Who needs training and qualifications?

If you want your staff to feel confident in their roles and value the licensed trade as a career rather than a job and if you want to consistently operate in a socially responsible and lawful manner, you need to ensure that you are investing in qualifications not just on-the-job training.

Gone are the days when working in a pub was a stop gap before you took on a "proper job". Staff need to have skills that are transferable and valued.

The licensed trade is one of the most qualified sectors

and we need to keep this momentum going, but we need commitment from all levels of the trade. Additionally, we need a socially-responsible band of people operating the licensed trade who really understand the law.

How can we do this? On-the-job training is one way of ensuring that your premises is run the way you want it to be, but nationally-accredited qualifications ensure that staff really know about the law and their role in the licensed retail sector.

There is a big difference

between training and

qualifications. When your premises is targeted by test purchasing can you be sure that your on-the-job training will protect you and your staff? Do you have confidence that all your staff know the Licensing Act well enough not to break the law? You can be if your staff have undertaken a nationally-accepted qualification where they have been thoroughly taught and have taken an examination.

It is important to put your staff through a highly-credited qualification that they are not able to pass unless they

know the law in relation to sales to under-age and drunk customers. The National Certificate for Personal Licence Holders is a mandatory qualification to obtain a personal licence, but not all holders of a licence have passed the same high-standard examination. I urge licensees to take care in selecting their qualification and to be satisfied that staff will know all they need to once that have their certificate.

Invest in all your staff. Like more than 5,000 other

people in England, your cashiers and bar staff can take a qualification such as the Award in Responsible Alcohol

Retailing and know that they are operating within the law and also that you value them and their careers.

Give your staff a feeling of value and achievement and

protect your licence and bottom-line by offering them many opportunities to take high-quality qualifications.

We need to keep our industry well qualified and career focused and you can help in that by going beyond on-the-job training and investing in qualifications and your people.