Assistant Manager Review

As an assistant manager at a busy managed pub in Flintshire, North Wales, I support both my general manager and my team of over 30 employees in the day-to-day operations of a licensed premises business. This includes people, time, and capacity management; maintaining and improving great customer satisfaction and overall quality of service, food, and drink; performing weekly mandatory tasks and responsibilities, such as stock takes, and ordering; and being diligent when it comes to pre-agreed budgets and forecasting in terms of sales and labour costs.

I have developed my understanding and knowledge of my business and its parent company goals and targets, as well as a greater comprehensive understanding of the hospitality and catering industry as a whole. I have improved my ability to assess and build upon my strengths and weaknesses, and how my business fits into the current economic climate on both a local and national level. I have also enjoyed being able to write again, especially by completing technical certificate assessments.

I have enjoyed being able to write up assessments after researching and developing my knowledge and understanding of a topic and/or subject, and then having the opportunity to review and discuss my work with my learning coach. I have enjoyed utilising my improved and newfound understanding and knowledge of my business, its company, and the industry at my place of work, and discussing this with my team through coaching and team development planning.

After previously enrolling on college courses beforehand, and deciding to pull out due to the poor organisation of the course and there not being coherent communication, I am impressed by the structure of my apprenticeship course and how my learning coach has talked me through this structure every session we catch up, as opposed to overwhelming me with the ins and outs of the course in one sitting.

My manager has always supported my learning as an apprentice ever since I started my Level 2 years ago... I am now on my Level 4! His flexibility with the rota allows me to dedicate specific days for my course, and he does generally ask about my progression through the course and if I need any support or guidance from him.

I have just recently changed learning coaches. Nevertheless, my previous learning coach was very empathetic towards my circumstances in a busy business and the duties and responsibilities that come with it due to my job role. Similarly, I am looking forward to building a professional relationship with my new learning coach as I come into the final few months of my qualification.

The criteria and structure of my course, and the qualification itself, I think, has bettered my performance at my place of work. After 7 years in my current job, 5 in my current job role, and 14 in the industry, I have discovered that my apprenticeship and the learning that comes with it does motivate me more.

I believe that there may be some networking events at our HQ in Wolverhampton, but not so much at my place of work. However, after saying that, my team have enjoyed a few celebratory outings paid for by the company after achieving our sales incentives over Christmas: nice to get the entire team out for an evening, chin-chin!

Yes

Although the work is hard and the strains of hospitality can have an eventual toll, the long-term positives far outweigh the short-term negatives: Marstons Rewards, NEST pension scheme, TRONC tips scheme, birthdays off, double time on Christmas Day, holiday accrual based on hours worked, training paid for by the company (e.g. personal licence holder, BIIAB cellar management,) apprenticeships paid for by the company, great online trading courses and option learning skills, opportunities to build rapport with guests, social skill engagement as being part of a large team, and the satisfaction that comes with knowing that you have achieved and excelled on shift.

My team describes our relationship as being a family; my boss says it is like managing a football team. Either way, this mentality stems from being a close knit team and strong friendships do evolve from this.