Tracy Bickerdike, head of licensee training and development at Star Pubs, told The Morning Advertiser (MA) that the biggest staffing challenge facing licensees remained kitchen recruitment and retention.
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“The biggest challenge that I always hear about is recruiting and retaining kitchen staff,” she said. “They tend to be absolutely fine recruiting for front of house roles. It tends to be the back of house roles, as long as I’ve been in the industry, that’s always been a challenge. I don’t think it’s changed, but it’s not got any better.”
Bickerdike said Star Pubs was encouraging licensees to consider cross training front of house teams where suitable, depending on the style of menu.
“We’re working on some content at the moment to help our Just Add Talent estate in terms of cross training their team,” she said. “Once we’ve developed that, we’ll push it out to the leased and tenanted estate, so they can hopefully take more people on and show people that they can learn the kitchen.”
Onboarding focus
Bickerdike said rising labour costs had increased the importance of strong recruitment, onboarding and retention practices. Licensees are encouraged to showcase their pub’s personality and the benefits of working for them when recruiting.
“For them to recruit the best staff, we say you need to showcase your pub’s personality and what are the benefits of working for you as an employer,” she said.
Bickerdike said onboarding was central to retention, including first day support, training plans and regular check ins.
“If you just turn up for a job and you’re given the keys to the till, it’s a recipe for disaster really,” she said.
Star Pubs has invested in gamified training to make learning more affordable and accessible for licensees and their teams. The training can be completed on a phone and is designed to be fun, bite sized and easy to revisit.
She said the format encourages repeat learning, as users play games, answer questions and try to improve their scores.
“It’s there for people to not get it right first time, because then you play it again,” she said. “The more times you do it, the more it reinforces.”
Star Pubs has also seen an increase in publicans interested in apprenticeships.
Bickerdike described apprenticeships as an “affordable way” to upskill teams, from level two to level seven, while offering transferable skills and nationally recognised qualifications.
“They’re a great way to upskill team members from level two right up to level seven,” she said.
The business is also working on plans to use its apprenticeship levy to support more people onto apprenticeships and show how training could help them run their own pub in future.
Customer service
The most in demand areas of training currently include customer service, perfect serve and diversity, equity and inclusion. Bickerdike said compliance training remained necessary, but customer service was increasingly important.
“We’re trying to stress the importance of customer service training, because that is what helps the pub stand out,” she said. “If you don’t give great customer service to the people coming into a pub, it then becomes transactional, like going into a shop.”
Star Pubs has also focused on the “perfect pour”, with Bickerdike saying drinks service can influence repeat spend. “We are putting loads of emphasis around that perfect serve because that often leads to a second drink and that will help pub businesses be more sustainable as well,” she said.
She added that staff development was “critical” to the success of individual pub investments. “You only get one chance to make a first impression,” she said. “Getting your team all fired up is key.”
Star Pubs is also looking at rostering tools that can connect with EPOS systems to help licensees plan staffing levels more accurately.
“If you get a rostering tool that looks at your data, you can plan much more efficiently for your staff rather than just guesswork,” Bickerdike said. “There are a number of products out there now, so we’re looking at some so we can make some recommendations to our licensees.”
Bickerdike said hospitality needed to do more to show pub work could be the start of a long-term career.
“We want to try and showcase some career paths,” she said. “How can we help people see working in a pub can be the start of your career and it can go on to bigger things?”
