I was on holiday over half term, in Gran Canaria and it was GLORIOUS – sun, sea, sand, and all the food you could dream of.
Seriously, one of the perks of holidays and staying in a hotel is that you can’t cook, even if you want to, which means the hardship of having to eat beautiful food in lovely restaurants every night.
It does come with its own specific challenge though: how much to tip.
And funnily enough, I find it harder to decide on the gratuity when the service has been good – I don’t tend to struggle when it’s been mediocre or worse!
But more than that, what really concerns me is whether the staff are actually going to GET the tip, particularly in the electronic age.
Does the employer keep it and not pass it on at all? Highly likely.
Or does it get put into a pot for all staff to share? Okay, but not really rewarding good service.
Or does that one person actually get what I have tipped? Highly unlikely.
I’m not alone in my concern about this – the government has had their eyes on it for a while, and next year the plan is that ALL tips will go to staff, not to employers.
I can already hear some employers saying that their business doesn’t work if they can’t keep their staff tips.
Bluntly, those are the employers who are not good bosses or good business owners.
Once the law has worked its way through Parliament, it will be illegal for employers to withhold tips from workers, which should help around 2 million people working in over 190,000 hospitality and leisure organisations.
The legislation will include:
- a requirement for all employers to pass on tips to workers without any deductions
- a Statutory Code of Practice setting out how tips should be distributed to ensure fairness and transparency
- new rights for workers to make a request for information relating to an employer’s tipping record, enabling them to bring forward a credible claim to an employment tribunal
So, if you have been “looking after” staff tips so far, you might want to introduce a new system to make sure good performance is rewarded and top performing staff kept on board.
And whatever you do, you need to start planning for a world where you don’t keep the tips that are rightfully your employees’.
