To think Pizza Express should keep their grubby hands off staff's tips

[Needanedittbuton]

According to The Observer Pizza Express got rid of 2,500 staff rather than put them on the Employee Retention Scheme. Now they are going to divert a large percentage of tips paid by card to the kitchen staff.

This is going to have a huge impact on the take home pay of their minimum wage waiting staff.

If you are going to tip - do so in cash!

I thought you were going to say that the management took the tips, which I have heard of happening before, especially when you pay by card. However kitchen staff work extremely hard for often minimum wage too and are just as important as the waiting staff.

Agree with @Pinkmagic1

Kitchen staff are usually rushed off their feet for no tips, I was a waitress for 3 years and wouldn’t have minded splitting with them at all.

Any restaurants I've worked in spilt tips between front of house and kitchen staff, so even as the dishwasher I got a share.

When I worked as a waitress our tips were pooled and shared out with kitchen staff, I didn’t object to that as they also worked extremely hard for low wages.

Or they could stop relying on donations to pay their staff a decent wage in general and just charge enough to be able to do this?

I agree with others, I think it’s a good idea to split tips with kitchen staff

Regarding behind the scenes staff, I thought that service charge/tip was divided between all staff, apart from the manager.

Isn't that normal?

I always thought tips were split between waiting staff and kitchen staff.

It's not like we're in America where servers don't earn minimum wage and rely on tips to survive.

Totally normal. Usually called a tronc system.

I thought that we always shared our tips with kitchen and food runners. Crass not to, unless they are useless dickheads imho. 50% drop for the serves is a lot tho.

Just an fyi, if somewhere has a service charge, that happens normally then. In one workplace, the service charge was shared even amongst management. Which was . Tips were ours

That is completely normal. I worked in a few pubs (independent) back in my youth and that was always the case with tips, cash or otherwise, split between all the staff on that night.

Splitting tips with kitchen staff is reasonable, providing it is clear to customers so that they know this.

When I was a waitress, I had to give 10% of my tips to the bar staff and 10% to the kitchen staff at the end of each of my shifts but those were the days of cash tips rather than automatic service charges paid on cards

I think I it’s pretty standard for the service charge tronc to be split across all the staff (not management) now that it’s automatically added to the bill
I think cash tips are usually kept by the individual who served the table

When I was a waitress even cash tips were added to a jar and split with kitchen staff weekly, ratioed to how many hours you had worked that week. Of course it's the right thing to do!

Sharing tips with kitchen staff is normal. We did this in the 90s. If anything PE are behind and about time they made things fairer.

If you want to rant about the loss of money to the wait staff I suggest you use the 'PE don't pay enough' angle, because begrudging the kitchen staff a share of the tips just isn't it.

@newnortherner111

Splitting tips with kitchen staff is reasonable, providing it is clear to customers so that they know this.

Would people just tip half or nothing?

People tip not just for service. If food is shit, there is no tip usually. One cannot be without the other doing their job properly. Nor do you have tips when food comes late or mess (runner) or on dirty place (dishwasher).

@newnortherner111

Splitting tips with kitchen staff is reasonable, providing it is clear to customers so that they know this.

But tips aren't just about the service.

You tip for lots of reasons - nice atmosphere, fast service, good quality food, mistakes being rectified quickly etc.

Only a tiny part of that is down to the server.

We split our restaurants tips with all the staff - well, when I say 'we', I mean they, as, as owners, we officially kept our hands off the tips altogether to avoid staff having to pay national insurance on them. This is called the tronc system.

Kitchen staff work equally as hard as the front of house staff and very much deserve a split of the gratuity.

@Pinkmagic1

I thought you were going to say that the management took the tips, which I have heard of happening before, especially when you pay by card. However kitchen staff work extremely hard for often minimum wage too and are just as important as the waiting staff.

Agreed.

YABVU. Why shouldn’t tips be split with the kitchen staff?

I've done wages for a few places, and usually the only people that don't get a share in the tips are higher paid staff - front of house manager, general manager, head waiter if there is one, and (in some places) some chefs.

Why should the waiting staff be paid more than kitchen staff on the same hourly rate?

Wherever I've worked tips have always been shared among all staff. Chefs, potwashers, waiters, bar staff, cleaners... They all contribute to the guests experience, why shouldn't they get tips?

When I waitressed this was normal. All tips split between all staff on duty that shift; chefs, dishwashers, waiting staff. I thought that was the right way to do it. It recognises that the tip is a 'nice extra' on top of a wage, rather than waiting staff being underpaid in the expectation of tips (like the American system).

Why do you think that people who serve food for minimum wage deserve tips more than the people who make it or do the washing up, who also earn minimum wage?

According to the article, it will decrease the take home pay of waiting staff by up to £2,000. Would you be happy to have £2k taken out of your wages to pay Sophie in Accounts or Jim in the warehouse more?
You don't rob Peter to pay Paul.

Waiting staff rely on tips - apparently they are offered fewer hours than kitchen staff.