Meet the Team: Warehouse Team Leader

What’s your favourite film?

John: My favourite film is Lord of the Rings. I’ve read the book about five times as well.

What music do you like to listen to?

John: The last CD I bought was the music of the Olympics, it’s got everything from the opening ceremony. If I like it, I’ll listen to it. I quite like the new James Blunt CD as well. 

What’s your favourite Johnson Tiles product?

John: I get to see them all in here. I’ve just bought some for my mum actually, the Alpine White. I like the new Mosaics we do as well. We import a lot of tiles as well these days, but I still prefer the ones that are made on site. Some of the stuff they do with inkjet printers is amazing as well.

What do you do to relax away from work? 

John: Various things, I used to do a lot of rock climbing, although not so much now. We did it all over, Scotland, Wales and Staffordshire. I do a bit of cycling now as well, I cycle to and from work.

I’m still into my cars as well, maintaining them and fixing them up. My favourite car is a Lotus Elise, as I’ve got one of my own! It’s from 1997 but I maintain it myself and it looks new. I’ve done a couple of European tours in it, we went to Italy in it a couple of times too. 

What has been the highlight of your career with Johnson Tiles?

John: I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. At the end of the day, they’ve been good to me and we’ve got a really good team here too. There’s about 13 or 14 of us and we all get on – as long as they do what I tell them then it’s fine! 

This month we're delving behind the scenes for a closer look at our VNA Warehouse. VNA stands for 'very narrow aisle' and this is one of the huge spaces where thousands of pallets of our tiles are stored before being distributed to customers around the world. In charge here is John Hodgkinson, 46, our Warehouse Team Leader. 

John has been working with Johnson Tiles for the past 25 years, after working as a car mechanic for three years previous. He began his career as a press attendant and hydraulics fitter, before moving into the warehouse eight years ago. He is now responsible for managing his colleagues in the warehouse who pick our products for distribution.