Chris Maclean: Why I don't depend of the kindness of strangers

Last night one of my customers called me aside and told me she was available for work, should I need her. A shift here, holiday coverage there.

Its not an unusual scene. People often believe they can be the solution to our staffing needs; they are amiable people, honest, wouldn't drink on duty and know how this place is run. Well thats what they think. They are just well meaning customers.

Staffing is an incredibly tough issue. Recruiting, and keeping, good staff is a difficult thing. And actually employing the right number of staff, at the right times, at the right rates is downright impossible.

Good staff are little treasures. I have, more by luck than judgement, been blessed wih good staff over the years. I am comforted that they stay working for me for years on end.

We get on well together. Every Friday night I sit down with them after work and we have a Chinese/Indian meal and chew over the issues of the week. They are free to bring issues and concerns to me. Equally I use them to implement changes, ideas and schemes and to take custody of many of the issues we deal with.

This year, for the first time, I am organising a bus from here to the Derby. One of my staff has, single-handedly, filled the bus with nice customers and collected £40 off each one already. We work tightly as a team. There is trust and honesty throughout. But where it works best is during those rare moments when you are flat out - when the pub is packed solid and customers are everywhere. We need to work very hard and very fast.

This is the thing that upsets me most about many licensees. These customers are here to consume drinks in return for handing us money. If we don't take that money now the opportunity is lost forever. We really need to be fully alert and capable of delivering. Money not taken when the customer wants to spend it is money lost.

Good staff serve the customers, keep an eye on stock levels, ice, change, glassware. They anticipate. They move fluidly around each other without mess.

Yet this is the perfect time for that well-meaning customer to try and help out. Before you know it they are behind the bar, pouring beer into the wrong glasses, spilling it all over the floor, struggling with the till and bumping into everyone with a glazed look of panic in their eyes. They do not realise it but they are a total liability.

Some years ago I left one member of staff behind the bar on a quiet Wednesday night. When I returned the pub was packed. A couple of hundred four-wheel drive owners had descended on the place. Afterwards I apologised to some of the people for the long wait they must have endured.

"It was fine" they replied "She did just fine". What had happened was simply the bar-person had got on with the job with a calmness and serenity, did they job with huge efficiency and everyone had gotten served, eventually. No one minded.

Really good members of staff can do that. They work with an economy of effort. It flows smoothly and calmly. They are seven or eight steps ahead of you. And they can read minds.

My staff here know, before I do, when I want a pint of beer. They will put it on the bar in front of me without me saying a thing. Even my wife doesn't understand me that well.

I know I have got good staff. I know where I will be getting the next ones. But it won't, necessarily, be simply because they volunteered themselves. Good staff are rarely well-meaning customers.