People: Time to pay?

With the new licensing regime a few days away Nigel Sapsed takes a look at how it might affect salaries, careers and working conditions.

Longer hours have already had an impact on the pub trade as an employer, and as flexible opening finally becomes a reality next week the industry will have to get to grips with a whole number of employment issues. As the demands of the job get tougher, employers will have to look more closely at issues such as work-life balance.

At outlet level, there may have to be some restructuring as well. Each pub that extends its hours would do well to appoint a deputy manager who can stand in for the licensee and run the place just as effectively.

Longer hours may also mean more staff or, at the very least, more wages. If the same people are being asked to work longer hours, fatigue could become a serious issue.

There's every likelihood that the new licensing regime will create stressful situations for staff and this will be something the industry will need to address in due course.

Another factor is training. Getting used to the new licensing regime will take time and there will be some lessons that will only come from the experience itself - like doing anything for the first time.

But customers will expect high service standards from day one. This might be one way in which the pub trade benefits from the influx of overseas barstaff in recent years - many such staff are used to a service culture which operates long into the night.

The pressure will be perhaps most severe on outlets towards the top end of the market, the very ethos of such establishments tends to attract a certain calibre of recruits who are well educated and from middle class backgrounds. They are pretty demanding when it comes to salary packages and will make their views known when it's explained to them that the outlet they are working in opens until 2am from Thursday to Saturday night.

Depending on the seniority of the position involved, companies might want to consider offering improved bonuses and even equity as well as pensions and other benefits to attract the right staff.

It's no secret that industry salary packages are already rising fast at senior level. The number of people who have the focus, the capability and the willingness to work in this business as area managers is extremely small.

I recently headhunted an area manager for a client of ours and, after a short search, I knew I had met the man who would be offered the job. Having talked it over with his wife, however, he turned it down, because the job involved working two nights a week.

If I'd gazed into my crystal ball five years ago and predicted that area managers would be earning £65,000 a year, the collective laughter of a disbelieving industry would have been audible.

But pub companies today are having to pay top dollar to get people who want to manage a chain of outlets, some of which regularly play host to 2,000 people dancing to the throb of the latest tunes until the wee small hours. An area manager in charge of a group of bars like this can be earning £100,000 a year and operations directors can earn packages worth over £200,000.

In case this is starting to sound a little alarmist, we have to put things into context. There is every likelihood that the demand for pubs to open longer is minimal.

Certainly, the myth of the 24-hour licence will turn out to be just that, a myth. In many cases we will merely be talking about an extra hour on Friday and Saturday nights.

But over time, as the industry exploits the opportunities offered by longer opening hours and British culture adapts, there is the possibility that a drift will occur and that more pubs will open for longer.

If this is the case the pace of change will be manageable, but all the issues I have highlighted here will come into play at some stage.

• Nigel Sapsed is general manager of hospitality recruitment specialist Management Search Executive.