As with most things Blind Tiger, the launch of a new training programme has not been what one could describe as ‘typical’ or ‘off the shelf’ Having rolled out across three venues this week, to incredible feedback, we imagine that taking a unique ‘Blind Tiger Inns approach’ has once again turned out for the best!
Back in late 2022, when asked what more we could do to support our teams and partners, the big response was ‘training’. We saw this as a massive positive and immediately began looking at training companies and agencies that could offer courses for our people.
We soon realised, however, that the training that was out there was not what we wanted or needed. In fact, more importantly, we quickly realised that we ourselves didn’t know what training we needed for our most important people. What a disaster!
At this point we appointed a partner company to undertake mystery visits to each of our venues. And of course, these were not your typical tick box mystery visits. These were ‘Blind Tiger Inns mystery visits’, undertaken by industry professionals with no brief other than, find out as much as you can and report back, leaving no stone unturned.
Of course, the results were amazing, and at times, not so amazing. We did however have a very clear understanding of what would be found in our venues, during key trading periods.
Now this is where, we decided a training programme should be devised. Not on what we think we need training on, not even what we think we are struggling with, but on what people visiting our venues actually see. This was the beginning of the training journey.
At this stage, we had established what people saw in our venues. Our goal was to improve further on the good things, and improve the not so good things.
And so, our training programme was born. We worked closely with an amazing training partner, not coincidentally, the same partner who had undertaken the mystery visits, 700 Solutions Ltd.
Emma Greathead, founder of 700 Solutions, likes the way we approached the training by beginning with the mystery visits and tells us,
“Working with many companies, it’s interesting to see the approach taken by Blind Tiger.
The group specialises in community-focused pubs, so every pub has a different personality.
Chris and the team wanted to ensure we were delivering training that was in line with their needs. We began with detailed mystery visits of every pub, followed by meetings with each pub manager, so we could fully understand the teams and training needs.
We have developed a fully bespoke training workshop on the back of these visits, targeted specifically at team development and service standards and we are already seeing results through our anonymous feedback from the teams and responses to the workshops. We can’t wait to see the future impact this training will have on customers and the business.”
The first pubs have had their sessions this week, and the feedback to the ops team has been incredible, with loads of engagement. We have given incentives to the team for attending the courses, completing the quiz and also explained a lot more in detail about the other incentives we have throughout the year as a business. Across various initiatives, our people may find themselves being rewarded by attending festivals and gigs, flying out to Berlin, meals out, Amazon vouchers or even trips to Dubai; it really is all going on as Blind Tiger Inns takes ensures it is “Set for Success”.
