You can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family, so the old saying goes. For some, spending Christmas day with the family causes enough bickering and sarcastic comments to cancel any future engagements for at least another year. Yet optics boasts a large number of family-run businesses and for many practices, like Hing Opticians in Shefford, Bedfordshire, it is the recipe for success.
At the head of the family is optometrist Stephen Hing, who originally set up the business in 1979 as a house practice with his wife, Jackie. Stephen bought Sydney A Smith Opticians in Bedford in 1985 and went on to purchase another property in Shefford 10 years later. Hing Opticians ran the two practices simultaneously up until 2002, when the Bedford practice was shut in order to focus the family’s efforts in one place.
All three of the Hing siblings work under the same roof: optometrist Ben Hing, dispensing optician Emma Hing, and podiatrist Sarah Hing, who runs a foot care clinic attached to the practice. Ben’s wife, Laura, also joined the family business 12 years ago as a dispensing optician.
‘It came as a standard joke that you needed to have my genes to work here,’ says Stephen. ‘Particularly in the 2000s when there was low employment, people would ask me if I had any jobs going and I’d say well you’re not family. We didn’t upset anyone because we had a local solution, we helped each other.’
It is this family-oriented ethos which gives the business the edge over its competitors. ‘Patients react very well to us being a family because the story never changes. What one says, they know everyone else will say. There are no mavericks, and there never has been,’ he says.
The children have always been involved in the practice one way or another. Ben says: ‘I have a lot of patients I see now who the first time they met me I was crawling through the waiting room on a Saturday morning in my nappy.’
It would be difficult to find a practice more fitting of the ‘family opticians’ label. As well as the four Hings, receptionist Tracy is the cousin of Stephen’s wife and the two clinical assistants have been patients of the practice for so long they are considered family. Stephen’s sister-in-law Susan also worked as a clinical assistant for 26 years before retirement. Laura says: ‘All the staff are treated like family regardless. There’s no “us and them”, it’s never like that.’
Stephen took over Sydney A Smith Opticians in 1985
‘Previous members of staff have either accepted and become part of the family or they haven’t lasted very long. You either get us or you don’t,’ adds Ben.
Was it always the intention to get the kids involved with the business? Stephen sheepishly nods his head and says: ‘I’ve always felt it was a lucrative and rewarding profession. I can put the place into a trust, and hopefully it will go on forever.’
In 2015 Stephen sold the business to Ben. ‘I did always have the opinion that I wanted Ben to purchase it but I certainly didn’t give it away, there were no mates rates and it wasn’t an inheritance. It’s your baby now isn’t it?’ says Stephen.
The original house practice
Since then, Ben has invested thousands in new technology. He says: ‘I was recently at the National OCT Conference, and there wasn’t one piece of kit they could sell us anymore. The technological path is the only way for independents to go. It’s where our differential is.’
‘Ben has upgraded everything, I was very stuck in the mud whereas Ben has a very different opinion and it seems to have worked well,’ adds Stephen.
Happy families
Has it always worked so well? ‘Probably Dad’s biggest gamble was employing Laura, who lived in Nottingham at the time, because that could have gone horribly wrong. If there ever was a problem, it was when we all lived together as there was no space. Eight people lived under the same roof, with five of us working together as well,’ says Ben. ‘There’s been times where myself and Laura have had flaming rows, but once we got through those doors at work you’d never known there was a problem. Once we’re back in the car, off we go again!’
‘We’ve even come in separate cars once,’ Laura adds.
Ben Hing at the family's practice
Outside of work, the family still frequently get together. Emma says: ‘We socialise with everyone even though we don’t live together anymore. I still go on holiday with Mum and Dad.’
The practice shuts between Christmas and new year, a time which has become invaluable to the Hings. Laura says: ‘The doors are shut and we spend time as a family, not working, but as a family.’
The board room
Not all business ends when the doors are locked at 5.30pm. Stephen says: ‘We always discuss the business around the dinner table, much to the annoyance of my wife. During practice hours we don’t get time to talk to each other as the pile of referrals is huge.’
‘The board room meetings do often fall around the dinner table,’ adds Ben. ‘But we have to be very careful when we start making decisions. There’s a one glass limit, any decisions after one glass don’t count.’
For the Hing siblings, the blur between work and home has been a constant. Ben says: ‘There never gets to a point where it’s too much. I remember when I was younger and the practice was at our house, so it’s always been a part of my life.’
Future aspirations
Ben is optimistic about the practice’s future. He says: ‘As a practice we are at full capacity, and I love the idea of having a couple of other practices dotted around but the problem for us is that we would lose what’s special about us – we wouldn’t be as family oriented,’ says Ben.
Currently Stephen works in the practice three times a week, but as his 65th birthday approaches, his thoughts lead to retirement. ‘We are frantically looking for a new optometrist but we’ve got no members of the family left,’ he quips.
Sarah Hing outside the Bedford practice
And what of the next generation of Hings? Ben says: ‘Our children are about 20 years off, we need a stop-gap for the next 20 years or so.’ There are high hopes for Ben and Laura’s son, George. ‘He wants to test eyes and wear a white shirt with a logo on like Daddy. He’s getting one for Christmas,’ says Laura. Ben and Laura then spiral into a conversation about the logistics of ordering the present, once more demonstrating the next to impossible task of separating work from home.
Emma’s daughter Ruby has already professed an interest in the family business. ‘She would definitely get involved, she’d leave school and come and work here tomorrow if she could. Only the other day she was cartwheeling through the waiting room,’ says Emma.
When asked what the values of Hing Opticians are, it takes a while for the family to settle on their main ethos. After much discussions and talk of ‘communication’ and a rule ‘not to be greedy’, Ben sums up the practice quite perfectly: ‘We just try to treat everyone as if they were members of the family.’