South East

Riverside Tavern

Strood, Kent

Peter Foreman has a track record for introducing ideas to the Riverside Tavern. When he reopened the rundown pub after completing an extensive refurbishment nearly six years ago, Peter decided to target the gay community while offering facilities and entertainment that would appeal to the widest cross-section of customers.

Under his ownership, the freehouse has gained a reputation for the diversity of entertainment offered every night of the week.

Problems brewing

From an initial complement of three, staff numbers have risen to 12 full-time and 10 part-time. Peter says more employees were needed to cope with the ever-increasing number of customers and ever-widening range of services and entertainment, which was placing a strain on the business.

This particularly affected staff morale and working relationships.

Motivating the team

Peter's solution was to bring in a hospitality consultant to head off what could have developed into a mass walkout. Fortuitously, the consultant had worked at the Riverside during her spare time while at university.

"She worked here at the birth of the business, so she knew what we were trying to achieve and was also very adept at talking to people and explaining things. She chatted with everyone to find out where they were having problems with other members of staff and what issues were affecting them."

Peter says this resulted in restructuring the staff team and working environment "to provide the team with the motivation to remain committed to an expanding establishment".

A folder was created for every member of staff to record their thoughts, aspirations and training needs.

Another part of the equation was introducing an incentive scheme to reward individual as well as team performance, such as a day out paintballing.

Peter remarks: "We needed to shift up a gear to ensure a reliable level of customer service and we've certainly achieved that.

"Since then, I've not had to say to anyone, 'we need to get this done and that done'. Everyone knows what to do and the

phenomenal thing is, everyone's so happy."