Punch has 1,300 pubs across the UK, run by entrepreneurial, community-focused individuals, couples, groups of people and independent companies. These pubs are operated on either a leased or tenanted agreement, or as management partnerships (MPs), a model much like a franchise.
Our publicans and MPs are entrepreneurial self-starters who are at the heart of their business, at the core of their communities, and who spend much of their time and energy serving and caring for others.
As we all know, over the last five years, our industry has been hit by a succession of challenges, and it has never been clearer how much publicans and MPs do for their communities and their teams. Covid really served to shine the spotlight on this, with the many stories of the kindness, emotional and practical support they delivered to the people around them — from food banks to collecting prescriptions, home visits and even transporting the vulnerable to their hospital appointments. All this, while living under the extreme financial and emotional pressure of the pandemic.
In a crisis or emergency, the selfless and great British publican is always the first to help everyone else, but usually the last to help themselves. They’re not good at following their own advice, and usually feel unable to take a much needed break, while often suffering from sleep deprivation, a poor diet and all the other things that inevitably come with working long days, seven days a week. And when they’re not behind the bar, welcoming guests and looking after their teams, they will be back-of-house, always switched onto the business — rarely or never finding a chance to switch off.
That’s what we’re hoping to help them do, by not only giving our publicans and MPs the time and the space to do just that — switch off — but by helping them identify when they need to fit that all-important oxygen mask, which will ensure they are fit and well enough to continue inspiring those moments and ‘doing well, by doing good’ with pace and rigour.
We know that our operators are experienced professionals, with most having run businesses for between five and 15 years. But being forced to bounce from one crisis to another takes a toll on hem, their families and loved ones.
Running a successful business during difficult and challenging times is emotionally and physically draining, yet so many find it hard — if not impossible — to reach out for formal support.
There are amazing, independent, confidential resources available 24/7 to help: whether that’s to talk to someone about personal issues, receive professional advice on a particular problem, physical support or whatever. We actively work with the Licensed Trade Charity (LTC) and MIND, the mental health charity, and encourage our publicans and MPs to feel able to reach out and find the support they need. All provided confidentially and for free.
Our initiatives are aimed at not only supporting our publicans and MPs, but to help them recognise and acknowledge when they need support. With the key being to do this before they reach crisis point — receiving expert help will prevent or reduce stress, mental anxiety, ill health and even lack of sleep.
In May, during Mental Health Awareness Week, we joined CalmFEST, a week of wellness webinars made available for free to our teams and our pubs. Experts host these webinars and signpost the support available, while also providing insights and practical ways for people to manage different aspects of their wellbeing, including how to get better sleep, nutrition and physical and mental wellbeing. Many of our pubs embraced the week and also used it as an opportunity to raise vital funds for charities like MIND, one of our strategic partners.
Recognising changes in people’s behaviour is crucial in identifying issues, and it’s something that publicans and their teams often see in their regular guests and fellow team members. Such changes can be a sign of underlying problems, and getting the person help by using resources at your fingertips can be life changing. Yet, too often, publicans feel that it’s their job to help and resolve everyone else’s problems. This kindness is unwavering, but it can also strain them as individuals, so we try to ensure our publicans and MPs can signpost eople in need to expert help that is readily available at the end of a phone or online.
The good news is, that Punch’s focus on wellbeing and better health has seen an increasing number of publicans and MPs accessing and interacting with the support available over the past three years. A good example of this is our first CALMfest event, two years ago, which resulted in 20-30 interactions and now the figures are three times that.
We like to have different events and programmes running throughout the year, for instance, our Push The Pineapple initiative is about raising topics and awareness of key issues — driven by our employees and a group of publicans and MPs (our Pub Heroes), who work with us to identify the topics that we need to talk about — sharing their lived and real life experiences.
When Pub Hero Beth Robinson of The Beeswing Inn, East Cowton, saw CALMfest advertised, she immediately made table flyers, put up notices in local community spaces, and shared the upcoming sessions on Facebook. She also reached out to local charities she felt would align with the sessions Calm in a Box were running.
Beth made the events free to attend for staff and guests and provided tea, coffee and cake at every session. For those unable to attend the live online sessions, she emailed links to recordings every evening, and hosted group discussions to encourage more open dialogue. Throughout the week, Beth reached 50+ people every day.
Paddy Howley, who set up So Let’s Talk to support people working in hospitality, regularly speaks at trade events, and often begins by asking some key questions – things we should all be asking our colleagues, team members, but most importantly, ourselves: ‘When’s the last time you got eight hours sleep?’, ‘When’s the last time you ate a home-cooked meal?’ And, if you don’t know, or it’s not happening regularly, then you’re not looking after your wellbeing, which is unsustainable.
At Punch, we want to help publicans and MPs adopt bite-sized solutions to help them add balance to their lives. And we are looking to expand this to include physical solutions that will allow them to not only support their teams and guests, but also to take some rest time away from the business.
Wellbeing and looking after yourself, as well as everyone else’s needs, is about building resilience and that requires resources and tools. Punch is helping our publicans and MPs to understand which tools, including practical help, will make the difference when running a busy pub business. We believe that having a positive mindset will put our publicans and MPs on the front foot, with the energy to identify growth opportunities and solutions that will build a business for the future.
It all begins with bite-sized actions that make a difference and have a positive impact. And everyone should start by asking themselves, as Paddy Howley suggests, are you sleeping well, getting exercise, eating nutritional meals and taking that all-important break? If not every day, at least once or twice a week, because fitting that lie saving oxygen mask to yourself first, means you’re better able to continue to support the many people who rely so much on you and your pub.
