BrewDog boss says company has taken ‘huge strides’ in employee satisfaction

BrewDog boss James Watt has said the pub and brewing business has made “huge strides forward… in being the best employer we possibly can be”.

The group recently undertook an anonymous staff survey with WorkL, the results of which Watt has published on LinkedIn, with the group recording a 71% average happiness score and 68% confidence in management.

In 2021, more than 100 former employees signed an open letter alleging a "culture of fear" within BrewDog.

In response, the group has sought to overhaul its culture including by introducing a shared profit scheme, Watt distributing £100m of his equity in the company to salaried team members, as well as introducing three companywide employee representative groups, a diversity forum, a confidential ethics hotline, and increasing investment in learning and development.

“I know we’ve had our detractors in the past and I will always hold my hands up personally where we haven’t got things right. But it suits some agendas to say we’ve done nothing, when the reality is we have done so, so many brilliant things that make us a great place to work,” said Watt.

“For us, this is a journey and we will continue to work with our teams on a daily basis and continue to strive to improve every element of working at BrewDog.”

BrewDog gave up its status as an ethical B Corp company in December, which it said was because the B Lab charity "had requested additional measures from BrewDog and the BrewDog board decided that these were not something we could do at this time".

Photo: Shutterstock / Graeme J Baty