Training & Recruitment: lack of training threatens pub businesses

Training is the lifeblood of your business. And if you didn't believe it before, a report released at the end of last month brings out the shocking truth.

According to research by the government's Sector Skills Development Agency pubs, restaurants and hotels are much more likely to go out of business if they do not train their people.

Over a six-year period it was found that 28 per cent of hospitality businesses that failed to provide training closed down, compared with only three per cent of those that did.

This may not seem so bad - until you realise the report also states that a third of the industry's employers don't bother to train - and a quarter say nothing would persuade them to do any training!

Brian Wisdom, chief executive of People 1st, the sector skills agency responsible for the hospitality, leisure and travel industries, minces no words in his response to the research.

"Businesses that don't train put themselves at risk of extinction," he says. "They also damage the reputation of the sector and lose valuable human resources. Investment in training is a commercial lifesaver rather than an unnecessary cost."

Evidence from Scotland suggests that the smoking ban most threatens pubs that are already struggling - making the lack of training even more worrying.

Yet most admit their business would benefit from developing their people. So what's stopping them?

The industry is dominated by small businesses - freetraders, lessees and tenants - with limited resources, in terms of both time and money. It is also an industry of high staff turnover.

So, in a way, it's understandable that training is low on the list of priorities. Publicans are reluctant to invest too much in their staff when they aren't going to hang about. There is funding for training but only two per cent of hospitality employers have taken advantage of it.

It's a vicious circle. Licensees who have, from the start, instilled a training culture at their pubs - "perpetual training", in the words of one licensee - find that staff retention improves dramatically. People appreciate being taken seriously - and will take working in your pub more seriously in return.

The only drawback is that when they do leave, they are likely to start running their own pub!

But this, of course, is exactly the kind of progress the industry needs to see.

The good news is that all this is in tune with government thinking. The recent Leitch Review, which set out a 'road map' for developing skills in the UK, recommended a more streamlined training regime that would be more responsive to employers' needs - rather than the current forest of qualifications available to the hospitality sector, which is off-putting in itself.

Already the Learning & Skills Council is making subsidies available to businesses that want to give their staff some basic NVQ training and has introduced a network of skills brokers to help them do it under the new Train to Gain scheme.

And this month People 1st launches the UK Skills Passport Service, designed to enable employers to find funded training support.

There has never been more encouragement to get your people trained and your business fit for the challenges of the 21st century.