In the first of a new series, Ruth Williams talks to the winners of the Rising Stars awards for an insight into what the next generation of industry leaders think about this crucial sector.

Starting with the winner of the operations (pubs) category, Matthew Evans runs the most profitable pub in TCG’s estate – the Duke of Wellington in Soho, where locals know it as the Welly. Since being made manager in June 2013, Evans has added more than £100,000 to sales, taking them to almost £2m for the year end of 2014 and increased profits by £127,000. The pub’s drinks GP is currently running at 78% and the stock audits are also among the best in the estate.

Evans has worked at TCG since 2007; in 2009 he was promoted to assistant then deputy manager of both the Welly and TCG’s Admiral Duncan round the corner on Old Compton Street in 2009.

Like many pub employees, Evans started working in hospitality while studying and was lured back after returning from a year teaching English in Thailand.

“I planned to become an art teacher but I remember opening the PGCE acceptance letter thinking ‘why am I doing this?’ I don’t really like children; I was a terrible teacher in Thailand and I’d be a terrible teacher here. I was just doing it because I felt like I should do something with my degree. But it was only when I got the letter I realised I was doing it for the wrong reasons.”

Choosing to carry on at the pub while he thought about the bigger picture, Evans was soon promoted to supervisor then assistant manager.

“It’s quite fun, I enjoy it and never have that dread feeling of going to work. I could see there was a career path into management and could see the reward system – even though you don’t get the rewards at assistant level, I could see them in the future.”

TCG has a clearly defined career progression path across a number of training platforms: bronze, silver and gold as well as a management training programme run modularly within an 18-month period. This covers most aspects of the job, ranging from conflict management, people skills, training and coaching, hiring people – most aspects of the job are covered – with structured training, which Evans said made it easy to see career development through it.

In his role as manager, Evans added more than £100,000 and £127,000 to the Welly’s profits for 2014, making it the most profitable pub in the estate thanks to promotion in the gay press, promoting private hire of the upstairs bar and making the bar more appealing during the day with new décor.

Evans reworked the available trading space to make the most of what the pub had, an initiative that came into its own during Pride weekend 2014. Already the highlight of the calendar, last year’s Pride was particularly special for Evans and his team after hosting the crew of EastEnders to film a poignant scene that aired on the Friday before the Pride party. The Welly needs no help pulling the punters on this big weekend but faces logistical issues, which Evans overcame.

“At Pride, the customers are all there, but there’s only a certain amount of bar space we have and number of staff we can have before everyone starts getting in each other’s way. The problem I saw was speed of service because if no one can get served, we can’t increase takings. So we had two satellite bars in the actual pub – there was a stand-alone Peroni one and a Carling and Strongbow bar, and some buckets with bottles in – this doubled how many people could be served at once.”

The Welly saw its best ever sales thanks to Evans’ idea to increase the limited service space with the pop-up bars to serve bottled drinks quicker resulting in £25,000 of sales on the day and an uptick of 20% year on year.

“It meant that, physically, we could take more money than we ever could before and, as manager, I could see how the direct action led to the consequence of better takings than ever before.”

Seeing the direct fruit of his labour is something Evans said he finds particularly rewarding about the job.

“For me, it’s about happiness more than money or achievement. I did some jobs I didn’t like, but in this job it was always fun and for me – that’s the main thing. Being able to progress myself within the industry to the point of being a manager has given me the sense of achievement happiness but then also the day-to-day happiness of getting up and going to work – I’m always happy, I’ve never dreaded it or been bored of it. A lot of other people aren’t that happy but make more money – I’ve never had it myself but I’ve always been happy and, as long as that’s the case, I’ll stay in the job.”

Accommodation with the job is a perk for any pub job, but more so in central

London where rental costs mean most employees have to live several zones away from their place of work.

“If I didn’t live here, I’d be living out in Zone 6 and my whole quality of life would go down because I’d be travelling all the time – all that extra travel and having to be here at 6am for deliveries suddenly makes the job less attractive. Industry-wide, it probably impacts on a lot of people wanting to work in this industry or somewhere they could have more fun and a better quality of life so the live-in makes a huge difference.”

As well as giving staff somewhere to live, Evans thinks pay needs addressing to encourage people to remain working within hospitality.

“People find it difficult to live off of minimum wage at the best of times, and in London, it’s pretty much impossible. For bar staff, waiters or waitresses or whatever, the rewards financially aren’t enough to really live off so I think a lot of people who might have seen it as a career choice can’t afford to. I think companies are losing a lot of talented people who can’t stay longer because they’ve got families and mortgages to support.”

As the most profitable pub in the TCG estate, the Welly shows how much of an appetite there is for alternative venues in London and the need to ensure the people running them have their finger on the pulse, something Evans said TCG is not only aware of, but fully supportive in his role as manager.

“There’s quite a lot of autonomy. The management team at TCG equips managers but lets them manage the way they see best. A lot of pub companies are pushing a brand and you have to stick to the brand regime, but I’ve been given a lot of space to take it where I want it to go.

“Having worked in the Soho gay scene for about 10 years they’ve identified my expertise is better than one of the top managers so I’ve been given space.”

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