Location: headquartered in Chester
Number of employees: 70 at HQ, 35 more on the road, and all owners and employees at the circa 900 Admiral Taverns nationwide
Number in HR: three
Case study focus: encouraging a network of pub owners to attend training
The organisation
Pub group Admiral Taverns runs around 900 pubs nationwide. Its pubs are predominantly wet-led (meaning they serve only drinks not food), local community establishments.
The challenge
While many pub operators have moved to a managed house pub model, Admiral Taverns remains convinced of the power of its supported tied model, which aims to empower licensees to run their pubs how they think best, with support from Admiral on specialist areas such as business development and marketing.
Any instance where someone is in some ways, but not quite, an employee throws up considerable challenge however. The nature of Admiral’s brand (where the focus is on small local pubs) also means licensees don’t typically have the above commercial experience. And they don’t have a lot of time to attend training. So how to ensure these licensees engage with the kind of training that could ensure their success, and that of the wider group?
The method
“Licensees tend to be people looking for the lifestyle and kudos running a pub brings in the community, but that often means they’re not as adept at marketing, financial controls and so on,” explains Admiral Taverns' head of recruitment and people development Suzanne Smith.
Some licensees have been in the business a long time and so can be a tad sceptical about training. “If you think about the demographic of our licensees they’ve probably been out of education a long time, so going back [and doing training] might be quite scary,” she adds.
The answer is to offer an array of training opportunities rather than mandatory courses, to cater for diversity of experience. “I’ve a very strong view that one size does not fit all,” says Smith. “A lot of our competitors will have mandatory training but we work very much on what you as an individual need.
“We carry out a training needs analysis at recruitment stage,” she adds. “So we have some fairly concise questions around all aspects of running a pub. Depending on their answers and the business plan we’ll determine what to suggest. Nine out of 10 times it’s financial controls we need to start with.”
To make sure busy owners see the value of attending Admiral also ensures all training experiences are highly practical and directly applicable to the day-to-day. All training, even that around more back office accounting-type skills, is delivered in Admiral pubs, explains Smith. And it is always scheduled at times that allow owners to get back and run their pubs the same evening.
While Admiral avoids a one-size-fits-all approach, it is also careful that most courses “are as suitable for experienced licensees needing a refresher” as for newbies. “We’ve been very selective on the trainers we use; I didn’t want an environment that felt like a training environment,” adds Smith.
Though most training isn’t mandatory, there are some days that certain types of licensee must attend as part of the business support agreement they have with Admiral. One of those is its Rights and Responsibilities training for owners who employ bar staff. Ensuring people comply here has been a case of hammering home the message: “Can you really afford not to protect yourself and have an understanding?” reports Smith.
Results
The success of this training approach is manifested in how much licensees are willing to engage with courses, and in satisfaction with Admiral as an operator overall, says Smith. She points out that average tenure is very strong for the sector, at more than five years, reflecting a community of owners who feel well-supported and understood by their operator and so willing to stick by the brand.
Such strong engagement levels are also evidenced by Admiral winning Tenanted Pub Company of the Year this year. In the M&C Allegra Strategy Tenant Track 2016 survey four in five licensees stated that they were either ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to recommend Admiral Taverns as a pub company partner.
Smith notes that such good engagement levels, a sense of professionalising the sector, and Admiral’s individualised and highly supportive training strategy are paying off in attracting a broader range of people to the brand. “We’ve seen an uptick of people from outside the industry coming through because we’re able to give them much greater support I believe than our peer group,” she says.
Which all means Admiral is on a strong track to growth. It’s most recent financial results, for the period leading up to May 2015, showed growth in turnover, operating profit and EBITDA for the first time in eight years, leaving the business, in the words of Smith “ready for growth”. So watch this space…
