In today’s episode, we are going to have the privilege of having David Rodgers in our show. He is the United States controller of the largest hospitality company in the United Kingdom. He's going to share with us some great insights, both on a business and personal basis, in dealing with the changes that we've all gone through over the last 18 months. So thanks for tuning in, and let's get this show on the road.

How Did You Cope With the Pandemic? In March 2020, it started with the UK government saying to the general public to stay away from environments that involved indoor mixing, including hospitality and leisure. Within the week, David and his team were literally told to close overnight. It was Friday when they were told at five o'clock, that was the last day of trading. So literally, the clubs, hotels, and restaurants in the UK closed overnight. They then went into what they call regional lockdowns.

Fortunately, they were allowed to reopen under restriction on the fourth of July. They've seen across the world the trajectory of the virus that changes very dramatically. They then went into a complete lockdown for a month, just before Christmas. They're then allowed to reopen for about three days after Christmas and then went into a complete lockdown, again as a country for hospitality and several industries on New Year's eve.

They weren't allowed to open again until the twelfth of April. Then, they've recently opened the doors on the seventeenth of May, and they're hoping fingers crossed that on the twenty-first of June, they're able to open without any restrictions on people mixing the number of households that can come and eat and drink with them. So it's been a very challenging 18 months for them.

As a result, the UK government had to come up with a sort of financial support package. It took a couple of weeks for them to tell the public to close. There were probably 11,000 people who weren't really sure what would be happening with their jobs. So they tried to manage that until they could provide people with their outreach wages for the period of closure.

There was obviously the business that still needed to run even though the pubs weren't open. It's been very challenging for the business owners because they've gone from seeing people on a daily basis, whether it’s the support center or the head office. They then quickly had to come up with different ways to communicate with different groups of employees. It’s because they had people who were working all the way through. They had people who were furloughed and weren't able to be contacted to be back to work.

From that point of view, they’d be quite challenging for them. They quickly realized that the employees being, whether it be financial, physical, emotional, have to be prepared to be put high on the agenda. So that's what they really focused on, creating an environment for them to feel they were still part of an organization when they weren't physically at work.

What Did You Do to Make Your Employees Feel They're Part of the Organization? The first thing they did was communicate with them regularly. David made it organized by doing it virtually, like Zoom, through chat, and they even did some charitable fundraising activity. It just helps people. They help people in the sense that you're off work for three months, and someone's going to pay you. But, at some point, they really want to keep themselves busy.

So they were helping people understand what volunteering opportunities there were for them, whether it’d be helping the NHS and the supermarkets who were struggling to keep up with demand on online deliveries. People didn't want to go and visit the supermarkets or wherever, so they tried to do a lot for the team to work to help them get through this tough situation.

Food Delivery and Online Groceries During the Lockdown They were already doing a little bit of taking away and delivery prior to this, but it wasn't particularly a strong sales stream for them. As they went into lockdown, it became apparent that a lot of people were looking for delivery and takeout opportunities. So it's something they've got Uber Eats delivery. They're in the UK, so they could use them as partners to develop those offers.

Then, many of the foods would have spoiled if they just left it sitting in freezers and fridges. So they ended up donating the food to local food banks and for the local charities. Obviously, it's close to the company's heart in terms of looking after people within the communities they operate in.

How Do You Handle Your Other Bills? For anybody watching in the UK, they'll know that David, although they're a pub and restaurant company, now did have a brewing business that they entered into a joint venture with Carlsberg. One of the world's largest brewers.

That gave them a cash injection into the business, which meant they could continue to pay their landlords. It's because many landlords were also waiting for bills to get paid. So David had to pay for his rent abatement, which has been extended till the end of the year.

David said that they were lucky in that aspect that they were able to stem, not all of it, but there's a huge part of the cash flow that they get out of the businesses since they were still closed. So, they, in some respects, have been lucky in the timing of the cash inflow into the business. But, they’ve announced their results, which anybody can see online if they want to. Besides that, they still had to go to get waivers from the banks for some of the loans that they've already got since they're not generating enough cash at the moment to hit the profit needed.

What Happened When You Opened Again? The first couple of weeks, they were only able to open outdoors. So the first couple of weeks were quite good. The weather was nice. It was reasonably pleasant sitting outside the pub. But, the third, fourth, and fifth week, before we could open inside, the weather became a little more inclement.

They did see a lot of people with scarves and gloves nursing a pint of beer outside. They'd be loving British pubs on any occasion. They were just thankful they could open up the business to bring people back. But it’s quite interesting that there's a little bit of craziness of being locked down, and people want to get back out to the pub.

However, it also affected their teams because they weren't used to obviously being that busy due to being locked down for so long. There have also been many challenges around resourcing of people who have gone off and found other jobs elsewhere and decided not to come back into the hospitality industry. Having reduced teams means working more hours, which puts added pressure on their physical and mental well-being.

They're almost coming at it now, again, back with focusing on what we can do to help them understand what support there is around them and how to look after themselves is hugely important at this time.

They've spent a lot of time training the team and getting them to understand the rules. Also, they've got to operate in helping them understand the technology they've introduced to allow them to use it. It includes table bookings for specific lengths of time and operation in different service cycles within their businesses. They've also introduced table service in almost every single interval of every single business to try and alleviate that risk of people mixing at bars while ordering drinks or food.

Besides that, David knows how to communicate with their teams a lot better. They now have new communication platforms, new training apps, and the like. It makes it a little bit more accessible for everybody so that they can get people up to speed as quickly as they need them to be. It’s a positive thing when they adopt technology that has significantly helped them accelerate their work and boost efficiency. They have to make sure they're able to support their guests to get the best experience. It also allows their teams to enjoy their time on the job as well.

How Did Technology Help You and Your Business During the Pandemic? The new training app that they've launched has been an immense help in the business. These employees in the pub can be trained quickly, instantly, and almost instantaneously. So it really appeals to the age group of 16 to 34 years old. That's stepped it on the level, but because the regulations have been changing so often. That’s when they’ve been able to do right all the time.

Besides that, they've been able to cascade any necessary update or information very quickly. Anything around the training really helped the team because that empowers these employees to support the guests and get the experience they want in the pubs. Hence, they have to train the teams to understand the different ways of taking orders and other approaches, like greeting the guests and talking to them about how they can place and take their orders. In fact, the app they have allows them to order and pay at the table. David and his teams will approach the customers to take their orders digitally, like on a tablet, and they’ll pay using credit or debit cards. That’s why without technology, it can be so challenging for them.

Where Do You See The Current Trends Taking Us? Since many people have been doing things differently for so long, their habits might have been changed. There'll be a lot of guests who might want to go back to order at the bar or traditional table service. But others will adopt the technology as the normal sort of way of doing business. Besides that, the use of technology will also enhance their experience even more.

Moreover, there's also a fine balance between still having the hospitable nature of being greeted and seated versus being able to do it all yourself. Hence, it's not about being as fast and as efficient as possible if you are going to do your grocery and shopping every week, for example.

“Fuelled Fit and Fired Up” The book of David is about him sharing some of the things he's tried to do on a personal level to give himself some stability in his life and recognize that people have to try and look after themselves first before they can start helping others. It also talks about how you feel physically that sometimes you need rest and recuperation. It's about breathing, sleeping, and it's about how you clear your mind at the end of the day.

How you fuel up yourself both personally and professionally. It’s because you also need to think about the well-being of your teams at work or in your business. It's been important for you to ensure that you are getting the work and life balance, making you perform at the top of your game. You don't have to be perfect all the time.

It's not about looking perfect on Instagram. It's okay to have a chocolate bar or have a glass of beer sometimes. But, again, it's just about making sure that you have a balance in whatever you do in life. You may all know that there are people who never get infected with the virus, but many gained the COVID19 pounds.

Moreover, David started writing his book, “Fuelled Fit and Fired Up," a few months before the pandemic began. It was when he came to realize that being fit and healthy is so important. It’s because he wasn’t physically fit then, and potentially, he was not also healthy in some aspects of his life. That’s why you have to think about what you're eating every day and take a different approach to your overall health and well-being.

It's about building habits for the future. The past is the past. You can't change what you ate five years ago. Now, what you can do is start building habits that you maintain for the rest of your life so that you can be a way better.

The book is now available on Amazon, and people from the US, UK, and other countries can make orders online. Ebook and paperback forms of the book are also available, depending on your preference.

What’s The Importance of Living Healthily? I do remember them saying that the people who were dying from COVID, more than less of them had suffered from obesity, and others were smokers. So I think it makes you more and more resilient to respond to outside forces coming in on you that you can get from the habits you can build from this book.

David said it's about building it up and finding something that you enjoy. It’s because if you enjoy it, you're more likely to stick with it. But you found something that fits into your lifestyle that you can continue doing. And, to him, one of the biggest things about forming new habits is finding something you enjoy. You could be walking, running, cycling, and you could also hit training. It could be whatever it is. Just do something you enjoy, and do it more than you used to.

Thirty minutes that you're out walking in the morning could make a big difference and might significantly save you from spending your time in a hospital bed if you’re not forming good and healthy habits and lifestyles. Like what David shared with me, it doesn't matter how fast you run. It's still quicker than the people sitting on the couch. So anything you’re doing now will have a significant impact on you in the future.

The Bottomline When you look after your overall health and well-being, you'll surely have more years to spend with your loved ones and more time running your business. Hence, if you're a business owner or an entrepreneur, your employees will make a difference for you and your brand. So make sure you support them all the way no matter what challenges they're facing today, especially during the pandemic. Whether you're in the UK or the US, we've all got different business challenges, and it will be the people who get through them.

It doesn't matter whether you're in the manufacturing or hospitality industry. It's the people that make a difference, and it's them who will push your business forward. So the business leaders need to remember and focus on that as we get through the pandemic.

Keep in mind that having a healthy balance as a business owner and an individual is so important. So if anything like this ever happens again, that you can draw on the experience and make new habits, you can be successful in the new normal and even get through it.