Loneliness without the pubs

With soaring costs leading the number of pub closures in the UK to reach its highest quarterly figure in over a decade, it’s a very challenging time for the hospitality industry – especially for those working in it. The industry has already been through some of the toughest times with the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent economic and staffing difficulties that followed. Hospitality is all about the people so for staff that are surrounded by that atmosphere, these closures could trigger loneliness, as well as increased stress around financial pressures in their personal lives. While there is an increased understanding that a healthy, happy workforce is more productive, more profitable, delivers better customer service (a hospitality businesses core product), the truth is that most are just trying to stay afloat through these tough times and don’t have the finances or capacity to invest in their teams, demonstrated by these recent pub closures surging.

The hospitality industry - pubs and beyond - needs to have preventative resources in place to ensure that in the case of redundancies and closures, staff feel better supported.

Tim Etherington-Judge Healthy Hospo

Simon Neville

PRODUCTIVITY is one of those topics that seems to weave its way through the entire business ecosystem. Each day we hear ministers tell us about economic growth and how we can stimulate the economy through investment, creating jobs and driving productivity.

But one aspect for a strong workforce the government could do more on, is highlight some of the schemes already available to make the workplace better for those who might be struggling.

During the Industrial Revolution, poor working conditions led to the introduction of health and safety measures - designed to stop manual workers from being killed.

The premise of these laws remains to this day and few are arguing they are a burden on businesses.

They were also seen as a route to ensuring staff were better rested and more productive.

But today, most jobs are in the services sector - meaning hours of sitting behind a desk, keeping on top of emails and using our brains like never before.

A few businesses are trialling Four Day weeks and early reports suggest they are generally successful at improving productivity.

Mental health awareness has also improved, although support to services for employees can remain patchy, and companies seem genuinely interested in “doing the right thing”.