Annual turnover: 350 million
HR director: Julian Bradwell
We all know the familiar cry that goes up from regional offices and employees out in the field: What on earth are those clowns at head office playing at? Dont they know anything about this business? But this is not something you are likely to hear from the people that work for Greene King, the Suffolk-based brewer and pub management company. The firm has undergone a transformation in recent years, from sleepy regional brewer to ambitious and acquisitive stock-market favourite. Over the past couple of years, the leadership of managing director Neil Gillis has accelerated this process.
Maintaining the relationship between the centre and the pubs
About 18 months ago Gillis brought in Julian Bradwell a former national account manager in sales at Heinz where Gillis, too, had worked as HR director. It was an unusual move, but one that confirmed the companys heightened commercial focus. And whereas traditionally in this industry pub managers have been left more or less unsupported by the parent company, Greene King places great emphasis on managing the relationship between the centre and the pubs.
Neil was really clear what he wanted me to do, says Bradwell. He wanted me to be the people person, but also make sure everything we did was geared towards being a truly commercial outfit.
Greene King has around 1,600 pubs, 600 of which are directly managed by Greene King employees, while the rest are run by tenant owners. It can be very difficult maintaining a relationship with pub managers, says Bradwell. They have a hard job. Every pub is different. We have been trying to empower our managers to deliver at the local level we support them centrally, but we want their personality to shine through. And a key part of this is training.
It was this thinking that lay behind the most ambitious training exercise ever seen at the company. This was the Longest Day event, when all central staff had to report to pubs to see what the job was all about. Greene King staff were immersed in the sometimes harsh realities of pub management: the long hours (receiving deliveries at dawn and kicking customers out at night), the trouble with suppliers (being forced to buy lemons at the local supermarket way over budget because a supplier has let you down) and the perils of managing a mobile, part-time staff. No wonder some staff were a little apprehensive before taking part. But afterwards 87% said they wanted to do it again next year.
A cultural revolution is taking place down at the local
Pubs have changed radically in recent years. The culture of this industry was traditionally about tough cost control, says Bradwell. But today we are looking for quality, and there are several HR issues to deal with like the national minimum wage and the Working Time Directive which have required a change of culture and approach. And what sort of welcome do you get when you enter a pub? Thats the key to this business now.
The long hours culture has been the biggest challenge facing the company. It is an ongoing task helping managers understand how they need to define the boundaries between work and leisure. We may take our local for granted, but in some of them an HR revolution is taking place before our very eyes.
