Bar work can be the starting point, not the stop gap

By Richard Kershaw, chief executive of the Joseph Holt Brewery

Richard Kershaw

For school leavers or graduates looking to get on the first rung of the career ladder, bar work is unlikely to be the direction of travel.

Sure, it’s a helpful way to earn extra funds during those impecunious years of study. But once exams are done, how can this line of work be a fitting match for an ambitious job seeker with a clutch of qualifications?

The optics are understandable. If you`ve just slogged through A levels or finished your degree – as many will in a few months time – the reward must surely amount to more than clearing glasses and serving beer?

Yet to adopt such a view is to miss a trick.

Not only because bar work, and waitering, provides an opportunity to develop an extensive skill set, such as communication, teamwork and delivering service under pressure. But because entry level hospitality jobs can be the gateway to a hugely rewarding career.

Of course such a rethink would be of great benefit to the hospitality industry which is suffering a significant recruitment crisis following the pandemic.

Recent figures reveal that job vacancies in the UK hospitality industry have risen by 50,000 since before the pandemic began in early 2020.

One reason for this is that more than 30% of hospitality workers across the UK are thought to have come from Europe, pre-Brexit .When pubs and restaurants closed many returned home and have not come back.

Meanwhile, lockdown afforded a time for people to reflect on their work situation with some deciding they were going to do something completely different

At Joseph Holt we have been lucky. Thanks to our long term planning and the loyalty our staff show to our 172-year-old family business, we’ve been lucky in that we have managed to weather it. But it’s in all our interests to solve the recruitment problems across hospitality. And that can come with encouraging more young people to consider the prospects which may follow from waiting tables or working behind a bar.

As one of the UK`s oldest breweries – with 127 pubs across the North West – at Joseph Holt we firmly believe that every member of staff who comes to join us has the potential to make progress through the company if they want to. We achieve this with our two ‘progression’ courses.

One plots the path from bar staff to a role of, say, assistant manager. The second runs further – offering people the opportunity to run their own pub

One of our area managers, Niall McCloskey, in his words, “fell into” a career with the brewery after taking on part time bar work when a student at Manchester Metropolitan University.

He went on to do lots of relief management throughout his degree and, after graduating, joined the Joseph Holt training scheme. Niall progressed to run his own pub for several years and is now an area manager – looking after 28 of our pubs.

It should be pointed out that this kind of progression isn’t just for young people setting out on a career. Many of our landlords and landladies – now known as pub managers – have come to us at different stages of life.

They may have started with casual bar work to fit round a young family or because they fancied a change from something they did before. And then, to our delight, developed an appetite for working their way up the ladder.

But in the case of young people starting out, even if the aim isn’t to work in hospitality, taking a job in a pub whilst sending out CVs is a marvellous way to build confidence, meet people from all walks of life and hone organisational skills in an ever-changing environment. All of which are a huge boon when you do go for an interview in a chosen field.

It’s why we need to encourage young people, or perhaps those returning to work after a break, not to view bar work as just a stop gap.

Of course, it will continue to suit those who just want casual employment. But as we emerge from lockdown, reinvigorate our communities and encourage people back to our city centres, we need to remind anyone looking for work that being behind a bar doesn’t have to be just a job. It can be the genesis of a wonderful career.