PLS REVIEW

from Australian Hotelier May 2022

DESIGN AND BUILD: THE CROWN

Pub Leaders Summit 2022

Around 200 of Australia’s top publicans and industry leaders headed into Sydney for an action-packed day of presentations, panel discussions, and networking on April 4. Here are some highlights from the day.

Some key learnings

The staffing crisis was a key theme at this year’s Pub Leaders Summit and tackling the topic head on was workforce change expert Alicia Stephenson who took the stage as keynote speaker.

In her presentation, Win the talent war: How to attract and retain Millennial Leaders and Gen Z workers, Stephenson kicked the day off with a research-backed analysis on cutting-edge recruitment, retention and leadership strategies for the recovering sector.

As CEO of the Centre for Generational Dynamics and an organisational psychologist, Stephenson explored the key motivators for Millennial and Gen Z staff based on four years of data and deep dive discovery interviews.

“What we need to realise is that in this industry, we capture workers young. Now this is undeniably one of the industry’s strengths… but the question is, what keeps young people in roles longer?”

With this in mind, Stephenson stressed the importance of the first six months of employment.

“We need to understand that the longer that person stays in our organisation, the better that is for our bottom line.

“The more we have to offer them, the less we will have to attract and retain new people, so is it not incumbent upon us to make that first six-month experience a little bit more exciting?”

Stephenson outlined a number of research-backed techniques to keep new staff engaged and in the business for longer, including reward and recognition programs, mentorship, future business owners training to encourage those with a side-gig, and ‘meaning matters’ programs that bring staff together to make the world a better place.

“We need to break down that traditional idea of ‘this is where you begin and this is how you learn from the ground up’.

“I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that – everybody needs to learn the ropes,” she said. “But if we can have some exciting things injected into those first six months, new staff will get a much broader picture of the ecosystem and of what it’s like to work in hospitality.”

2022 Industry outlook

Here’s what’s on the horizon for pub operators according to KPMG Australia’s Morgan Kelly, who shared an in-depth outlook with attendees at the Pub Leaders Summit 2022 last month.

Sustainability and technology look likely to become major focus areas foroperators in the few years, according to Morgan Kelly, KPMG Australia’s globalsector lead of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure – Restructuring.

Kelly shared these and many other predictions with attendees at the PubLeaders Summit 2022 which was held last month in Pyrmont, Sydney.

In his presentation Hospitality Outlook 2022 – Living with Covid, Kellyexplored the impact of fuel prices, inflation, interest rates, consumer spendingand wage inflation on the industry now and into the future.

“The key elephants in the room are inflation and interest rates. We’reexpecting to see inflation over the next 12 to 18 months driven by fuel prices,”Kelly said.

Labour shortages would also continue to challenge operators, he said. “Thesector is going to have to come to terms with food labour shortages and workout how to embrace those and how to lean into that because it’s a challengethat’s not going away.”

According to Kelly, the shortages would drive increased uptake ofautomation, and he said technology would also be embedded into more andmore hospitality offerings to enhance customer experience.

“In Europe we are seeing the use of technology to transform customerexperiences. We’ve seen some really interesting things like installation digital artand augmented reality displays, where you actually have an augmented realitymenu floating above the table.”

There’s also been a huge acceleration in sustainability in the industry, Kellysays. “Things like Co2 emission reductions are a major focus for operatorsbecause it’s a major focus for their customers.

“We’d expect to see the consumer demand for environmentally-sourcedsustainable and healthy produce to be reflected in Australia as well.”

LEADING TEAMS

The Pub Leaders Summit has followed two years of extreme turbulence for the sector, and the event aimed to bring the industry together to explore new solutions and sow the seeds of recovery.

Leading operators including Laundy Group director Danielle Richardson, Applejack Hospitality co-founder Hamish Watts, Quantaco advisor and NTIA chair Justine Baker (pictured below) and Momento CEO Marcello Colosimo, discussed the challenges and opportunities in the current landscape, including the importance of better positioning the industry to school leavers, building stronger career paths, and the benefits of investing in female talent.

INNOVATION IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Innovation was a strong theme at the Pub Leaders Summit, with sessions taking place on the business of food and beverage, navigating the staffing crisis, and the path to growth for smaller operators.

Some of the latest pub pivots and new and evolving revenue streams including e-commerce, affordable accommodation, branded cocktails, and outdoor expansion were also revealed by a panel comprising pub Odd Culture Group CEO James Thorpe, accommodation innovator Paul Schulte, Sand Hill Road CEO Bianca Dawson, and AVC’s chief marketing officer Kylie Moncur (pictured below).

Speaker highlights

Industry experts from JLL Hotels, ME&U, Quantaco, and the Gaming Technologies Association joined the Pub Leaders Summit line-up to share their insights. Here’s a snapshot.

Post-pandemic property values

JLL Hotels & Hospitality MD John Musca took to the stage to share his top pub property predictions.

“Things are still positive – there will be little or no change in values because there’s still lots of capital to absorb the supply.

“But whether it’s a little bit of talk about the war, the cost of living, the pending election, and interest rates… there’s certainly been more hotel owners looking to rationalise their portfolios,” he said.

The Future of Hospitality

Tech entrepreneur and me&u founder Stevan Premutico discussed the important role of technology in recovery. “As brutal as Covid has been, there have absolutely been some silver linings… silver linings on things that we can do better, things that we can be smarter at, and how we can survive a bit more efficiently,” he told attendees.

“Customers want to spend more in our venues and they want to spend significantly more, and we know that because we’ve been doing this for the past five years. We’ve just got to get out of the way.”

Unlocking data

Quantaco founder and CEO Anthony Sullivan discussed the link between data and better business outcomes.

“Often, the most important part of the analytics process is to clearly define the problem statement, because business owners and their operators know their businesses better than anyone else,” he said on the day.

“Once the problem statement is identified, the analytics simply look for patterns in the data to help solve the problem.”

Cashless Gaming

Gaming Technologies Association CEO Jinesh Patel explored the future of gaming and cashless technology, and discussed upcoming contactless gaming trials that are taking place in a number of NSW venues.

“The pandemic to a degree has accelerated the need for cashless gaming in our venues. Hygiene concerns around money is just one of the examples, along with the customer-led trend of people not using cash and instead using contactless payment systems.

“The opportunity here is to provide technology in our venues, that from a harm minimisation point of view can allow our customers to voluntarily, if they choose to do so, manage their gaming spend,” he told attendees.