General Manager Review

General manager of a pub/restaurant. My duties include anything and everything required to run the business. Leading the team, setting up the business for trade, running the shift, managing the bigger picture of the busines. I am also responsible for recruitment in my site and controlling certain finances, leading team meetings, etc.

yes, mostly developing existing skills but some of the leadership courses have shown me different ways of working when communicating and leading the team. Particularly things in the Leadership styles module we did at the start and the module 3 areas around identifying stakeholders and working to manage each of them. There is also a lot that isn't relevent, I think if it was hospitality focused it would be more useful.

I enjoy it but it is stressful, I dont have the free time I expected to have when the programme started and find myself behind when completing the coursework. I havn't done any studying since high school so I expected a bit more actual training rather than one webinar and two skills days every two months and then just left to work on everything outselves. No one actually teaching us anything on a regular basis.

It seemed very poorly organised initially, our lead trainer was off sick and there was a lot of confusion about what was happening around December/January time. We had two assigments scheduled for December and early January which was just impossible for those of us in hospitality and it put me behind and I've not managed to catch up yet. The skills days themselves have been hit or miss, half of day 1 is rehashing the webinar, then half of day 2 is rehashing day 1.

My manager is great and very encouraging, she completed the course herself so is very proactive in encouraging me to complete the work and ensures nothing is clashing with skills days. I havn't yet got to sit with her for the skills validation section but have informally discussed it during business reviews.

very little. I asked for some additional support just last week and haven't heard anything back yet. We have very little contact between skills days and teams catch up calls. Back in december there was almost no contact and everyone was confused who our trainer actually was. I've had two teams calls with my trainer since we started and there was no follow up to them.

I think it is very useful in helping me in my role, the job and how we communicate has changed a lot in recent years and learning new skills in this new working environment is great. I think the course could be more hospitality focused and the timings could be better to avoid times when it is inconvenient for us.

recently held a team night out and helped us bond with some of the newer team members, district social events with other GMs. They could be more frequent as it really did some good work for the team which is something I have been looking into organising on a more regular basis.

Yes

I worked for other companies in the past and M&B has been great since the day I joined. Very helpful and felt supported over COVID and closures and given time to work on rebuilding the business. At a district level there is lots of team work and support amongst the GMs and always someone you can call for support.

learn your systems. Having used specific sytems for stock, payroll etc across three different companies and M&B having their own, that was the biggest change. Get to know your team and don't be afraid to make changes, if the site needs a new manager, chances are it needs new and creatrive thinking and the longer you let it go the way it always has the longer it'll take to make changes.