Marston's employees prepare to move to new Wolverhampton headquarters

St John's House in St John's Square is in the final stages of being converted.

Marston's is moving its office-based staff from Marston's House in Brewery Road on on January 3.

Marston's House will then be just the headquarters for the Carlsberg Marston's brewing joint venture.

Marston's chief executive Andrew Andrea said the new head office, where 300 would be based, would enable everything to be integrated on one site

It has enabled Marston's, which has 12,000 employees, to bring all its central facilities on to one site.

Mr Andrea said that he felt it was important to bring teams together.

"We are removing the separation between head office and pubs teams and people in the training centre and making us one team.

"It is in our DNA to run great pubs and deliver a great experience for our customers and now we will not be distracted by brewing," he explained,

"We needed a home and this will provide that and a heart and soul for our pubs business," Mr Andrea added.

The redevelopment of the 1970s building with three main floors is nearly complete.

The bar on the training floor is quipped with exactly the same kind of pump mechanisms as the group's pubs. There is also a training cellar where people will be training on cellar management to ensure a perfect pint is served across the whole Marston's estate.

"It is a really important part of our strategy. Although we sell a lot of food our customers have got to be comfortable to come in and get a perfect pint," explained Mr Andrea.

One floor houses the training and development kitchens which are all electric as part of Marston's journey to net zero.

All the kitchens in its estate of 1,500 pubs – 1,200 of which are managed or franchised – will have efficient electric kitchens within three to four years as well.

There will be 275 desk locations in open-plan spaces across the three floors and up to 200 more seating locations. Staff will be able to work from any desk with all equipped with monitors linked by wi-fi to the operating system.

Each of the main meeting rooms, equipped with technology to enable people to connect from outside through Zoom or Teams, is being given a different name related to the Marston's estate. The board room is The Red Lion Room and others include The King's Head, Queen's Head, Pitcher and Piano and Crown. There are 13 meeting rooms across St John's House.

"The pandemic revealed the need for having fewer physical and more virtual meetings. We have also developed our virtual training as well," said Mr Andrea.

There are comfortable lunch and break area, barrel-shaped alcoves for small meetings, a wellbeing room, terrace garden area with bar, cycle store and the break area also has a pool table and darts board like Marston's community pubs have.

The building was bought for £2.5 million and the costs of adapting it and fitting it out total £6.9m. Demolition and asbestos removal work took 12 weeks to compete.

Director of property Andy Kershaw has masterminded the project with support from project manager/designer Sophie Triggs and designer Shelley Kemp. It has taken 36 weeks from design to delivery of the in house project.

"Andy has done an outstanding job," said Mr Andrea who added that it had cost £10m to fit out Marston's House – a similar-sized space

"I'm really excited about St John's House and the feedback from out team is that they already feel that it will be their home."

St John's House now has an energy efficiency rating of A and solar panels have been installed on the roof to help power the building. They will also be utilised to provide power for the 10 electric car charging spaces on site.

The first people have already moved in to St John's House as it is made ready and January 3 will see the full move take place with the headquarters expected to be fully operational a week later.

Staff will then move to working at least three days a week in the office.

The new headquarters also has an annexe building which will provide future growth space.

It may be used to provide extra office capacity if Marston's grows through buying new businesses and might be utilised to provide accommodation for staff visiting for training.

Remaining in Wolverhampton was a key decision for the company with the majority of head office-based employees being primarily based within Wolverhampton and its surrounding areas. Areas outside the city were considered but it was decided that Wolverhampton would remain home to the business, which was previously Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries, with roots in Wolverhampton since 1834.

Mr Andrea said: "Success for me will be coming in at lunchtime to see one of our chefs playing a game of pool with an accountant.

"If we get that happening we will be achieving our objective, after all in a pub everyone is equal."