Business Career
In 1930, he joined the family grocery business founded by his grandfather, and became joint president almost 40 years later.
Robert Sainsbury was an advocate of better conditions for the retail chain's employees. Pensions and sickness benefits for all staff came in 1935; overtime payments were introduced in 1941; and, from 1962, the five-day week was standard.
Eight years after he joined the family firm, his father, John Benjamin Sainsbury, retired due to ill-health, and Robert Sainsbury and his elder brother Alan Sainsbury became joint general managers. While Alan Sainsbury took charge of trading matters, Robert Sainsbury specialised in administration, finance and personnel. It was a happy partnership, lasting more than 30 years.
The Second World War broke out a year after Robert Sainsbury's promotion, and there were rationed supplies at the 250 Sainsbury's shops.
Robert Sainsbury was a strong supporter of the Beveridge report, which cradled the welfare state into being. By the end of the war, Robert Sainsbury had cut the long hours which under-18s had necessarily put in - with men conscripted and women on war work.
The 1950s brought self-service supermarkets. Over the period of his joint general management, deputy chairmanship and chairmanship (he became deputy chairman when his father died in 1956, and succeeded his brother as chairman in 1967), the company's turnover increased from £45m to £166m, and the number of employees rose fourfold.
By the time he retired as chairman in 1969, Robert Sainsbury had been a principal architect of the supergrocer's fortunes, which insured its continuing success through to the beginning of the 1990s.
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