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CHAMPIONING PEOPLE WITH PASSION

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WHAT WE'RE WORKING TOWARDS

Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Under our Championing People pillar, we have set 21 targets that will guide how we invest in learning, strengthen engagement, foster inclusion and create exceptional experiences for colleagues and guests over the coming years.

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LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT

Investing in learning and development helps our people build skills, progress their careers and grow with the business. In 2025, we supported career progression through 18 internal promotions via our Crafting Careers platform and strengthened leadership capability through our development programmes, including six General Manager appointments through Top Talent. Learning engagement remained strong, with 73.6% adoption of our Thrive platform, while 99 colleagues undertook apprenticeships across the business, achieving qualification rates well above the national average.

WHAT’S NEXT?

  • Expand tailored learning pathways across more areas of the business.
  • Strengthen leadership development programmes and talent pipelines.
  • Embed learning into everyday work and continue measuring impact.
  • Continue building our ambition to be the best place to grow a career in the South West.
Hear how our Top Talent programme shaped one Assistant Manager's career.
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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Engaged colleagues are key to building a motivated, resilient and high-performing business. In 2025, we strengthened colleague engagement by launching an Employee Forum to improve two-way communication and ensure employee voices help shape the business. We also delivered sustainability workshops and Lunch & Learns, defined career pathways across our managed estate, and enhanced transparency through regular town halls and feedback sessions, creating more opportunities for open dialogue between colleagues and leadership.

WHAT’S NEXT?

  • Increase opportunities for colleagues to connect with leadership and business direction.
  • Strengthen leadership capability through communication and engagement development.
  • Continue supporting career growth through coaching and development conversations.
  • Build a more inclusive culture and provide targeted support where engagement can be strengthened.
Hear what Crafting a Brighter Future means to our people.
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WE WELCOME ALL

We Welcome All is one of our core values and reflects our commitment to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and able to thrive. By fostering an inclusive culture, we strengthen wellbeing, innovation and the long-term resilience of our business. In 2025, we took important steps to bring this value to life. We established an Employee Forum to give colleagues a stronger voice in shaping the employee experience, developed neuroinclusion policies and practical manager toolkits to support more inclusive teams, and strengthened pay governance, contributing to a 3-percentage-point reduction in our gender pay gap. Colleague feedback and focus groups also helped shape our refreshed We Welcome All approach, ensuring it reflects the needs and experiences of our people.

WHAT’S NEXT?

  • Roll out our refreshed We Welcome All strategy across the business.
  • Strengthen inclusive leadership through training and practical tools.
  • Improve data and insight to support informed action.
  • Embed inclusive practices more deeply into recruitment, development and people processes.

Hear how our People team approached EDI in 2025.
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BRAND EXPERIENCE

Every interaction with our pubs and products helps shape how people experience our brand. By investing in our people, training and guest insight, we create experiences that reflect our values and strengthen customer loyalty. In 2025, we continued to strengthen the guest experience across our managed estate by refreshing and implementing our pub brand proposition, helping to create a more consistent and compelling offer across our sites. Investment in training and development programmes reinforced our guest experience strategy, while data and customer insight helped us improve key touchpoints and engagement. Together with initiatives designed to better connect digital and in-pub experiences, these efforts contributed to stronger reputation scores and an increasing number of pubs achieving top performance levels.
WHAT’S NEXT?
  • Continue embedding our brand proposition across all guest touchpoints.
  • Invest in training and development to strengthen guest experiences.
  • Use data and guest feedback to support teams and share best practice.
  • Strengthen the connection between colleague experience and guest experience.
CHAMPIONING PEOPLE WITH PASSION - Staustell Brewery