The Big Interview: Paul Flaum, Whitbread Restaurants

Paul Flaum always was a clever boy. After school he ploughed into a degree in economics and accountancy at Manchester, emerging with a 2:1. From there he became a chartered accountant with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), qualifying and working his way up to manager in four years.

It may come as a surprise, then, that just a couple of years later Flaum was serving popcorn at Muswell Hill Odeon, in north-west London, on Saturday nights.

“What are you doing with your life, Paul?” his parents would ask, having watched him plummet from the heights of PwC down to the stained carpets of a local London cinema complex.

Of course, there was a little more to it than that, beginning with a move to leisure conglomerate Rank following his spell at PwC. At the time Rank’s leisure division was run by John Garrett. After two or three years at Rank, Flaum expressed a desire to run his own business, whereupon Garrett let him pick one.

Choosing the Odeon, he went back to the floor for a total of nine months as assistant and then general manager to learn the sector from the bottom up — serving popcorn to spotty, amorous teenagers. “Even now I’ll talk about experiences I had during that time,” says ‘Flaumy’, a nickname picked up on the football pitch at school.

“It was a fantastic time and a fantastic business. John was a hugely impressive character and had the ability to wow everyone, regardless of their level.”

After three years with Odeon, it merged with ABC Cinemas, giving him valuable experience. It wasn’t all about business, though, as a sizeable perk of the job was unlimited film premiere attendances.
Highlights featuring celebrities included seeing Julia Roberts’s hairy armpits at the Notting Hill premiere, Brad Pitt coming close to being arrested at Snatch and Prince Charles insisting on bringing his own cushion for his royal behind during a screening.

After three years as regional director for Odeon, Flaum joined Whitbread, where he remains 10 years on. He began as operations director at Travel Inn, when the company’s hotels business was on the rise. Soon after, Whitbread bought Premier Lodge in a £500m business acquisition that was the biggest of its kind at the time.

For three years he was chief operating officer of the hotels division before the hotel and restaurant businesses were combined. Following that, he spent five years as chief operating officer for hotels and restaurants before becoming  managing director of restaurants in October 2011.

Underdog​
Being in charge of Taybarns, Beefeater, Table Table and Brewers Fayre comes with challenges. “Running a restaurant business is completely different to running a hotel business,” says Flaum.

“It had always been my ambition to run my own business and I was excited to run one that wasn’t already at its peak. I enjoy the challenge of turning a business around — sort of an underdog. Whitbread restaurants weren’t coming from nothing, of course, but there were a lot of improvements to make.”

Reflecting on his career, Flaum is happy with his choices. “Working in cinemas I watched films, at Premier I had a kip, and now I eat and drink,” he quips.

Coming from a large Jewish family, Flaum is a self-professed food and drink lover. Now, with five children of his own aged between one and 11, his wife Gail often cooks for large parties of up to 40 people, so he is well versed in good food, though not a cook himself.

The growth of the restaurants sector at Whitbread is largely down to a customer-focused approach. Guest scores are recorded each year and are at a record high following several consecutive quarters of growth.

Around 40,000 responses are gathered and analysed each week. Guests leave feedback for 15 measures, scoring between one and 10 on each. Flaum is focused on reducing the number of zero to three ratings the company gets. “We like to wow with our service as well as making food spot-on for our customers,” says Flaum. “That is why the team is so important.”

Twice a year 31,000 company team members (2011/12 figure) are asked to fill in a survey of how they feel about working at Whitbread. The research garners an impressive 97% response rate, more impressive still for the fact that 75% of staff are part-time. The scores are now 7% to 8% higher than a year ago.

“It has brought passion back into the restaurant business,” says Flaum. “We had massive passion for hotels and now this has put food back at the heart of the business.”

He is a very hands-on managing director and estimates that he sends around 15 personal postcards to different team members each week for outstanding service.

Flaum chose the personal postcard method to prove they really were from him — nobody could recreate his scrawl, he says. He also meets three times a year with every general manager — that’s 400 across all the brands.

Yammer, which is a website akin to Facebook on which staff post information about how they are doing, is checked religiously by Flaum every night. “We use different tools that help to make a very large company feel very small,” he says.

“It helps to dial up interaction and get the various sites talking about one another — we want honest feedback.”

The Bobble Hat Award is another staff incentive dreamed up by Flaum, based on American long jumper Bob Beamon who used to place his bobble hat down to mark his personal best before a jump. Someone would move it further when his back was turned, but believing he could do it, he would, and achieve a new best.

The Whitbread award rewards staff for outstanding achievements. Flaum adds: “To be world-class, the restaurant business has got to serve good food at its heart.

“We didn’t have that passion. Ron [Lento, food director at Whitbread Restaurants] knows food. His family used to run restaurants in the States, so imagine what that does for morale across the sites.
“He has been food director for under a year and is challenging suppliers and the operational line to become more knowledgeable about food. He will revolutionise our food.”

Whitbread Restaurants is 70% food-led and Flaum predicts the food side of the business will continue to grow for the next four to five years in response to greater consumer knowledge of food and chefs, our ageing population and the sociability factor — eating and drinking out are two of very few social occasions not affected by social media or other technology.

“Accountancy was never for me as a career,” says Flaum. “But as life goes on I’m surprised by what a difference it makes to have a professional qualification. People are surprised that I know the numbers.

“It was very hard work, but could be great fun as well. When you qualify you are certainly in demand. I feel as though I am running my own business now, having spent two years turning it around and strengthening the strategy.

“There is no reason why Whitbread restaurants can’t be as famous as Premier [Inn] and Costa [Coffee]. From the word go, I had customers in my blood and the ambition to realise my own potential. You will only realise it if you keep trying to realise it.”

Key dates:​
1991​
Paul Flaum graduates from the University of Manchester with a 2:1 (Hons) in economics and accountancy. Joins PricewaterhouseCoopers.
1995​
Leaves PwC to join Rank Group in a strategic role
1998​
Moves into operations for Odeon Cinemas as a regional director for London and the south-east
2002​
Joins Whitbread as operations director for Travel Inn
2004​
Flaum is involved in the successful acquisition and integration of Premier Lodge, to be rebranded as Premier Travel Inn, becoming chief operating officer for the brand (to be known as Premier Inn from 2007)
2008​
Premier Inn merges with Whitbread’s restaurant division, (including Beefeater, Brewers Fayre, Table Table and Taybarns), to form Whitbread Hotels & Restaurants, with Flaum becoming chief operating officer for the group
2011​
Flaum promoted to managing director of restaurants
2012​
Flaum appointed as a member of the executive committee at Whitbread