When recruits sign up to the pub team

Citation

(2010), "When recruits sign up to the pub team", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 42 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2010.03742aab.001

When recruits sign up to the pub team

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 42, Issue 1

Punch Pub Company has launched a development program using e-learning, DVDs and coaching to help new employees to rise through the ranks.

Punch introduced its e-learning platform in October 2008 and has successfully trained more than 11,000 recruits in food hygiene, health and safety and licensing law – courses that have provided these employees with recognised qualifications. The new program will build on this success to deliver a wide-ranging induction for new pub-team members during their first 13 weeks.

On joining the company, the “team player”, as each recruit is called, is assigned a coach from the pub’s management team, who supports the person as he or she completes the program.

Week 1 of the program is devoted to team-player orientation. A DVD named New Faces delivers the company and safety information that recruits need to know for their first shift. This also helps them to understand the scale of the organisation they have joined, its values and what is expected of them.

There is then a set of further modules for specific roles such as a team player in one of the company’s hotels, or Wacky Warehouse “play barns” or for employees joining the kitchen team.

Weeks 2 to 5 are devoted to team-player development. The learning is referred to as Rising Stars, and is delivered online. Team players complete four e-learning courses, which include food hygiene, health and safety and licensing law, plus a module designed to equip the new recruits with the skills they need to deliver high levels of customer service.

Throughout the remaining eight weeks of the program, team players complete Stars, a series of exercises in the workbook they receive at the start of the program. This stage in their training and induction requires them to log examples of how they are performing as part of a team, putting into action the lessons they have learned.

David Mayes, head of retail training, said: “We have looked at how adults learn and developed an induction program that is easy to follow and incredibly successful at building knowledge and encouraging the right behaviours.

“We have fully embraced the new technology available to us and used DVDs, which we have filmed in our own pubs with our own people, and online e-learning modules, to deliver an innovative training program. Our training is based on providing the knowledge, creating understanding and putting new skills into practice”.

Team players can continue along Punch’s career pathway to become a team leader, deputy general manager or general manager. They are also encouraged to consider other roles in the field-support team or at the company’s support centre in Burton-on-Trent, UK.