Of all the awards events I’ve been party to down the years, across many different industries, I can honestly say that the judging process for the Publican Awards is the most rigorous and demanding.
There is the paper-entry shortlisting process, followed by HQ interviews, pub estate guided tours, mystery site visits and finally the judging panel day in London, when all shortlisted companies face a Dragons’ Den-style grilling.
If you win a Publican Award on 27 March, you absolutely deserve it.
Without giving too much away at this delicate stage of the judging process, I have been delighted to see so much emphasis being placed by pub companies on people issues — staff recruitment, development and retention.
At the heart of arguments calling for tax breaks for pubs (in the shape of lower VAT on food sales and the abandonment of the beer duty escalator) is the compelling notion that a lower tax burden would free up the industry to employ and train more people.
Indeed, if the industry is to win this concession, one suspects that it will have to make firm pledges on employment.
With 50,000 pubs in the UK estate, we’re a big employer, and have the potential to make a meaningful dent in the country’s unemployment figures.
Of course, it works the other way too. JD Wetherspoon has warned its pub openings programme may have to slow dramatically thanks to the current tax regime. This is a company with around 850 pubs and 23,500 employees (which represents an average of 27 staff per pub).
If it decides not to continue its programme of opening 50 outlets per year, that’s up to 1,350 economically active individuals the economy will not be enjoying.
Pubs are great entry-level employers. They teach business skills (sales, marketing, customer service, finance, facilities management etc) and social skills (smiling, listening, engaging, communicating, empathising etc) that many recruiters believe are sorely lacking in the candidates they interview for their vacancies.
Sadly, for too many talented people, working in a pub is a stop-gap rather than a career — but a number of pubcos are addressing this.
Apprenticeships, graduate fast-track schemes and front and back-of-house training programmes with recognised qualifications all send out the right signals and will help to persuade the next generation that pub management is as viable as other retail careers — and maybe more enjoyable.
Is the employment of an apprentice in every UK pub too much to ask? OK, it’s easier for managed estates with head-office HR teams, but the principle and the benefits hold true for tenanted/leased and freehold pubs too.
Like a tax cut, apprenticeships require an investment upfront for longer-term gain. If we’re going to ask the Government for financial support, surely this is the sort of pledge we could make in return. And it wouldn’t be entirely altruistic.