Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 55
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2 MR. MORRIS: "Ray Coton was under no greater pressure than other
3 managers" while he was at the Colchester store as Manager.
4 A. I mean, I think he would have been under a certain
5 amount more pressure than -- because he needed to do a
6 better job, but that would be by virtue of the
7 circumstances rather than imposed pressure from me. To
8 that extent, maybe yes, but he might have felt under
9 pressure under those circumstances, but for me to get a
10 person to perform better, I believe that applying unfair
11 pressure is totally counter productive.
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13 Q. This was specifically mentioned about labour costs. Was he
14 under any greater pressure than other managers regarding
15 labour costs, to achieve labour costs targets?
16 A. He had fair targets set for his restaurant in relation
17 to what the labour target should be. In fact, he had -- he
18 overshot his targets frequently, and in one month by £1200,
19 but in other months, for other reasons, he overshot his
20 labour targets. That we discussed. You know, do you think
21 I beat the guy with a stick or something? Nonsense! What
22 can you do if a Manager overshoots his labour targets? You
23 simply say: "This is what we are going to do, what I
24 suggest you do to put the situation right". You know, what
25 can you do? What is this pressure thing, you know .....
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27 Q. So he was under no greater pressure than any other
28 managers?
29 A. I would say probably under less, to be honest with
30 you. I did not have to treat Tara with kid gloves or
31 anybody else.
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33 Q. You say in your statement, sorry, paragraph (3) -- I missed
34 this point out -- that when you went through the
35 performance reviews in the store most of the workers had
36 been performance rated as excellent. "In my judgment, Ray
37 Coton was incapable of telling his staff where they were
38 going wrong". Was Ray Coton a bit soft then with his
39 staff?
40 A. No, I think he was very nice to people and that is a
41 commendable quality. He was, however, rather indirect when
42 it came to problems and, I mean, you know, that is a true
43 record of what occurred. We would look at the PR. We
44 would look at -- under the PR heading it would say
45 something like "appearance", for instance, for the crew
46 member on the front. We would look at the performance
47 review. Their appearance would be rated as "excellent".
48 However, on the front counter you would see the crew
49 members day in and day out would turn up scruffy. So
50 "Ray", you know, "you have to tell these people what the
51 standards are", maybe,"and let us get it right". But you
52 can just, you know, you do not have to sit somebody down
53 and beat them up to get that across. You just tell them
54 what you want.
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56 MS. STEEL: Just going back a couple of moments, you said that
57 in one month he overshot by £1200 and then another month he
58 overshot for other reasons. What reasons was he saying for
59 overshooting with labour?
60 A. On a particular day, or on several days, or for a
