AWARD-WINNING company the Witherby Publishing Group has found only benefits from becoming an accredited living wage employer.
Always strong believers in paying a decent wage, the Livingston-based company became accredited Scottish Living Wage Employers in 2015.
Producing specialist technical, operational and navigational publications for merchant shipping, Witherby Publishing Group sells to the world’s fleet of merchant ships, particularly those carrying oil, petroleum, liquefied gas or chemicals. Approximately 80 per cent of sales go overseas and there are 45 employees – 38 in Livingston and seven in India.
Formed from a joint venture between Witherbys and Seamanship International, the company is run by husband and wife Iain Macneil and Kat Heathcote. Macneil is an ex-mariner who set up Seamanship International to design and develop training and reference materials for the shipping industry while Heathcote, who has a background in the energy business including with BP and Wood Mackenzie, joined the company in 2004.
Witherby Publishing Group has customers in over 180 different countries and has won a variety of awards including a Seatrade Award, the Lloyd’s List Training Award and the Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade. The company has also been recognised as a Great Place to Work in the small business category for both Scotland and the UK, and has signed up to the Scottish Business Pledge as well as the Scottish Living Wage accreditation scheme.
“Accreditation fits in line with our company’s ethos and allowed us to reaffirm to our employees that we believe all workers deserve a decent standard of living, including those under 25, apprentices and interns,” explained Heathcote. “There are a number of business cases to be made for being a living wage employer and I am delighted we are a part of this as I believe it is also simply the right thing to do. I hope many more companies in our industry commit to paying a living wage.”
Asked if there were any disadvantages to becoming living wage employers, she said the opposite was the case.
“The living wage accreditation allows us to demonstrate to our employees that every person and role within this company is valuable,” said Heathcote. “The accreditation, blended with many other initiatives and benefits, means that we have happy employees that are proud to be part of our success.”
The real living wage is an hourly rate, calculated annually by the Resolution Foundation and overseen by the Living Wage Commission, based on the best available evidence on living standards in the UK. It is higher than the UK Government’s so-called “living wage” which is just a rebranding of the legally binding minimum wage and only applies to those over the age of 25.
The real living wage applies to everyone over the age of 18 “in recognition that young people face the same living costs as everyone else”.
Employers choose to pay the real living wage on a voluntary basis. The Living Wage Foundation, The Poverty Alliance and the Scottish Living Wage Campaign believe that work should be the surest way out of poverty.
More than 3000 employers across the UK have pledged to pay the Real Living Wage, with nearly 800 of them in Scotland.
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