Price: tread carefully on staff disciplinary hearings

Gerry Price, leaseholder of the Inn at West End, Surrey says staff disciplinary hearings are a stressful business for all concerned.

Things have been a bit quieter this week from a trade point of view but I have been as busy as ever in various ways.

Probably the most frustrating has been handling a disciplinary procedure with a member of staff who was caught apparently giving drinks to a boyfriend and not charging for them.

I would first like to say that we have first rate staff who I value very highly and disciplinary matters do not arise too often. When they do, you have to quickly get a legal head on and do things by the book.

First you must suspend them on full pay and have an enquiry with all concerned. Although part of the disciplinary procedure you must ensure that this is not a disciplinary hearing at this stage.

Should your enquiry lead you to believe that some sort of disciplinary action is required, you must then hold a disciplinary meeting and they must be allowed to bring a trade union member or work colleague.

You must listen to what is said, almost certainly a repeat or modified version of the hearing before, and after a reasonable amount of time, you must give your decision. Whatever your decision, the employee must have a period of time, usually seven days, in which to appeal.

Sounds onerous and expensive doesn't it? It is. It is also stressful for all concerned and feels like a sledgehammer to crack a nut, especially in a small, family type organisation such as ours.

If at the end of it you decide that it was all a big mistake, the employee probably wouldn't want to work for you any more and could leave and claim for constructive dismissal!

Fortunately we use Peninsula to guide us through the minefield that is employment law, and I am aware that the BII and other trade bodies also offer schemes. They are well worth while. If you employ people, use them and ensure all your procedures are sound. The worst thing in the eyes of an employment tribunal is not following procedure.

Promoting the pub​

On a lighter note we had a great golf day yesterday. Rather like myself, it was small but perfectly formed with just seventeen people playing.

But it introduced a few customers to each other, brought some additional revenue to The Inn in a week which is turning out to be a little quieter than I would like and reminded me how much we need to keep on promoting.

I had a free business review by Surrey Business Link in December and one of the things I was shocked to learn is that many businesses spend between 2-10% on advertising and promotion.

That means I need to spend a lot more than I am but how to afford it? And the old conundrum, how do you know what is working?

Building up a promotions plan for a time period is really tricky. There was a time in the last recession, about 1991, when I couldn't afford to spend any money but I couldn't afford not to do any promotions.

I went to the bank with a scheme and managed to get them to up the overdraft facility from 25k to 50k to allow me a bit of flexibility and I sent out 50,000 leaflets promoting the pub with a simple offer on a Monday to Thursday.

The leaflets went out with the Royal Mail over a twelve month period and within three months I didn't need the overdraft at all! I felt quite silly having asked for the extra facility but the bank was quite happy.

Thinking promotions through​

Promotions do have to be well thought out though. I often use a promotion for existing customers, offering them four meals for the price of two.

It enables them to introduce friends to The Inn and have a very reasonable evening. From our point of view, at anything over 50% food GP, all the food is paid for and hopefully they will push the boat out on drinks and other extras as well as having a feel good factor.

Only offer it to apply at quieter times and read the leaflets. One of my less successful offers was sending out 5000 leaflets offering two meals for the price of four. Can't think why!