The Big Interview: Keith Knowles, Perceptions Group

"When I left school at 16 I was classed as a no-hoper. I wish they could see me now.”

And if they could see that schoolboy now, they’d see Keith Knowles, chief executive of Beds & Bars, the £28m turnover company he built, with pubs, hotels and hostels
spanning eight European countries and its sights now firmly set on a Stateside breakthrough.

It was the Scouts that turned the teenage Knowles’ life around; the Scouts and a headteacher, at least, who believed in him.

“He said I’d always make a living. He said he could see it in my eyes!”

You can see it in Knowles’s eyes now as he talks about a new challenge that means something personal to the no-hoper made good.

Knowles is the passionate driving force behind the Perceptions Group, which officially launched on 26 February, a uniquely pan-industry body that aims to raise the reputation of pubs as businesses that can provide a great career.

It’s been tried before, but thanks to Knowles Perceptions has two things going for it. Over two years he has achieved what others have failed to do in bringing together the industry’s various factions in a concerted campaign. And secondly it’s a campaign that’s designed to prove in practice just what pubs can do for the embattled UK economy.

As a first step, operators are being invited to offer a total of 15,000 two-week work placements to the country’s one million unemployed young people.

That’s not a target. “We will get 15,000,” says Knowles. “And then we will get at least half of them into full-time employment.”

This is no shelf-stacker workfare scheme. While on their placement the youngsters will receive training, fully funded by the Hospitality Guild, to give them qualifications in health and safety, food safety and customer service that will prepare them for an apprenticeship.

“Until now there’s been a disconnect between the training people get and what we need as an industry,” explains Knowles. “So we’re saying ‘let’s train them properly to an agreed procedure, to the same standards throughout the country’. Then every potential employer knows what basic training they’ve had.

“It shows the industry to be a serious employer with opportunities and rewards, and it will encourage people to come into the industry for a career. We’ve got to get it front-of-mind that we’re part of the solution.

“Yet you pick up any newspaper or watch the TV and the perception of our business is poor, that it treats people badly, that we offer underpaid dead-end jobs, and that we pile it high, sell it cheap and don’t care,” he goes on.

“But there’s a career path in our industry, it’s not a dead-end. You can go from pulling pints to being managing director. We have CEOs who were washing dishes. I’m profoundly dyslexic myself and here I am now. At 25 my son Luke is working for Novus Leisure as a restaurant manager and he’s destined to be a general manager. There are so many examples. People are making a difference every day.”

Teamwork​

Behind that vision Knowles has grouped a number of key figures: Brigid Simmonds, of the British Beer & Pub Association; Nick Bish, of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers; Suzy Jackson of the Hospitality Guild; Robert Humphreys, of the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group; and Dan Davies, of CPL Training.

But the support he appreciates most comes from Perceptions vice-chairman Anthony Pender, director of the Yummy Pub Co. “He really wanted to push things along,” he says.

In fact, it’s Pender who has provided the pilot scheme for Perceptions by giving work placements to unemployed kids from the New Horizon Youth Centre next door to his Somers Town Coffee House pub in Euston, north London.

“I was a kid like that,” says Knowles.One of them, who got five job offers following the placement, is now working for Beds & Bars.

“These young people have no hope, no real sense of a future. They need someone to give them a chance in life, and our industry can do that. We can give them that spark.

“Perceptions is not just a work placement scheme. We really hope most will get a job, and if we get good applicants there are jobs for them.”

A powerful part of the project is a website, set to go live in April, on which applicants can post their profiles, with endorsements from the operators who’ve given them experience, to create a virtual Jobcentre for the pub industry. The network of employers drawn together around Perceptions is also important.

“If one operator has found potential recruits but doesn’t have the vacancies it can email the others and there are bound to be operators who are looking for those people,” explains Knowles.

“Finding the right people who are looking for a career is an issue for everyone in the industry.

“We want people who are going to be part of a core team, and apprenticeships are a way of filtering them, preparing them to do that job.

“It’s open to anyone willing to work hard. We’re an inclusive industry. We’re starting with 18 to 24-year-olds, but I feel very strongly that we should be targeting over-50s too.

“It’s never going to stop,” he continues. “This is just a first step in changing our image. Perceptions is a five to 10-year project in which we can track people through their careers. The class of 2013 will be there to help the class of 2033.

“The staff turnover rate should drop, as should the cost of recruitment. Employment agencies are charging up to £400 to find people! And Jobcentres send people to inappropriate jobs. This way we can give those people a trial and say to them, here’s a career path.

“They get transferable skills, and we come away with a positive image.”

There could be broader benefits, too, beyond the people question, and Knowles believes that, as perceptions of the industry improve, it could open up an opportunity for a dialogue with the Government around issues such as disorder.

Uniting the trade​

There is a glimmer of a chance, too, that Perceptions could form the basis of that industry unity that has proved so elusive.

“We are coming together around aspects where we can work for a common good — and have some fun — and from which everyone benefits enormously.

“This is the start of unification. It isn’t about the different organisations. It’s about us uniting around the issues we all face in the UK, the opportunities pubs offer, and how we get people to value us as a sector.

“It’s not about me, it’s about us, what we can do to make a difference, and it’s open to everyone. Even the single-pub operator can get involved.

“Eight or nine operators have led the way. There’s no funding, we’re doing it because we want to. All we’re trying to do is to stoke up a bit of good. I’m fed up with the industry tearing itself to pieces.”

It’s ironic, perhaps, that a somewhat eccentric and occasionally controversial figure like Knowles might end up being the one who can get the pub industry to stick together on something. But he’s not the kind to give up on a challenge.

“I don’t have loads of things left that I want to do because I’ve done them,” he says.

“I’m in awe of the skills in my business. But the trade bodies haven’t properly represented the industry and the core values we offer society — that’s what I want to put right.”