UK Hospitality chief Kate Nicholls updates us with news on tipping legislation and work undertaken on international recruitment.
The nights are drawing in, the weather is getting colder and summer holidays are beginning to seem like a distant memory. It’s definitely beginning to feel like autumn, or, dare I say it, winter.
That may fill some people with dread, but for many in hospitality, particularly our bars, it means we’re heading into the lucrative Christmas period, or the ‘golden quarter’.
As I do every year, I have everything crossed that it will be especially kind to our sector. Particularly as most of us rely on it to fill the coffers before the early, quieter, part of the year. And for our staff, the busy period not only means being rushed off their feet for much of their working day and night, but opportunity to earn more money through overtime and tips.
Tips is what I want to focus on in this quarter’s column. Specifically, big changes to tipping legislation. Now, bear with me. I know that the talk of legislation will send many of you running for the hills, but this is really important.
By the time you’re reading this, new changes will have come into force about how venues manage and distribute their tips to staff. You may have heard about it in the past couple of years, because this conversation has been happening for a while with the previous government.
Last year, the Tipping Act was introduced. Its aim was to ensure that 100% of tips were passed on to employees. Sounds simple, and I’m sure that everyone reading this already does so.
But on 1 October, the new rules came into effect and I wanted to share a brief summary on what you need to know.
So, the rules:
• 100% of tips must be passed on to your employees.
• Tips must be passed to employees by the end of the following month in which they were received.
• Tips must be paid to employees at the place of work at which the tips were received.
• The distribution of tips must be fair, taking into account the government’s code of practice.
• Agency workers are entitled to tips.
All businesses must now have a code of practice outlining how they distribute tips and this must be made available to all employees. Staff are also entitled to request how much the business receives in tips and their allocation. This, therefore, has an implication for record-keeping and there is a requirement that businesses keep a record of tips received and distributed, for three years from the date of the tip.
Positive points
I imagine many of you are taking a deep intake of breath as you read this, but I really would urge you all to read the code of practice to make sure you’re compliant. If you’re a UK Hospitality member, we’ve got even more guidance available too on our website.
The positive thing is that the new laws cater for the fact that every business is very different. We didn’t want a scenario where the government was extremely prescriptive and we had bar managers scratching their heads about how to apply something clearly written for a hotel.
Thankfully, through our work, that’s been avoided and there is a degree of flexibility in these new rules.
So, I hope this reminder was useful and I would urge everyone to ensure they are compliant with the new rules. Tips can be a big motivating factor for staff working in hospitality and, importantly, a big incentive to keep people working in the sector.
Recruitment hopes
Recruitment I know remains a big challenge for bars, particularly as new immigration laws over the past few years have made hiring people from abroad much more challenging, more costly and more burdensome.
It’s an area that remains a priority for UK Hospitality, particularly as we engage with the new government.
It’s a chance for a reset and an opportunity to move the conversation away from a binary, one-size-fits-all approach towards something that is rooted far more in reality and with business needs in mind.
The UK has one of the best bar scenes in the world, in part because of our ability to recruit people from overseas. New talent, new ideas and new techniques all helped elevate us on the world stage, and also made us a destination for the best and brightest.
Clearly, that’s now been curtailed. The prospect of a Youth Mobility Scheme has been raised by the EU, but disappointingly quickly shot down by the government, for now. I still have hope that, over the next five years, the UK’s approach to recruiting talent from abroad will revert back to a more sensible approach, hopefully to the benefit of our bars who need it so desperately. I’ll be making that case vociferously and will continue to update you on our progress in these pages. Until next time.
I still have hope that, over the next five years, the UK’s approach to recruiting talent from abroad will revert back to a more sensible approach, hopefully to the benefit of our bars who need it so desperately.
I’ll be making that case vociferously and will continue to update you on our progress in these pages. Until next time.