How I used the 'Polish Wave' to save Soho House

Christopher. S. Sellers
Nov 22, 2020
4 min read

Updated: Apr 17

The Story...

Once upon a time in 2007, I was living in London and employed by Soho House, as their Barista Trainer across their twelve venues. It was an ideal role for me, I love to teach, I could travel around the UK and thoroughly enjoy working with new people.

In response the business effected two standard reactions:

Reduce costs, ie: wage costs
Leverage assets, ie: increase coffee sales (why I was hired).

After these changes, revenue had again spiked downward, so the decision was made; I could be made redundant or be placed at their Notting Hill venue until my position became viable again. I opted to work at Notting Hill.

Relegated to a glorified bartender, it gave me plenty of time to think about how I ended up here… and how to solve it.

A consistent decline in revenue nationwide seems unlikely to occur without a definitive reason; so what was the origin before it had snowballed to this point?

Since Notting Hill was one of their marquee venues, I recognised the symptoms would most likely be found here as well.

The Puzzle...

There were a four key points I had noted that seemed to have gone unnoticed by management.

Morale/Culture: Staff were justifiably demoralised: the venue had reduced staff and remaining hours. Friends had lost jobs, trust had been broken, why should the staff care if the company didn’t?

Macro: For this hospitality group, F&B were the ‘bread and butter’ offerings - Soho House's business model is designed around exclusive club memberships.

If F&B was collectively trending down, it would indicate current members were spending less time and less cash on site; should this continue, it warns that existing members are less likely to refer their peers, or renew their memberships in the future.

Failure to accurately diagnose this issue would result in a compound effect when memberships renewals start to churn; this is what was at risk, including the attraction of potential, future members.

Staff: Circa. 2004, Poland had been accepted to the E.U. By 2006-2007, London was in the midst of the ‘Polish Wave’.

Friction: Generally, the hiring of Polish staff presented no issues; they were professional and worked hard, however when it came to another round of drinks or ordering dessert, the clientele started to meet some friction,

What seems obvious, but doesn't appear on the spreadsheet, is that English was a second (sometimes third) language for a majority of the staff.

In hospitality, friction results in: “Let’s get a nightcap at the pub down the road”.

If friction is consistent, this results in: “Let’s try a new place all together”.

In my assessment, this is what attributed to the initial dip in revenue.

Multiply this by twelve venues, all operating breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a majority of Polish (and other European) floor staff and we start to paint a more accurate picture.

Before I break down The Plan, consider if you chose to outsource this problem to a consultancy:

What budget would you assign them?
What time frame would they give you?
What result do you think they would offer and would it be effective?

The Plan...

What I developed was a force multiplier to address all of these issues.

For the next month I proposed to run a complimentary English class for any staff that wanted to attend.

The GM was skeptical, citing to the staffs ‘attitude problem’ and that they could already speak English. I made it clear that it would cost them nothing, I don't need anything and I’m basically volunteering my time.

Tuesday was our quietest day: I ran two, one hour, sessions either side of the shift change, focusing on conversational English tailored towards service, little things like...

“Fancy one more for the road”? As opposed to… “You want anything else”?

No budget and no resources, what started as a one month trial, turned to a regular weekly program, as kitchen and floor staff all joined in, even coming in on their days off and staying for both sessions.

The staff felt like the company was valuing them; they returned this investment by bringing their enthusiasm and personality onto the floor and clientele found hosts they could engage with, resulting in a more enjoyable dining experience.

The Results...

By end of the following quarter, Notting Hill reported:

One staff member for two hours, once per week (approximate cost £100).
200% increased F&B revenue in one quarter.
Reduction of staff churn to almost 0%.
Approximated ROI, 1 : 1000.

A zero-cost, sustainable, scalable, solution that stabilised revenue, positively impacted employee culture and was proactive towards retaining Memberships.

When everyone has the same information, it's not what you think, but how you think, that enables you to design effective, creative solutions.

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