Tipping: Seven ways to run an ‘ethical' tronc
With the restaurant industry still reeling from the negative publicity over the past seven days directed at the likes of Côte, Las Iguanas, Turtle Bay, and now Bill's, Peter Davies, employment tax director at accountancy, tax and corporate finance firm WMT has come up with a list of seven ways to ensure that your business is running an "ethical" tronc system.
‘Ethical tronc' principles
1) Tips and service charges should never be used to meet Minimum Wage obligations.
2 ) If you invite customers to pay for service, you should always operate a tronc system. Customers expect service to be paid to staff in addition to basic pay, not part of it.
3) As an operator, never get involved with cash tipping. Whatever cash people get belongs to them.
4) Employ a maximum fee for administration that is always less than the NIC saving the employee stands to make, does no more than cover genuine costs, and from which the business does not profit.
5) Staff and customers should know what the rate of administration fee is (and it should not be buried on page 75 of the website).
6 ) All staff get a written copy of the tronc rules and a copy is available for customers too (and perhaps on the website).
7) Staff earn more when business is good, the restaurant is busier and more service charge is paid by customers.
US restaurants experiment with ‘no-tipping' policy >>
Business Secretary Sajid Javid wades into Côte service charge controversy >>
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