Caravan: ‘Our ‘All Welcome’ approach was in place from day one’

It’s perhaps of little surprise that for three Kiwis moving to the UK with a passion for hospitality, the core value of being ‘All Welcome’ was rooted in the all-day dining and coffee business from the very beginning.

The value spans its team, customers and even the concept of the business with its inclusive all-day menu, Caravan’s people and culture director Fernanda Antonio explains.

“It’s a wonderful concept to work with, because it also drives you to make so many changes and consider so many different things.”

Set up by Laura Harper-Hinton, Chris Ammermann and Miles Kirby in 2010, the business has grown from its first site on Exmouth Market to nine venues, including its first outside London – in Manchester last summer.

“When I joined (four years ago) we did a bit of work with the core values and what behaviours were expected with that, and we really realised how important that aspect was for the business,” she says – with its engagement survey regularly achieving a high rating for the measure covering how comfortable people feel being themselves.

“We are all so different,” she says. “We have representation on an LGBTQ+ level and we have people that are neurodivergent within our senior leadership team.”

The consideration for neurodiverse employees – and prospective ones – has also led the group to adapt certain things, from the way it sends and discusses reports in a senior leadership meeting to its job descriptions and job adverts so that anyone who’s neurodivergent can absorb and understand the information.

For Antonio – who hails from Brazil – the mix of different cultures and backgrounds really adds to the colour and energy in the business and gives it a difference perspective on issues than perhaps a male-dominated board or one made up of a particular culture wouldn’t consider.

Caravan’s approach to openness is also benefiting the business in terms of its attractiveness as an employer.

“It’s challenging for us all to attract the right people, but if there’s one thing that we attract at Caravan it’s diversity of applications,” she says. “We get people from all walks of life. We’ve had applications from people that have never worked a day in hospitality but thought it sounded interesting based on the work that we’ve done, or an aspect of our culture, that made them feel like they could belong.”

In fact, the business recently appointed a head of brand, Charlotte Humphries, who has a retail background but who was fascinated by the work that Caravan does and its reputation as a brand, and she wanted to be part of it, Antonio explains.

While in-post training is essential, Caravan begins the diversity and inclusion conversation at the interview stage and assesses people and their suitability to join the business based on its core values. It’s then talked about at every stage of an employee’s journey within the business.

“We talk about certain initiatives and metrics in diversity very openly within our teams – it’s part of our ‘Make It Better’ pillar.” One of the key metrics it tracks, and one that Caravan talks about a lot, is its internal development rate. Its target is for 80% of all management roles to be filled with team members that have been developed internally.

“The teams are very curious to know what it is that we are doing to help us achieve that number,” Antonio says. “We recently had a training session for the team, and we took the opportunity to readdress our company goals, and how they link up to our values, so everyone feels connected to the wider journey, and what it is that we are doing to welcome everyone to be able to have a growth opportunity within Caravan, but also the wider hospitality sector.”

While the group has more detailed targets on representation – which it has to maintain in order to keep its B Corp accreditation, its main target on becoming an inspiring place to work is its internal development rate, she explains.

Antonio is at pains to admit that they haven’t quite hit that rate this year, because the group made the strategic decision to hire some external leaders to support its growth journey, but she is hopeful Caravan will achieve it by the end of its financial year in June.

“It was a conscious decision, but it was hard, especially for me, because I’d much rather we were overreaching the 80% rate – but it was a decision we needed to take to add more strength and knowledge to be able to develop our leaders of the future.”

Despite the move to bring in outside expertise, Caravan remained very specific in its criteria and which channels it advertised in in order to encourage a more diverse range of applications.

The business is also more aware of the need to benchmark itself and track certain diversity metrics, in order to make positive changes. It now checks on people that are happy to disclose whether or not they have a disability, are neurodiverse or which gender they identify with, in order to have an open conversation around how to do right by its teams.

In terms of further developments, Caravan is building on the ‘Make It Better’ groups it already has within the business, with the imminent launch of a secondary type of group, called ‘cornbread boards’. Led by Harper-Hinton, they will address the topics covered in the group’s engagement surveys and on actions to take forward to improve the status quo.

It has also continued to work on its leadership development programmes and on creating development pathways for all team members, so when you join as a kitchen porter you can see how you could progress to a front of house role, for example.

“I’m extremely proud that we can welcome anybody into the business and they can see they don’t need to leave us to have a successful, well-paid career – we can provide it at Caravan,” she adds.

Despite the cost challenges faced by the hospitality sector, Caravan made the decision to invest further in the learning and development function of the business, “as we know it’s the way forward, and for us to be able to keep up those targets”.

“And it’s reaping benefits right, left and centre. We can see the guest experience improving, and our review scores just soaring. And I think the fact that I can look at an engagement survey and see the belonging and feeling valued scores increasing so much is another testament that we’re doing something right,” she adds.

“The work is not done – it will never stop – but we feel like we’re on a great pathway.”

A MESSAGE FROM THE SPONSOR 

‘Diversity is more important than ever. Success with enablement and inclusion is the hallmark of the best UK hospitality teams.

Here at Carlsberg Britvic we are proud to support these editorial spotlights, by MCA, on fantastic diversity initiatives within our sector.

You can find out more about our own diversity commitment here’. 

- Emma King hospitality director Carlsberg Britvic