Theft behind bars
The hotel owner who says there is no fiddling going on in his bar is either an honest man running the bar himself - or a fool.
How much fiddling goes on is hard to gauge. Hotel, restaurant and public house chain Catering South West, which has a turnover of £100m, went public some years ago with an estimate that its staff fiddled £3m a year. Most research concludes that fiddling is "part of the hotel industry's culture".
This was the background for a recent study into fiddling carried out by criminologists at the Centre for Public Order from the University of Leicester.
Investigators were given access to the staff, management and accounts at four hotels belonging to "a large UK hotel chain". The only condition was that all information would be given anonymously.
The resulting study identified numerous bar and liquor fiddles. The most common are listed below.
Overcharging: the customer is charged for more drinks than he or she ordered and the difference is kept by the fiddler or given to the company to boost profits.
Under-ringing: the bar steward charges the guest the right amount, but rings up less on the till or neglects to ring up the amount at all.
Short-changing: the bar steward intentionally gives less change and retains the difference in the hope that the customer will not notice or complain.
Wrong bill: the wrong bill is knowingly presented to the customer. It is usually similar to the right bill but slightly inflated. The bar steward pockets the difference.
Bill padding: the customer is charged for a greater number of items (typically bottles of wine or liquor) than were consumed. This fiddle is particularly common at functions.
Bar padding: bar staff provide their own liquor and sell it through the bar instead of using stock provided by the business.
Diluting stocks: liquors are diluted with water to get more measures out of a bottle.
Short measures: short measures are poured in order to get more from the bottle.
Substitution: inferior liquor and wines are poured into expensive bottles and customers are charged higher prices for the inferior product.
Free drinks: drinks are either consumed by staff or given away to friends.
While many of the scams are undertaken for the sole benefit of the employee, the study showed that some of these fiddles were encouraged and taught by managers to help boost the bar's profits.
Once staff are taught the techniques, it doesn't take them long to work out how to use these skills for their own benefit, concludes the study.
Worryingly, some fiddles depend on the collusion of senior management. In one hotel mentioned in the study, the manager who read the till was meant to ask the steward what the cash-takings came to, and then tally them against his reading. In practice, the manager told the bar steward the amount of cash that was needed and any extra was split between the two of them.
In some instances, employees who fiddled effectively for the company were considered good employees. As one manager said: "Our cocktails always have short measures: that is how we make money… a good barman will always get extra measures out of a bottle."
Fiddling is only lucrative and long-standing if staff and management co-operate. The research found that even the most supposedly loyal staff were involved. In fact, the more trust the member of staff had, the more likely he was to be fiddling.
The motives were three-fold: low wages, which not only lead to a demand for more cash but create resentment and a desire for "revenge"; a culture that tolerates and even encourages fiddles, for instance: "Everyone is doing it and I'd be a fool not to"; and simply taking advantage of the opportunity that all cash businesses provide.
However, the research pointed out that good wages and conditions do not necessarily reduce fiddling. At every level of salary there are some staff who will always take advantage of opportunities. They see fiddling as a "legitimate" perk and even claim that the management allowed them to have this perk as a way of beating the tax man.
So, if fiddling is so widespread and ingrained how can it be rooted out? Many managers interviewed for the study felt the answer could lie in technology, such as computerisation and bar coding.
Yet hi-tech systems give the businesses little protection against short-changing, short measures, diluting drinks, not ringing items through the till and not putting the money in the till.
Preventive measures start and end with management commitment. Good management can have radical effects. One manager broke the pattern of fiddling by only recruiting people with no hotel or catering experience.
This point was made by one security manager who, when interviewed by the researchers, suggested: "What you really need to do is get rid of the staff and start again."
A popular method is to link pay to an incentive scheme based on turnover and profit within a department. Although this is common in the licensed trade, few hotels have yet to put this crucial linkage into practice. However, it is important to make sure any increase in turnover is not the result of a scam.
Many staff have vague or non-existent contracts with no specified list of entitlements. Making clear to new staff their roles, responsibilities and perks is an important step towards management control.
Wherever possible, split up job functions. It is more difficult to be dishonest when the employee does not have autonomy over a transaction. For instance, it is much harder to overcharge a customer or under-ring the amount when another member of staff is taking the money from the customer.
The biggest defence you have against fiddling is the public. The great non-complaining public who, especially in a bar, feel it is insulting to check their change, is an invitation to the dishonest barman.
Price lists should always be large and prominently displayed for the public to see. Printed, itemised receipts for each order also help reduce fiddling and generate public awareness.
