People: Training is vital

The latest studies show that developing staff can add great value to a business.

If you ask any chief executive what they think about training you would be hard pushed to get a negative response. On the surface everyone agrees that it forms a crucial part of the business.

But behind closed doors it never seems to command the most significant funding. Perhaps two of the reasons for this anomaly lie with the lack of empirical evidence on the value of training and a fear that some of the training packages on the market are not worth the money.

So it was reassuring to see fresh evidence presented at Putting People First, the HR & Training section of The Publican Conference, last week.

In a recent study conducted by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) and a drinks retailer, a £3,000 investment in training staff resulted in £40,000 additional sales in just three months. Three groups of 10 outlets measured sales activity via electronic point-of-sale (EPoS) data for three months prior and three months after training, and the results were unquestionable.

Staff retention higher​

Ian Harris (pictured)​, director of WSET, presenting the findings to delegates, said: "The first budget to get cut is training. We should be arguing that this should never be cut. Lack of training is taking money off your bottom line. You need to measure the return on investment and our research shows that it clearly makes a difference. The retention of staff is higher where good training is offered, and it adds value to each member of staff."

Professor Conrad Lashley from Nottingham Trent University also produced evidence on the benefits of training. He argued for a closer relationship to be forged between universities and industry to provide the pubs and bars sector with the kind of recruits it needs to run an increasingly complex business.

Martin Read, national sales director at training company Inn Dispensable, stressed the benefits of training in his keynote speech at the conference. "Training is the key to our business," he said. "But there are 62,000 pubs in the UK and I wonder how many have a training plan, I suspect not many."

One of the challenges, he added, was getting people to attend the courses - even when they have been organised and paid for.

This of course is an age-old problem, making training "sexy" isn't easy. Speakers at the conference went some way to addressing this challenge, but there is still work to be done.

Licensee Graham Rowson of the Plungington Inn in Preston, Lancashire, argued that licensees should be forced to take training, although the majority at the HR and training debate felt a carrot and stick approach would be more effective.

Of course this can only work if the training available is appealing, something Andrea Horsfield, managing director at The Training School, felt particularly strongly about.

"The training industry needs to take a long hard look at what it is offering and meet the trade half way," she said. "We should be reviewing ourselves to make sure we are offering quality training. Training isn't attracting young people at the moment and we, as training bodies, need to provide something more dynamic."

While this may be the case there is already a lot of good work being done, which was addressed at the conference. At the head of the pack is probably conference sponsor the British Institute of Innkeeping (BII). It has 16,620 members and is on target to deliver 110,000 qualifications this year, compared to 89,000 last year.

Cathie Smith, director of the BII Awarding Body, told delegates: "There is no doubt for us that training contributes to the bottom line. Qualifications engender enthusiasm so we welcome involvement from other organisations such as WSET."

Licensee backing under the spotlight​

A panel debate at the Putting People First conference put some of the country's tenanted and leased pub operators on the spot about their support for licensees.

Chaired by independent consultant Phil Dixon, the panel included Enterprise head of recruitment Peter Grieve, Punch customer services director Francis Patton, Greene King commercial director Paul Lloyd, New Century Inns executive chairman Alistair Arkley and Everards trade director Stephen Gould.

The discussion only scratched the surface of a huge issue, but to give a flavour of the matters raised, here is a soundbite from each of the panellists.

• Alistair Arkley:​ "It's about getting the relationship right. We create a family spirit in the company and encourage managers to train their own staff."
• Stephen Gould:​ "The link between the licensee and business development manager is key and we have been encouraging dialogue in this area."
• Peter Grieve:​ "We don't have compulsory training written into contracts but do get our tenants to
  complete an audit to assess their training needs, which makes a difference."
• Paul Lloyd:​ "We are doing a lot of work in the legislation area to allow our tenants to get on with the business of running their pubs."
• Francis Patton:​ "It's about selling the product of training. If we market the training correctly, then we can get people interested and don't need to force them into taking it."