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this is HR in review a podcast dedicated to HR thought leadership actionable advice and all the latest developments in human resource management welcome to another episode of the HR in review pod I'm your guest host today Bill banham and joining me on this episode is Dr Andy Wood ob-e-dl chief executive over at Adams PLC the home in my opinion of some of the best beers wines and spirits that the UK has to offer Andy joined Adams in the mid-1990s with responsibility for developing its customer service and supply chain operations he joined the board in 2000 as sales and marketing director becoming managing director in 2006 and chief executive in 2010 and he has an MBA a doctorate from Cranfield University and honorary doctorates in business from Anglia Ruskin University in science from Cranfield University and civil law from the University of East Anglia he has also been awarded an Obe in the Queen's birthday honors back in 2013 and is an hrh the Prince of Wales Ambassador for a responsible business in the east of England hey Andy welcome to the show today hey Bill good to be here and thank you for that very long and nice introduction well despite the fact it was long I'm going to start with you today by uh inviting you maybe to introduce yourself a bit more to our listeners telling them a bit more about yourself your career background and of course telling them all about Adams yeah well um thanks for that yeah it's been a path for Less Traveled for me uh and I think uh if you were to take myself back to my 16 year old self I probably wouldn't have thought that I'd be sitting here chatting to bill today uh having had a list of things that I've done in my career um I wouldn't have anticipated when I was 16 I was uh uh bought bought up in a sort of unpresupposing background in southeast London uh my father decided that he wanted to get myself and my brother out of South East London in the 1970s and we moved to Sleepy Norfolk it was quite a culture shock at the time um and that's become my home I went to work for Norwich Union and how a place where many people of my age living in Norwich went to work in those days and I think I was there in the Halcyon Days they put huge store behind people development training and training um values and it was just a place where somebody who had a thirst for learning could learn and and I learned a lot of my stocking trade that I've got now in those early formative years as you said in the intro I moved to Adams in the mid 90s it was really a Greenfield site I was able to bring forward a number of those sort of learnings that I had at Norwich Union I'd also completed an MBA and and Adams you know Brave move for them at the time they they allowed me to implement much change here and um I guess the rest is history this edition of HR in review is a special guest episode brought to you in partnership with our friends at the North american-based HR chat podcast a podcast focused on interviews with HR talent and Tech experts wonderful thank you very much Andy and what Andy didn't mention there um but it's another reason why I respect him is he's also a Norwich City fan a season ticket holder I understand and uh I'm also I'm also a big canaries fan listeners uh don't switch off please but we're good people and hopefully we'll be back in the Premier League next season and okay now that I'd love for you to talk a little bit about an upcoming event that uh you're going to be speaking at so uh listeners um Regular listeners of this show and my other part the HR Chat Show will know that in addition to uh loving my day job as a podcast host I also get involved with different events for HR people Talent professionals and leaders and um I'm co-organizing an event uh based on the disrupt HR brand we're relaunching the disrupt HR Norwich chapter uh and we've got a meet-up happening on November 3rd and he's going to be one of our two amazing speakers um and I should also offer a bit of a shout out to the other speaker Doug field from the co-op east of England and Judy Bishop my amazing co-host with the most Andy tell me a bit about your session at the Norwich business meeting I know that you're still formulating a few of the details and whatnot but in in general terms tell us a bit about the session and some of the hope for learning outcomes well I'm I'm looking forward to coming along Doug field is an old friend of mine we've we go back quite a long way as well um I think it's very opportune to be discussing uh you know HR and people within the context of the cost of living crisis that we've got going on and all the turmoil that's going on and uncertainty and all that on the back of two years of covid it's just the time when we need to sort of take stock of the profession of HR and how can we help our people through this really quite Torrid time and worry and time for them with much uncertain currency so that's that's going to be the sort of theme really is how can leaders work with their HR colleagues to help people navigate what is a very very difficult time whether that's you know worried about their energy prices worried about mortgage rates going up worried about their job changing their company going trying to make its way in a respect for potential recessionary period I think it's going to be a fascinating session and with all these things I usually learn more than I have to say so I'm going to be I'll be speaking but I'll also have both both ears switched on as well and listen to what people have got to say why not subscribe to the premium version of HR in review you'll get ad-free content early and extra episodes and more even better although it's the Premium Edition it's absolutely free sign up at hrreview.co.uk podcast wonderful thank you Andy I'm very much looking forward to by the way listeners um this is just me doing Shameless plugs isn't it we will get back to the content in a second um but by the way listeners uh the event is free to attend because we want to grow the community in in Norwich um so come along uh Andy and his team have kindly offered a pair of uh tickets to to one lucky attendee to uh do it to get a brewery tour of of adnams now I've got family members who've done it I haven't yet done it myself but they uh they speak very very highly of it um so there's another reason to come along as as well as all the amazing content and the networking you'll get to do oh and there's amazing food being supplied by the merchants of spice which is an amazing restaurant uh in Norwich okay Andy let's get back to the hard-hitting questions now sir in addition to your role at Adams you're also a former non-executive director at folk hotels so you've got a lot of uh you've got a lot of Insight here in terms of the hospitality industry talk to me a bit about the effects that the pandemic had on the hospitality industry in the UK and efforts to to attract and develop employees in a post-pandemic world well the hospitality industry is is one of the biggest sectors in the UK economy employing some three million people um and with regards to the pandemic I remember it very well March 23 2020 when the then prime minister Boris Johnson said that uh Hospitality was to go into lockdown and we thought it was going to be for six weeks because it turned out it was six months in 2020 then another six months in 2021. and that presents real challenges for a business that is a people-led business that requires on people to serve requires people to serve its customers we're not not like a technology company that does everything through an app um we uh very much are about face-to-face meeting people uh creating great experiences for people and to be unable to do that for a period of time and for our staff to realize that the company that they love and work for had more than 50 of its uh revenues vaporized overnight um was quite a shock and um it took quite a lot of holding things together regular briefings using technology I mean clearly we we all all companies implemented technology so quickly so that they could keep in touch with one another um and it uh really uh drove changes in behaviors but having said that you know we stayed true to our notion of being a purpose-led uh values-driven business and probably will return to that a bit later on but um it was a very very traumatic time built if you enjoy the HR and review podcast please consider giving us a five-star rating in iTunes or in your podcast app of choice this helps others find us and grow our community of HR and related professionals okay thank you Randy and how difficult has it been to to attract and retain employees since since yeah I've been called at the end of the pandemic in in 2022 certainly and that's in the context of the great resignation people have tried other things over the last couple of years people are demanding higher salaries more benefits all the rest of it what are some of those challenges that you guys have facing well I mean we we've we've all suffered the great resignation um we had the pandemic uh so trying to you know that probably has faded in uh the back of people's memories but trying to maintain service when uh members of staff were getting pinged for covid as well and then we've seen um you know as a result of some decisions that the UK electorate took back in 2016 we saw lots of people go out of the workforce and we saw older workers uh exit the workforce on the back of the pandemic as well um what what steps did we take as I said earlier we stuck to this notion of our purpose and our values but we also Revisited our value employee value proposition and absolutely uh made it a mission of ours as soon as we had enough cash to be able to do so to move ourselves to being a real living wage employer and I'm very proud of that step and very proud that um that Adam's employees were able to benefit from that because they work so so hard and they work so hard during that period and continue to work really hard for us I think it also builds into the reputation of Adams as a caring employer bringing bringing these values to life and our employer brand is is is a very good one our challenge really has not been in retaining uh attracting and retaining Frontline employees our challenge has been the poaching of people further up the management hierarchy and that's been a real challenge for us and um you know very recently we've seen with one individual that we were virtually into a bidding war and you know you have to say at some point enough is enough uh hopefully we're on the other side of that but uh it was a very difficult time for us there's no doubt about that but uh you know we're a high trust business we try and try to be as authentic as we can and we bring our values particularly around people and Community to life at every opportunity excellent thank you Andy now Andy we're living in an uncertain times and uh a recession is looming uh we've just as we record this interview in early October we've just had the latest uh report come out and actually it was a 0.2 percent uh growth in the last quarter in the UK which was a bit of a surprise to some people but nonetheless folks are expecting um the next three four maybe five quarters to be pretty difficult uh and the I'm going to challenge you in one minute or less what are your predictions for jobs in the UK hospitality industry in 2023 I think uh they're pretty pretty good actually provided the hospitality industry can step forward and meet the wage challenges that uh that are out there a job in Hospitality offers so much um it's very much about team working it's about dealing with people from all walks of life um it's about problem solving and Hospitality still offers huge social Mobility so if I if you may indulge me our chief operating officer a young lady I'll call a young lady called Karen Hester uh joined adnams in around the time that I did a little bit before me as a part-time office cleaner and she progressed through the ranks and she's Chief Operating Officer and sits with myself and my colleagues in the boardroom now and makes a huge contribution hospitality is one of the few industries that can offer that and I think that can be a real draw what Hospitality has got to do is tell that story better okay we indulged you and that was still within about 60 seconds and they good work good work um so uh I personally see more and more Adam's products in the shops and the different pubs that I made frequent from time to time and that's amazing uh my current favorite products of yours are Mosaic and ease up I've got some ease up I think downstairs in the fridge right now um based on Adam's experiences a tremendous growth I'd like to now get your take on all your suggestions on how leaders can scale processes and talent management efforts at PACE and at scale well I think the Innovation that you've seen um from admins and and you know one of our sort of phrases around amongst our values there is that we're Innovative and evolving um is that we don't want people to hang their brains up on the Copic when they come in in the mornings we want people to fully engage these massive bio computer that they have between their ears so the way that you do that is trust people trust people allow people to come up with ideas there's been some fantastic products smidgen which is a very low alcoholic solution for drinking gin uh 0.5 ghost ship again both of these Innovations came from the shop floor really and many of our beers come from the shop floor and we've got one out at the moment called sea fog and I was chatting to the young Brewer last Thursday about how he came up with that and this is you know allowing people to express themselves and trust in people to to uh to have a go people don't come in to make mistakes they come in to do the best work they can do and that all needs leaders to trust their people that they're going to do that and within that of course we have a whole range of processes we have a modern state-of-the-art Brewery we have a modern state-of-the-art Distillery so these people are playing on wonderful equipment and of course we also have some amazing leaders who are real experts in their field not only on a regional National but also International platform so we've got the right conditions for us to innovate and grow and scale our business you know I was chatting to a Barman the other day in a pub in in Norwich and uh we got we got chatting and I mentioned I'm interviewing you today and uh he he said to me he said when you interview Andy but Bill if he mentions ghost ship and the uh the low alcohol version of that so tell him my suggestion which uh for Branding would be ghost of a ship for the low alcohol version I thought that was quite clever so there we go I'm passing that on to you yeah very clever I'll I'll take that one yeah thanks Bill Andy we've already got a few minutes left here I want to be respectful of your time so just a few more questions for you and the next one I'm going to challenge you again to answer in one minute or less please um and it's a standard question we ask of all of our guests if you could pass on one crucial lesson that you've learned in your career in one minute or less what would be your top tip for HR pros and leaders well I think I uh sort of hinted at this at the start of the podcast really and that is to seek lifelong learning and that may sound a bit cliched but um when you're at school when you graduate from University the journey is just beginning as I said the path that I walked along to arrive in this place was quite a Meandering path and the important thing is not to get to uptight about that but to relax into it you will do your best work when I did my uh doctorate at Cranfield University A lady called Kim Turnbull James who was my PhD supervisor she said to me Andy you'll do your best work when you've done all of this and she was absolutely right I finished that way back in 2006 2007 and my best work I would say although of course others would be the judge of that has taken place in that time in that time so you know overnight successes usually take 10 years or more to build and stick to the lifelong learning Mantra that's my words on that thank you Andy another standard question we ask of all of our guests feel free to take a little bit longer if you wish what is the single biggest change this is the big question what is the single biggest change that you think will happen in HR and Leadership over the next five to ten years well I think um the introduction of Technology the introduction of social media we are only at the nascent stages of this at the moment think what it will be like in five years or ten years time and leaders are going to have to deal with the dichotomy of having more and more remote workers whilst also make you know somehow engender in a team spirit and making people feel part of a team and leaders being their authentic authentic selves but you know via technology I think these are huge challenges I think what we've also seen through uh the covid years is people's own health and well-being and mental health has been really challenging and I think leaders have to be ever more cognizant of those things so a real number of challenges driven by the fact that businesses for efficiency reasons because their teams their employees want to work remotely or they want hybrid and Blended Blended working routines these are all things that how do you engender that team spirit whilst working in that sort of environment and and how do you maintain and keep an eye on the health and well-being and mental health of your teams I think these are huge challenges for leaders as as we move through the next five and on two in the next 10 years just finally for today how can our listeners connect with you so maybe that's through your email maybe LinkedIn maybe you're super cool and you're all over Tick Tock and also of course how can they learn more about all the cool things happening over at Adams well I I'm far from super cool so uh I'm not on Tick Tick Tock but you can get me on Twitter and the adnams and you can pick up my email address and get into me via the admins website adnams.co.uk excellent well that just leads me to say for today Andy woods I've enjoyed this conversation I'm looking forward to meeting you in person on November 3rd thank you very much for being my guest today absolute pleasure Bill thank you very much the HR and review podcast is brought to you by HR review dot k dot UK hreview.co.uk is a website dedicated to human resources and related professionals news items are posted daily together with analysis looking in depth at topical HR issues you can sign up for a range of specialist newsletters at hreview.co.uk sign up and follow us on Twitter at HR review or join us on LinkedIn and Facebook thank you for listening