Do Your Bar or Pub Employees Protect Your Liquor License? A bar consultant explains why they should

Over the past several years, Thrive’s bar consultants have witnessed the resilience of BC liquor businesses. We’ve seen bars and pubs face and overcome many challenges amid the pandemic and struggling economy. One such challenge that is still very much with us, is employee acquisition and retention. In this article, we’ll discuss how problems finding the right employees (and keeping them) affects liquor license compliance and how important compliance training has become.

How We Got Here

It’s been a few years since the height of the pandemic and its shockwaves are still reverberating. For pubs and bars, COVID meant enduring forced closures (some closed for good), scaling back operating hours, and laying off employees. Canada-wide, employees revaluated their work lives and took stock of what was important to them. Many quit their jobs in what became known as “The Great Resignation”. Then, if that wasn’t enough, inflation ballooned, interest rates rose, and finding employees continued being a challenge.

Perfect Conditions for Compliance Problems

Though COVID is in the rear view mirror, the economy is improving and inflation is slowing, worker shortages are an ongoing problem that leads to other problems, such as Liquor Primary (LP) license infractions. Before looking at how compliance suffers, one fact should be stated:  your employees are the first line of defence against compliance missteps. Ideally, whether working on the pub floor or doing back of house duties, part of an employee’s job is ensuring that your business meets the terms and conditions of your LP license.

A cascade of issues that affect operational efficiency and oversight flows from employee acquisition struggles:

• You’re too busy plugging holes in shift schedules and picking up the slack to pay attention to compliance
• While running short staffed, your employees are doing more work and don’t have time to attend to issues that can lead to compliance infractions
• You shortcut your onboarding training process because you need people up and running quickly. Because you’re under pressure and tight for time, compliance training is moved to the back burner or ignored completely
• Infractions grow, frequently unnoticed in the chaotic conditions and frenetic pace of the workday

Here’s the irony: This is exactly when your business needs compliance training the most.

When To Do Compliance Training

For pubs and bars, our consultants recommend:

1. Compliance training as part of new hire onboarding
   You can make it mandatory for new employees to read a compliance training manual or compliance training and test them on their retention of the information.
2. Compliance manuals and checklists
   A compliance manual and daily compliance checklists provides invaluable reference.
3. Annual liquor license compliance refresher training
   Mandatory, annual “refresher training” can further safeguard your liquor license. Annual training also emphasizes for employees the importance of their role in meeting LP license terms and conditions.

Further reading: “How Liquor License Consultants Help Bars Find the Best Employees”.
Read more articles about bar consulting services.

Questions About Employee Acquisition & Training?

Thrive Liquor & Cannabis Advisors provides bar consulting services that save you time and protect your hard-earned LP license. If you’d like to implement employee compliance training and manuals in your business, our experienced liquor consultants can help!