People: Back to basics

A new interactive training CD is helping publicans on a budget train their staff. Phil Mellows reports.

More than ever, publicans have to be confident their staff are equipped to serve customers well - and do their job within the law. The new licensing regime and health and safety legislation explicitly penalise licensees and staff that fail to meet the higher demands on those running a pub.

But there is a problem, especially for independent publicans. How do you square a small training budget with a fast turnover of staff? How, exactly, are you supposed to find the time and the money to train each new employee to a certain standard of competence and knowledge when they're continually coming and going?

With that testing dilemma in mind, an induction programme has been devised that aims to train a member of barstaff in the basics - at a cost of just £14 for six sessions. That's the price of a pint per session. What's more, it's accredited by the BII Awarding Body and you get a recognised certificate at the end of it if you pass.

Interestingly, the company behind the scheme is not a pub operator nor an established training provider but a design agency, which was able to come at the challenge from the point of view that it is, above all, a design problem.

Metafor is well versed in the issues involved, having designed training materials for pub companies - including Enterprise Inns, Punch Taverns, Spirit Group and JD Wetherspoon - for the past eight years.

Serves You Right, launched last month and already being used by pubs, is the result of trying to solve the low training budget/high staff turnover equation. Metafor has created a training package that can be delivered on a pub's internet-linked touchscreen terminal, that is, an Itbox or Gamesnet machine.

Briefly, staff work through the interactive programme on the machines during quiet times in the pub, or they can do it on the back office PC, if there is one available.

Licensees pay £14 to register each staff member for the induction course and, like a pay-as-you-go mobile phone, they can top up their credits over the phone when a new person joins.

Each employee is given a unique code to gain access to the programme over the internet. The system records their progress and their manager has access to this information through a website.

If there is no touchscreen machine or broadband internet at the pub, the programme is available on a CD at an all-in unlimited access price of £95.

The content was put together with the help of the BII and the full induction course comprises six sessions, the equivalent of a 500-page document, which must be completed within four weeks if the employee is to gain certification:

• Day 1:​ takes staff, step-by-step, through everything they need to know on their first shift, including the documentation required under the new Licensing Act, their role and the pub's operating schedule
• Serve:​ covers the licensing laws, weights and measures, knowledge of most important drinks and the perfect serve
• Service:​ trains in customer service, handling complaints, selling, customer occasions, observation skills and handling violence
• Serviceable:​ deals with maintenance, cleaning equipment, health and safety and emergency procedures
• In the kitchen:​ includes food hygiene, storage and handling deliveries
• Clockbusters:​ a final session in which the trainee answers questions about what they have learned on a board similar to the one on TV quiz show Blockbusters. They have three minutes to work their way across.

Successful candidates are posted a certificate and the award counts as one of four credits towards the BIIAB Operational Skills Certificate. Metafor director Sarah Lowry sees Serves You Right as a platform for a series of interactive pub staff courses of which the induction module is the first. Courses on beer, wine, teamwork and dealing with drunks are being developed.

"We have already had a lot of interest," says Sarah. "People learn more through this kind of programme than by only reading and listening. It's interactive and it's fun. And it adds another function to the machine.

"They aren't standing at the machine the whole time either. The course gives them tasks that force them to go away and find things out or, for example, pour a perfect pint of Guinness. This is a way of getting some industry standards into pubs and it also enables licensees to prove to their local authority that they have done the basic training required under the law."

Serves You Right is on course​

Among the first freetraders to try out Serves You Right is Bill Buchan at the Anchor & Hope in Salisbury. He is currently supervising four staff through the induction course on the pub's back office computer but is reserving judgement on the programme until the four weeks are up.

"For me the attraction is the convenience," he says. "Rather than having to let staff go on set courses it enables them to do it in the pub at their own pace."

Peter Grieve, recruitment and development manager at Enterprise Inns, is looking at offering Serves You Right to the group's tenants.

"This is certainly the kind of thing the industry needs and it could be useful as another tool that we make available to our licensees that will help them run their businesses," he says. "We are currently evaluating the programme."

Serves You Right is also being trialled by Interpub, operator of Belushi's bars and the St Christopher's backpackers' hostel-pubs.

Hospitality aiming for a capital gain in 2012​

London's hospitality employers are already gearing up to handle the expected surge in trade in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.

The London Development Agency (LDA) estimates the event will create 12,000 new jobs and bring 70,000 volunteer workers to the capital. "That means there is an opportunity to serve 132,000 extra cups of tea and coffee a week," LDA director of skills and employment Maxine Jones told guests at a Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Action Plan update last week.

"Tourism is already a priority sector for us and that's even more so in the run-up to 2012," she said. "There are real challenges for us around staff shortages, high turnover and a lack of basic skills."

The Action Plan covers a range of 18 projects across the capital to recruit and retain staff, to raise the skills base.

The LDA has also awarded South London hospitality businesses £230,000 for training through the Work Smarter initiative. Work Smarter has a team of advisers on hand to help a business identify the skills it needs and draw up training plans. A menu of courses has also been developed from 90-minute masterclasses to five-day accredited programmes.

Go to www.southlondonbusiness.co.uk for more information.

• Tourism businesses in the North West could also be eligible for generous subsidies under a new scheme to improve the way they manage their workforce.

Tourism HR aims to help hospitality businesses across Merseyside and Manchester understand and comply with mounting employment legislation as well as advise on a variety of people issues.

The service includes an initial face-to-face, on-site business audit and provides an online library of easy-to-use documents and guidance on a variety of topics such as appraisals, training, recruitment, disciplinary issues and absence management.

A telephone helpline, backed by human resource experts, is also available and businesses that sign up will receive regular e-newsletters with touri