Tips

feebee102 | 18:48 Fri 24th Jan 2014 | Career Advice

9 Answers

Can any one give my daughter a bit of advice. She is the head chef & kitchen manager of a restaurant. Whenever the staff are left any tips the owners always makes the staff put it in the till. The staff are not allowed to share the tips out at the end of the day. They have been told they can have something to eat once a day instead of the money. Considering a meal probably costs in the region of £1.50 to the owners my daughter thinks it's unfair. Some days/nights they can have over £60 worth of tips put into the till, which shared between 3/4 of them would be worth having. They are all on basic wage and work long hard hours so any extra is a real bonus to them. Some one has told her that what the owners are doing is in fact illegal. Any advice please.

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murraymints

doesn't sound right to me...contact trading standards !

Buenchico

Whether it's illegal or not might depend upon where customers actually think that their money is going to. If it's intended solely as a gift to staff then the business owners may well be guilty of theft. However if it's given solely as a way of expressing satisfaction with what has been received from the business then the owners may well be entitled to keep it. So it's a bit of a grey area.

However what isn't a grey area is that the policy adopted by the firm definitely does NOT comply with the Code of Practice laid down by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/198837/09-1327-national-minimum-wage-code-of-best-practice-tips.pdf
Perhaps the staff should provide their bosses with a copy?

Sycamore3House

In the hospitality industry this topic varies from place to place. Some establishments say that the waiter/ess keeps any tips he/she earns others say pool the grats and split at the end of the night/week/month/ 3 monthly. If you declare yourself to the tax office of your occupation ie waitress you will get a different tax code as they will take into account tips. For kitchen staff this is not normally the case as they are not in direct contact with the public and therefore are not deemed to be giving that personal service. Also kitchen staff especially head chefs or kitchen managers should be on a rate above minimum rate. If customers leave tips via a debit or credit card these would need to be recorded correctly by the business owner and passed onto the relevant personnel. If the tips are all cash if would be very hard to prove how much money is actually involved. If the owners are saying the staff can eat something instead they are just using this money to gain a better gross profit on their food.

2sp_

Definitely not right.

When I was waitressing, the boss would collect all the tips over the month and then split it all evenly depending on how many hours you had worked. That way everyone got tips, including the kitchen and cleaning staff who were often overlooked.

I agree with MM, try Trading Standards.

feebee102

Question Author

Thank you to everyone for the quick response. Will pass on this information. XXX