Running a pub is an exercise in managing risk. Every single day, you deal with the immediate, obvious hazards: a slippery floor, a hot grill, the challenge of a packed bar on a Saturday night. Most landlords are experts at fighting these fires. But the biggest threats to your business aren’t always the ones you can see. They’re the ones you haven’t planned for.
A formal
pub risk management plan isn’t about creating huge amounts of paperwork or ticking boxes for the sake of it. It’s a core part of your business strategy—a roadmap to guide you in protecting your staff, your customers, your reputation, and your profits. It serves two main purposes: first, to identify, reduce, and prevent undesirable incidents, and second, to implement changes that prevent or reduce future ones.
This guide will walk you through the essential components of building a robust risk management plan. By moving from a reactive to a proactive mindset, you can lead with confidence, knowing you are prepared for whatever challenges come your way.
The Problem: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You
As a manager, you must control the risks and hazards in your workplace. However, many businesses fail in managing crises because they aren’t prepared before a tragedy strikes, leaving them to blindly navigate a host of problems once the situation has occurred.
Without a formal plan, you are vulnerable. A power cut during a major sporting event, a key supplier failing to deliver on a bank holiday weekend, or a sudden staffing crisis can have devastating short- and long-term financial consequences. A serious incident can also damage your pub’s perceived image and alienate your customer base.
Thinking about everything that could go wrong can be overwhelming, but it’s a necessary process to formulate a plan that can deal with any obstacle presented. A structured approach allows you to turn an overwhelming list of “what ifs” into a manageable set of actions.
The Framework: Four Pillars of Effective Pub Risk Management
A strong risk management plan is built on four distinct but connected pillars. This framework provides a clear process to follow, moving you from simply identifying problems to creating robust solutions.
- Risk Assessment: This is where you identify all the potential hazards and risks in your business, from the obvious to the obscure.
- Risk Analysis & Prioritisation: Once identified, you need to understand the likelihood and potential impact of each risk, allowing you to focus on the most significant threats.
- Risk Mitigation & Control: This involves creating and implementing the practical, day-to-day procedures and controls that reduce or eliminate risks.
- Contingency & Crisis Planning: This is your “Plan B”—what you will do when a significant risk becomes a reality despite your best efforts.
Pillar 1: The Risk Assessment
The first step is to think about what might cause harm to people and your business and decide if you are taking reasonable steps to prevent that harm. For health and safety risks, conducting a
risk assessment is something you are required by law to carry out.
Every business is different, so you need to think through the specific risks required in your own pub. A good way to document this is with a simple table.
Here’s an example for a typical pub, based on the provided material:
| What are the Risks/Hazards? | Who might be harmed and how? | What are you already doing? | What further action is necessary? | Action by whom? | |
| Manual Handling | Staff receiving back, neck, or limb injuries from lifting heavy loads (e.g., beer barrels, crates of bottles). | 1. Staff have received training in lifting techniques. <br> 2. Sack trolleys are available for moving crates. <br> 3. Staff have been trained on how to move barrels and put them on the stillage in the cellar. | Consider the design of shelving behind the bar to eliminate bending and reaching during the next refurbishment. | Manager | |
| Slips and Trips | Staff and visitors may be injured if they slip on a spillage or trip over an object. | 1. Good housekeeping is undertaken. <br> 2. Stairs and other areas are well lit. <br> 3. Warning signs are used for spillages. | Better housekeeping is needed by staff in the kitchen (e.g., mopping up spills immediately). | All staff, monitored by managers. | |
| Faulty Equipment | Kitchen or bar staff could receive burns or electric shocks from faulty equipment. | 1. Visual checks are carried out before use. <br> 2. Annual PAT testing is completed on all electrical appliances. | Ensure all staff are trained to report faults immediately and know not to use faulty equipment. | Manager |
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Pillar 2: Risk Analysis & Prioritisation
Once you have a list of risks, it can feel overwhelming. You can’t fix everything at once, so you need to prioritise. A Risk Matrix is a simple but powerful tool for this. It helps you analyse the
probability (or likelihood) of a risk occurring and the consequence (or impact) if it does.
You can categorise each risk by plotting it on a matrix like this:
| A – Negligible | B – Minor | C – Moderate | D – Significant | E – Severe | |
| E – Very Likely | Low Med | Medium | Med Hi | High | High |
| D – Likely | Low | Low Med | Medium | Med Hi | High |
| C – Possible | Low | Low Med | Medium | Med Hi | Med Hi |
| B – Unlikely | Low | Low Med | Low Med | Medium | Med Hi |
| A – Very Unlikely | Low | Low | Low Med | Medium | Medium |
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This colour-coded system makes it clear which risks need your immediate attention (High) and which can be monitored (Low). For example, a member of staff tripping on a wet floor is ‘Likely’ (D) and could have a ‘Moderate’ (C) consequence, placing it in the ‘Medium’ risk category. A fire is ‘Unlikely’ (B) but has a ‘Severe’ (E) consequence, placing it in the ‘Med Hi’ category, meaning it requires robust control measures despite its low probability.
Pillar 3: Mitigation and Control (The Risk Register & SOPs)
After prioritising your risks, you need to document how you will manage them. The primary tool for this is the Risk Register. This document describes each risk in more detail and is used to monitor the actions taken to control it. An entry will typically include the likelihood and severity of the risk, the mitigation measures to be put in place, and who is delegated responsibility for monitoring it.
Your risk controls are often embedded in your Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). An SOP is a standardised procedure for operational and administrative tasks, put in place to achieve greater consistency. Well-written SOPs are the key documents that underpin the philosophy of your business and ensure consistency in the quality of work.
Benefits of SOPs include:
- For managers: They provide detailed steps for tasks, allowing for greater control, effective time management, and a clear basis for measuring employee performance.
- For employees: They offer clear guidance and steps to follow on the job.
- For customers: They lead to greater consistency and satisfaction.
Examples of SOPs in a pub like Teal Farm include opening and closing checklists, staff rota management, customer service standards, and event planning procedures. These procedures are your first line of defence in preventing risks from becoming incidents.
Pillar 4: Contingency & Crisis Planning
Despite your best efforts, things can still go wrong. A
Contingency Plan is your documented “Plan B” for your most critical business operations.
To create one, follow these steps:
- Identify Critical Business Operations: What processes must continue for your pub to function? Examples include taking orders, processing payments, and kitchen service.
- Identify Risks to those Operations: What are the potential threats? For example, a power cut, a key staff member calling in sick, or the till system crashing mid-service.
- Prioritise the Risks: Use your risk matrix to determine which threats are most critical.
- Create the Plan: For each critical risk, define what needs to be done to maintain a basic level of business operation. What is the ‘trigger’ for actioning the plan? What does the first hour look like?
- Communicate the Plan: Ensure your team is trained on the plan so they can act proactively rather than with panic.
Broader
Crisis Management involves considering all the possible scenarios you could be confronted with, from internal issues like food contamination to external events like a local emergency. A key part of this is having a
firm communications procedure, including identifying a company spokesperson and using social media channels to convey pertinent details to customers and stakeholders.
Case Study: A Power Cut at Teal Farm Pub
Let’s see how this planning comes together in a real-life scenario.
- The Situation: Shaun, the manager of Teal Farm Pub, is preparing for a busy Friday night showing a major football match. He decides to create a proactive pub risk management plan.
- The Process:
- Assessment & Analysis: He conducts a vulnerability analysis and identifies “Power Cut During Peak Trading Hours” as a possible, high-impact risk. Using the risk matrix, he flags this as a priority.
- Mitigation: He creates a risk register to track this. The long-term mitigation is to investigate a backup generator.
- Contingency Planning: He creates a short-term contingency plan. This includes having emergency candles behind the bar, ensuring his mobile card readers are always fully charged (so they can run on 4G), and having paper order pads and pens ready. He briefs the team on the plan.
- The Crisis: At 7 PM on Friday, the pub is full when a power cut hits. The lights and tills go out. Because Shaun had a plan, his team doesn’t panic.
- The supervisor calmly explains the situation to staff and customers.
- Emergency candles are lit.
- The team switches to taking payments on the mobile card readers and writing down orders.
- Shaun contacts the electricity provider for an ETA and posts a quick update on the pub’s Facebook page to manage expectations.
- The Result: What could have been a chaotic and costly disaster is managed professionally. Customers are kept informed, and while food service is paused, the pub is able to continue serving drinks. The team’s calm response, guided by a clear plan, protects the pub’s reputation and minimises financial loss.
Conclusion: Planning for Success
A robust
pub risk management plan is a fundamental part of your business’s strategic planning and growth. It’s a living process that involves constantly monitoring your environment to detect signals that might alert you to a potential crisis.
By moving through the four pillars—Assessment, Analysis, Mitigation, and Contingency—you can build a framework that protects your business from the unexpected. This allows you to stop fire-fighting and start leading, creating a safer, more resilient, and ultimately more successful pub for you, your team, and your customers.
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