Dedication to the job has helped Will Morris climb the work ladder to the position of operations manager for Loungers in Bournemouth. Ruth Williams finds out how he has done so at such a young age and in which direction he sees the hospitality sector going in the future.
At only 28, Will Morris has already climbed to the position of operations manager for Loungers in Bournemouth and, although his time is now divided between five Lounges, he still takes any opportunity to jump behind the bar to do what attracted him to the industry in the first place.
“I’m a glorified bartender at heart. I love getting behind the bar. I couldn’t be one of those ops managers who just sits in the corner pointing a finger. It’s about getting involved and mucking in. I never shy away from a chance to make a cocktail.”
Although his role now involves overseeing 20 managers and he is responsible for 70 staff, he firmly believes in being a hands-on manager.
“It’s massively important to be accessible to the staff. Everyone has had a bad manager at some point in their career and you can learn a lot from bad people – ultimately in terms of how not to do it. Some people have a bad attitude or won’t speak to all the staff, which I think is really negative. I always try to speak to all the staff and if the Lounge is getting busy, there’s nothing I enjoy more than hopping behind the bar and making a few coffees or clearing tables because it’s interaction and the staff should see that from all levels of management.”
Taking this hands-on approach, he has built a career in hospitality that began in a family friend’s pub in his native Essex collecting glasses one New Year’s Eve before working as bar manager in the Foresters, an award-winning gastropub in Kingston-upon-Thames. He said that was the first time he saw hospitality as a career option and a real turning point for him to see how far he could go in the industry.
Moving to Bournemouth to work in a nightclub and bar at the end of the pier called Aruba, Morris rose through the ranks from bartender to interim general manager during three years which, as a multi-faceted venue, he saw as a challenge and career progression.
One fateful day, while looking for an all-day breakfast after a night shift, he walked into Ludo Lounge where he was charmed by the Loungers concept.
“I wasn’t looking to leave Aruba but I knew it wasn’t the company I would end up in because the opportunity wasn’t there.
“I felt I should look for a job before I stopped enjoying it. It was a happy accident that Loungers was opening Arcado Lounge in Christchurch just as I was looking to leave Aruba.”
Having joined Loungers as general manager of Arcado Lounge, he gained promotion to senior general manager, junior operations manager, area manager and, most recently, operations manager, which after almost a year, still offers opportunities for growth.
“I’ve got so much to learn in this position before I could even think about the next position. I don’t think you should ever get to a position in which you feel comfortable because then you won’t be challenged – and I still feel challenged.”
The story is the same for many people in hospitality to be doing something they love and working hard without noticing the career path, but it could be argued this contributes to the often negative perception of a career in the industry because people see it as an easier option.
Loungers is far from alone in the host of on-the-job training it offers staff from product knowledge on coffee, wine, food and drinks to finance and management courses. Alongside this, Morris argues it is a career that can teach people much about dealing with people.
“We need to get away from this stigma that it’s a stepping-stone industry. There’s this feeling, which I get quite defensive about, that it’s a job until you get a proper job. Whether we like it or not, there is that attitude: hospitality is a disrespected industry. We need to appeal to people to let them know there is so much more to the industry – it can teach you much more than coming in and pouring a pint to get a pay cheque.
“There is progression, knowledge and education. It can teach you much more than people expect and the further you go, the more you can learn. You learn about business, property, finances, relationships, people, there’s so much education out there and I think a lot of people are going to uni for the sake of going to uni. Hospitality is a very rewarding industry if you get your head down and graft. I guess the important thing is to make people aware of that.”
Moving away from the attitude that a job in hospitality is a light option could, in Morris’ opinion, safeguard the future of the sector to stop people moving into it without any experience or knowledge of what they are doing.
“A lot of people think they can just do it, so there are a lot of cowboys; I think there’s a hell of a lot of cowboys – nine times out of 10 from independents – people cutting corners and ultimately the only people suffering are the customers.”
He believes this can result in poor standards of service that reflect badly on the whole industry and at a crucial stage when the industry is evolving towards a greater appetite for café culture and casual, all-day dining, these standards must be maintained and operators must be open to evolution.
As well as this trend towards different dining styles, the shift away from traditional models is giving rise to previously unheard of concepts that the industry must accept are meeting a demand from customers.
“I was reading about the owners of Cereal Killer Café going to a business consultant who said it would never work – he obviously wasn’t giving business advice but personal advice on a really outdated vision of hospitality. They deserve to do really well because they’re sticking their middle finger up to the generic image of hospitality. It’s definitely an exciting industry to be in for what will be an interesting decade or two.”
Morris’ enthusiasm for – and defence of – the sector is palpable and, as an ambassador for careers, he deserves to be on the Perceptions board as an example of hard work paying dividends in a job where he still gets to do what he loves.
“When you enjoy hospitality, feel a part of it and have a career in it, you kind of take ownership of the general view of the industry because there is that negativity around it. If I can change one or two people’s opinions, and they then change a couple more, then I’ll be happy.”
