Helping staff to reach their peak

A well-known managed pub company is in the middle of replacing hundreds of its pub managers. The quoted reason is that large numbers of its existing managers are not up to scratch.

Now, there's every chance that there are managers who need replacing. They may be unable to respond to the changes that are being demanded of them and fundamentally unsuited to the roles they're in. This is, however, a culling of pub managers on a scale that suggests to me the managed company needs to examine the way it trains and motivates managers.

It seems to me that far too much energy is being wasted in a recruitment drive on a scale that would have impressed Lord Kitchener. Best among the managed operators are Mitchells & Butlers and JD Wetherspoon; both have an average length of tenure of eight years among managers.

Wetherspoon chief executive John Hutson has an instructive story to tell on this subject. He recalls arriving at the firm in the 1990s to oversee 14 pubs. He decided managers weren't cutting the mustard and replaced 12 of them in the following year. Then he found himself replacing people he had recruited in what amounted to a time-consuming and expensive process.

He reflects: "I realised what goes out one door comes in the next. Take the time and effort to work with the people you have. I've come across many, many fantastic managers who started off below par and needed time and support early on."

The best pub managers tend to be promoted from within. It's the pattern that prevails at Wetherspoon. It's no surprise that your outstanding barstaff, shift leaders and assistant managers eventually become outstanding managers. It's very likely that your outstanding area managers have often been among the most impressive single-site managers. Such is the virtuous circle of talent progression that is created by the right recruitment and training process.

To have embarked on as radical an alternative course as the aforementioned managed company is an admission of fundamental executive level failure. I believe it's pretty rare to find new staff arriving with a view to failing. People naturally want to succeed, want to do well for the sense of satisfaction this provides and the financial security it offers for themselves and their families.

Demotivation and under-performance among staff tells its own story. It's the nearly automatic outcome produced by a company that is failing its own staff by creating the wrong kind of environment. The company alluded to above would be doing itself a favour by setting up forums of existing managers to ask them how they might be supported better. It might get an even more honest view if it conducted proper independent exit interviews of the many managers on the way out.