Dave Harrison, Director of Retail Operations steps down

In conversation with Dave Harrison, Director of Retail Operations

Dave Harrison, our Director of Retail Operations has been involved in shaping and driving huge changes across our pub estate. Starting out as a chef himself, he climbed the hospitality ladder for over 40 years, finishing his full-time working life with Robinsons, where he has spent the last 13 years. We caught up with Dave to hear about his career highlights, what changes he’s seen in the industry and find out what’s inspired him throughout his time…

So, you've been with Robinsons for thirteen years, but in the industry much longer. When you think of your early days here, what's the first memory that comes to mind?

I joined 13 years ago almost to the day. I always felt really welcomed, but my first memory was “what an opportunity”. I just remember joining the business, meeting some of the people, going to see some of the pubs. I'd visited a number of pubs before I joined and just thought “This is going to be great. There are so many opportunities to develop this business further.” And that was probably the most exciting thing. I just felt it was a great moment to try and make really make a difference - which is hopefully what both the pub partner business (which was the tenanted pubs back when I started with them) and the managed business has done over the last few years.

You started with Robinsons before the launch of Managed pubs, talk us through your journey…

So I came in as Director of Retail Operations, which I still am. But when I joined, we hadn't even thought about managed pubs. So, so it was a 100% tenanted business, we had 350-400 pubs at the time, so it was bigger than what we have now. Back then, the pub estate was completely uninvested, so it was tired and quite dilapidated. I think it’s fair to say we had a really old fashioned tenancy agreement which needed to be fairer and more equitable. I joined a team of Business Development Managers which needed some guidance and investment in their development. The role of that position back then is unmistakably different from the role of the BDM in this day and age.

When I arrived there was so much opportunity for the estate; many of the pubs needed improvements. So the three key objectives when I arrived were:

1. Build a team of people that could move the business forward
2. Create a tenancy agreement that was fairer and more equitable for our licensees
3. Create an investment plan that would allow us to shape the future of the estate and create some decent premises for great people to operate in

That was really the first three or four years of that's what we did.

It's crazy because I've been here three years now and when I joined, all that was in place and to hear that 10 years prior to that, it was so different, what a journey!

Yeh, totally. You wouldn’t believe some of the changes we’ve made; pubs, welfare, safety. William and Oliver had inherited the business as it was and they understood and were committed to the changes we needed to make. Collectively, we’ve really brought the business forward and into the 21^st century. It was a real journey in those first three or four years, and what was all before the launch of our Managed Pubs.

When I started, I took on a pub estate with around 75 active pub vacancies and recruiting for them was extremely difficult. Now we have an really low vacancy rate.

When you talk about it with people who weren't here at the time, they can't get their head round how much changed was needed, but equally how many opportunities they were. There was a lot of challenges to go at, but the opportunity to deliver change was incredible.

Was there a moment or a milestone which made you think, right, we're really building something special now?

I think it fairly early on actually. We changed a lot of people, we brought a whole new team of BDMs onboard. I think I inherited eight or nine area managers when I joined; and just three stayed with me; Wayne, Tony and Alan (who retired about eighteen months ago I think?) These guys embraced the changes and really, I think they’d been desperate for them for ages, so we all took our pubs on the journey too. I think we started to get some real quick wins early because it could only go in one direction. When you think of what we achieved, you might think well, it was quite remarkable, but actually it wasn't remarkable at all because it just needed to happen. The business had been starved of investment and an appropriate tenancy agreement for such a long time that it was only ever really going to go in one direction.

But I guess it needed the right person, or team of people, to come in and lead those changes…

Yeah, I think so. Interestingly, my job didn't exist before I joined because the pub estate was effectively run by the chairman. Mr Peter was in charge of everything to do with the pubs, even what was going on in the property department. I had a really good relationship with Mr Peter. When I joined, he was in his 80s and the world had advanced so much, modern retail needed a fresh look. But most importantly, it needed somebody to be granted the opportunity and the trust to make those changes. It wasn’t without a few clashes or challenges in the early days, as we all transitioned with William and Oliver. They’d asked me to come in and do a job which nobody had done before. I think in the beginning there was a discomfort in direction being given by somebody who wasn’t a member of the family.  As until then, that had always been the case really. But, from then until now, It's like another world. From what it was like, just bizarre.

So thinking about our pubs and the wider pub industry, how have you seen the world of pubs change?

Oh, hugely. I think probably more so in my entire career than the last 13 years. It's actually 41 years since I got my first job in hospitality, I started off life as a chef working in a hotel when I left college, and when I think back to those early days of running pubs 40 years ago, most pubs were boozers, you know. Eating out was a real luxury back in the day.

If you go back 40 years, very few pubs sold food and they were definitely male dominated environment. I don't think there's any doubt about that. They were full of smoke, fruit machines, not that many products on the bar. I can remember one of the first jobs I had when I came out of working in pubs themselves, I was working as a stock taker for a brewery. You had about four draught beers on the bar and very little in the fridge. If somebody wanted a glass of wine it was “red or white?”. But likewise if somebody wanted a beer, it was like “beer or lager?.”  You know, it wasn't like five different brands of lager. I find it bizarre really because I don't consider myself to be old. But then you go, wow, I've been doing this job for 40 years, so I must be old?!

I also think the social attitudes to pubs has shifted massively, People’s social lives were in pubs, people used to leave work and go to the pub. That's where the social life was. I think the smoking ban changed attitudes to pubs significantly. It’s nearly 20 years ago now, but I think back then it was a case of “well, if I can't smoke in the pub, I'm not going to go anywhere”.

Some people said that and did do that. Other people said that and obviously gave it three days, and they were back in the pub and stood outside having a smoke. But it is really weird when you reflect back to think what those pubs were like then. I can remember being an area manager, having 15 or 20 managed pubs to look after, only a handful of them sold food, they were all drink led businesses.

The other thing is how much needs to go into attracting people to the pub nowadays. We worked hard then, but now there is less dependence on the pub collectively in society, the leisure options nowadays are endless. Therefore, we now need to work harder at attracting people to the pub and ensuring our customers return time and time again. A lot of challenges have come for the hospitality industry over the years, whether it was smoking ban, price taxation, people reducing alcohol or calorie intake. We have to work harder and harder to be able to give people a good time, and obviously shape our offer to be able to give those people a good time how they see a good time; whether it's health habits, eating habits, no and low alcohol, there is so much to consider.

And you look back to those days of,  “Have you got a red wine? white wine? a beer and a lager? Is your fruit machine turned on? Have you put your ashtrays out? Are their cigarettes in the cigarette machine? Happy days, lets open the door.”.

That’s before even mentioning bedrooms, restaurants, event spaces and weddings and everything that we now do. I mean, the thought of somebody staying in a pub or having bedrooms in a pub, let alone getting married in a pub. I mean, it's just completely different world today.

I remember pre-mobile phone days, we used to have a pager when I was first an area manager. If this flippin’ pager went off, I had to ring the office to see who wanted me and what they wanted.

Yep, that’s before my time. Ha! So moving on to a bit about the people, what have you enjoyed most about working with your team?

Ooh, think the big biggest buzz I’ve always got out of doing the job is being part of a team and leading a team. I think working in this industry, I've loved every minute of it, you know, and it is 41 years since I started.

I still after all this time, bounce out of bed. And you know, I hear people a similar age to me say “I can't wait to retire”. And I can't think of anything worse than retiring. I absolutely love my job, I genuinely do. And I think that's because I love working with people. I love the guys I've got in the team now, but I've also worked in some great teams over the years and it's a people business, you know, fundamentally hospitality is about people. Because without the people, we just have buildings. You know, and it doesn't really matter what the building is, what really matters, is the great people that are in it.

And in our case, there's 30 buildings in our managed estate. But the people that are supportive to those pubs as well; area managers, the marketing team, or the finance team, or trainers, and more; we're all here as a central team to make support the success of the people in our pubs.

And what is it about them teams that keep the pubs alive?

I think that if you if you've got hospitality in your veins then you are the right person for our business, and I think the really successful GMs and the really successful teams have a passion to serve guests. They get a real buzz, and yes of course we all want to be paid and we all want to earn a wage, but actually the real high quality hospitality businesses are just full of passionate people. They want to give great service and really enjoy themselves as well.

I can never get my head around it, when I go into some pubs or restaurants in the country. I sometimes see people and think “Why do you work in hospitality? Why are you doing this job? You're clearly not enjoying doing this job.”  I don’t know why would you even think about working in a pub if you didn't think it was great fun? I don’t understand it. There are plenty of other places to work better suited, if you’re not happy doing it. If you’re going to be miserable, work in a non-customer facing job.

I couldn’t agree more, it’s a sparkle you’ve either got, or you don’t want to get it…

I think about some of our really successful Pub Partners and General Managers, and we've got some amazing people in our estate, all you can see is just how much they love doing what they do. Of course, they get financial rewards, but fundamentally you can see that they love doing it. Both sides of our pub business got some amazing people in them and that gives me a real buzz.

So what or who has inspired you during your career?

Oh, wow, lots of people. I think over the years I've been fortunate to work with some really talented people and the benefit of becoming a little bit more senior is you extend your networking to other organisations as well.

There are there are lots of inspirational people throughout the whole industry. If you've been in the industry as long as I've been in it, you meet so many inspiring people on a daily basis.

But it's not always the senior people that inspire you, that's a key thing for me. I go into our pubs today and I look at young people who are working in front of house, or GMs, or chefs and I think, these people are just unbelievably inspiring and they are the future of the industry and there is nothing better than seeing their development.

I think my inspiration comes from people who have who have grown through our industry because I just think that's great. I don’t believe that there is a glass ceiling in a hospitality industry, and we’re one of the few industries like that.

There are certain jobs and careers in life that you cannot do unless you're highly qualified. Things like being a doctor or a lawyer. You are never going to get to the top of the tree unless you're highly qualified. Hospitality gives people an opportunity and I'm one of those people. I didn't go to university; I went to college and then I started working in in the industry. And I do think that still happens today.

There aren't many industries where that is an option because fundamentally my job is about leadership. It's about leading other people, and you learn how to respect and listen to people, and you learn how to develop people. There isn't a degree in that and therefore you can do those roles without formal qualifications, as long as you're not an idiot.

If you could describe our managed pubs journey in three words, what would they be and why?

When William and I began considering operating managed pubs, we thought we’d give ourselves about 3 or 4 years to stabilise the tenancy business out. But it didn’t quite work out that way, it happened quicker than both of us expected. A bit of a trait of hospitality!

Over a series of weeks, we got three or four pubs notify us they were leaving, and these were pubs we’d identified as great managed sites. The Airport and the Bulls Head at Hale Barns were two sites which we knew if we didn’t take the opportunity then, we might not get it for another 10 years. So that was that, an interesting time.

One of the decisions we made early on was not to create a brand, which is why individuality is so important. Our vision was to build a collection of premium pubs, each with its own identity, rather than a looking like a chain. We wanted a group of unique pubs, even though that sometimes creates confusion about whether a pub is Managed or Partnered because they can look and behave similarly.

Our ambition has always been to grow, not just the number of pubs, but the success of each one too. We’ve been progressive and need to stay that way because if you stand still, you go backwards. And every year, we work hard to advance the retail offer, improve team training, and keep evolving.

So, based on that it would have to be individual, progressive and ambitious.

If you could go back and give your younger self a piece of advice before starting this role, what would it be?

Be a little bit more patient. It's probably the best advice I'm passing on too. I think when you when you start any role it's human nature to go at it 100 miles an hour. You want to make a difference. That's what you're here for and you want to prove yourself to others, I guess.

I think one of the learns for me is as you get more experienced, leadership comes in various forms. Patience is one where the sooner you learn to be patient the better. Because I think most people are naturally impatient, and we all want success and we want it now. But we also want people to do the job how we do it and it takes a little bit of time in your life to learn that’s not always the case.

I think when I stopped being an Area Manager and became an Operations Director 25 years ago, I guess the natural thought process was “Well, I did it like this, and I must have been successful, otherwise it wouldn't have given me this job that I've got now. So therefore that must be the way to do it”. And it's only when you get a little bit wiser, you see there's more than one way to be successful. You don't have to do it the same way. You've only got to look at the people that we've got in our business now to see that. You look at the three ROMs and BDMs and how different they all are. Could you imagine if we tried to get them all to behave in one way, it just be carnage, wouldn't it? That's never going to happen because they're such different people and they approach the job in a different way. It’s seeing people’s strengths and playing to them.

Absolutely, yeah. Sound piece of advice.
Looking ahead, obviously you're not disappearing completely. You'll still be with us one day a week. What are you most looking forward to in your new role?

I think both here and elsewhere. I'm really looking forward to being able to add a little bit back. You know, I think I've been really fortunate throughout my career. I've genuinely loved doing the job that I do in all the companies that I've worked in. I've worked hard. I've been diligent. I've done my best and I've learnt loads over the years, and you still learn. And I think that the thing I'm most looking forward to is probably just being able to do that, in a non-pressured environment where I'm not responsible or accountable. But to be able to add a bit back to other people and share a little bit of what I've learnt over the years.

I'm looking forward to doing that with Jason and I'm going to be doing that with somebody else as well in another business. Just to be able to share a little bit of what I've been through and go look, that's my view. I'm not saying it's the right view, but that's my view and how I would approach it. I'm looking forward to spending a little bit of time doing other things as well, spending a bit of time with the family will be nice, particularly given that half of them are at the other side off the world in Australia.

Yes, tell us a bit more about how you’ll be filling your new found time!

Well, I’m really looking forward to a bit more downtime. I’m fortunate enough to have a holiday by the coast in Robin Hoods Bay in Yorkshire. So we’ll spend a little bit more time over there and try and spend a little bit more time with my family. I've got children and grandchildren in Australia and I've been fortunate enough to go several times. But, I’ve always had to get back for work, so being able to go there and spend a decent amount of time over there rather than rather than rushing back, that’ll be nice and I’m looking forward to that.

I'm just hoping I can get the blend right between doing a little bit of work and having a bit more a bit more time for myself and a bit more time for my family. And hopefully I've made the right decisions, but ask me in a year's time, I might be climbing the walls and wanting my job back!

So what’s most likely to get you wanting to come back – what will you miss the most?

The thing I will miss most is colleagues, most definitely. You know, it's a people business and I’ll really miss the people. I guess I won't miss driving over the Pennines at 6:00 AM on a horrible Monday morning. Over the years I've had some fairly rough journeys, I think that's fair to say.

Yeh, they’re a good bunch! To finish things a bit more light hearted…

You’ve sat in more Exec meetings, the most I imagine. Who would you back in a great British pub quiz? And who would you not want on your team?
Oh, I definitely back Ben 100%. I mean that the things, the random stuff, that he knows is unbelievable. I would 100% back, Ben, that's probably the easiest answer I could ever give.  I wouldn't even want myself on my own team because I'm useless with that sort of stuff. So next to me, being useless, probably [David] Bremner, I guess. I'm sure he'd be useless.

Yeah. So true. Whatever it is, he'll remember it for the next lifetime.

If the exec were running a pub together, who would be behind the bar? Who'd be doing the rota? Who'd be burning the breakfast? And who would be requesting another holiday?

Bremner would be requesting off the holiday, I mean he's never here anyway. Ben would be behind the bar. I'd probably be in the kitchen burning everything given that's where I started my career off. Steve Rowlands will be doing the rotas and telling us all we got it wrong. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Oliver would be in front of the bar chatting to customers and Tony Smith would be working the till. I'm not. I'm not sure what the rest of them would be doing.

Cask or Keg?

Oh, that's a good question. I think Cask, but only just. If you'd have asked me 10 years ago. I just said 100% said Cask, but I think it’s close now.

And then finally, one word colleagues would use to describe you and do you think is accurate?

I'd like to think they'd say that I'm fair, loyal and consistent. I remember Jason saying to me about a year ago and he said it regularly since that I'm really calm and nothing really winds me up. I think that's probably the benefit of experience I guess, because I don't think I've always been like that. I think I'm quite level-headed and he is right, that it takes a lot to really annoy me.