' and a bin saying 'No" in front of the stall. Then we got people to vote with their empties. At the end of the weekend, the 'Yes' bin was full, so we resigned from our jobs the next day and got cracking."

Since then, it has gone from those humble beginnings in West London to becoming Europe’s favourite healthy drinks company with an annual turnover of more than £350 million, employing 450 people not just in its appropriately-named Fruit Towers headquarters, but across 10 offices.

Tim has been with the company for nearly seven years and claims to have just one mission: "to help people work better and go home happy".

He will take the WEA audience through his stellar journey from being an (out of work) actor to Innocent's culture ambassador. He will cover many of the key points that makes Innocent one of the happiest brands on the planet - and why he is lucky enough to say he loves his job.

At the heart of it will be happy and healthy workplaces - because having happy employees is not only the main driver of growth, productivity and profits, but happy workplaces have lower absenteeism, lower employee turnover, less workplace stress, attract the best talent, show greater creativity and innovation, have higher productivity and as a result have higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

And so to Tim mark II, the McGarry version, a member of the comedy group Hole In The Wall Gang, and who played Da in the comedy series Give My Head Peace.

He has hosted a number of programmes on Radio Ulster and BBC NI, including the weekly comedy quiz The Blame Game, and will be co-presenting at the Workplace & Employment Awards for the first time alongside event regular Karen Patterson.

The WEA has eight key business partners for 2018 – Ulster University, Phoenix Natural Gas, the Public Health Agency, Mount Charles, Queen’s University, Henderson Group, Carson McDowell and Titanic Belfast.