What price goodwill and loyalty?

Part of my job in reporting City and business news demands a degree of devil's advocacy. Take the employment contract situation at Spirit (see our web story: 'Spirit Group plans to merge employment contracts spark staff fury').

On the one hand I appreciate a large group like the Punch-owned operator wanting to level off what it sees as the contractual idiosyncrasies across its business that have arisen as a result of buying several companies over a period of many years.

A 'one size fits all' deal establishes consistency across the group, allows for flexibility and reduces complexity. For the pubco, at least. There will also be some staff for whom the deal will be an improvement, as Spirit is quick to point out.

But there will also be many losers; staff who will see their terms of employment altered for the worse and, effectively, against their will.

Taking hard business decisions is never easy. Speaking to one operator the other day the issue of staffing levels came up and it was pretty clear some tough calls were going to have to be made in certain areas of the business. Reducing costs, raising efficiencies, maximising assets; all have become pubco bosses' priorities in recent years.

Executives are paid sizeable salaries to push through unpopular measures. It's an unpalatable truth for many that those doing the firing get the biggest reward. Certainly the proposed contract changes are viewed by many Spirit employees as deeply unpopular and the Burton lot can expect few Christmas cards this year.

The timing is also unfortunate for all concerned. At a time when many in the licensed trade are finding the going particularly tough companies could do a lot worse than to expend a little TLC on their people.

Not everyone would be deserving of it, of course, but there is no question that loyalty withers in the absence of goodwill.