In my previous article, I spoke about service charge with relation to guests, but now I would like to speak about employers:
To the employers that do not give employees their well deserved service charge and tip money…why? I mean, after all, the entire reason that you get this service charge is due to the hard work of your employees. Well, lucky for all hospitality professionals working in the UK, as of next year it will be required by law that they receive all of the service charge and tips that they earn.
According to the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act, it will be against the law to withhold any service charge or tips from your employees, with this bill recently achieving Royal Assent and officially coming into effect next year.
It is quite disheartening to think that many diners want to tip, and yet choose not to because they think that the service charge that they pay to the restaurant goes directly to the hard-working employees. Whilst some establishments do give their employees all of the service charge and tips owed to them, some only give a portion whilst others give none.
And why is this, you may ask. Well, from what I have seen throughout my time in the industry, some owners use their employees’ service charge and tip money to build new restaurants/bars, whilst others use it to pay the base salaries of their employees (and no more) whilst using the rest to cover their personal expenses. I have heard the argument that certain establishments withhold part of the service charge earned for a rainy day, and whilst I understand this point we also need to be completely honest with ourselves: we all know that this is not the reason that ALL establishments are withholding their employees’ hard earned money.
To me, this is the epitome of unethical behaviour and I am extremely glad to see this piece of legislation coming into force very soon. There are many other issues facing our hospitality industry that need addressing, and although it is shocking that it took this long for our government to finally make withholding hard earned money illegal, we certainly need to start somewhere.
What do you think? Has your employer ever withheld part/all of your service charge, tip money or even your salary? What other issues do you see facing our hospitality industry today that you would like me to write about? Please feel free to let me know by posting a comment or messaging me directly via email or social media.
