Barons Pub Company
Long service, strong retention rates and stable teams are the result of a Barons training approach which encourages its people to develop long-term hospitality careers and feel proud to work in a pub.
All general managers and head chefs at the company – which operates 11 pubs in rural and suburban Surrey – are home-grown, and many of the Barons senior management team have progressed through the ranks from the floor or kitchen.
In the past year it’s focused on refining the company culture in tandem with training, introducing emotional intelligence and resilience elements to improve team cohesion and equip staff better to deal with the daily pressure of busy pub environments.
Barons was ahead of most of the sector in appointing mental health and wellbeing champions at every site, supported by information and signposting to direct team members to confidential help should they need it.
Cubitt House
High rates of retention among both front-of-house and kitchen teams are proof of a positive and nurturing working environment at Cubitt House, which operates eight high-end pubs in central London.
This is a company that, in its own words, doesn’t do “shouty chefs”, with bullying and harassment prevention built into management training, and a zero-tolerance approach should anyone step out of line. English lessons have been provided for staff joining teams from overseas to make them feel more included.
Quarterly staff engagement surveys have led to earlier rotas, enhanced maternity pay and private rooms with fridges for team members who are breast-feeding.
Cubitt House has also innovated around flexible contracts to the benefit of staff with children who need to do the school run.
The company launched a wellbeing calendar in 2025, partnering with a gym operator to run staff running clubs and yoga classes.
Longbow Venues
Founder Rob Hattersley adopted a people-first approach when setting up Longbow after becoming disillusioned with the working culture at other hospitality businesses he’d encountered. The aim is to celebrate the good weeks without getting swept away by the bad ones, at the same time giving team members the tools to build genuine careers within the industry.
Six years in, and with six pubs under its belt, all within close proximity in the Peak District, the company already has an in-house chef school, a bespoke Longbow Way professional development pathway and its own internal communications app that eases the work-life balance by ensuring people aren’t hassled by company notifications on their day off.
It’s put people from all tiers of the business up for external recognition programmes, with winners in the Derbyshire Tourism Awards and the East Midlands Women in Business Awards.
Anonymous staff surveys have led to improved onboarding and more mental health support.
Portobello Pubs & Bars
Honesty, integrity and fairness were among key people-centric principles laid out in a Portobello Pubs & Bars manifesto composed four years ago. One direct outcome was the establishment of the Portobello Training Academy (PTA) to fine tune staff development across the company’s 21 pubs in London and on the south coast of England.
The PTA gives team members a clear vision of a career pathway and equips the company with a stream of potential future general managers schooled in the Portobello service standards.
Those edging towards GM level are tasked with a creating a project that has a tangible commercial impact on the business, which has brought genuine results. An under-used basement club space at The Walrus in central Brighton was given new life as a buzzing space for midweek events, increasing topline revenue.
There’s also been an upgrade to company communications with the twin Proto-Below and Porto-Hello newsletters keeping managers and teams on the same page.
