Chris Maclean: The price of being a good employer

By Chris Maclean

- Last updated on GMT

Related tags Staff Employment Money

My bookkeeper has told me my staff bill has gone up. There can be no surprises there I guess. This operation, with a hotel, restaurant and bar,...

My bookkeeper has told me my staff bill has gone up. There can be no surprises there I guess. This operation, with a hotel, restaurant and bar, pretty much compels us to open all day. It is sad really. I do miss the old separate lunchtime and evening sessions. But I don't think we can go back.

So I've got more staff hours to pay for than I had in my last pub. But it is the way I have covered those hours that causes the problem.

In my last pub I had a different member of staff each evening. Mondays there would be Donna. Tuesdays there would be Kelly and so forth. This had a variety of effects. Each evening would be characterised by the activities that happened and the member of staff who was working that shift. People would make an extra effort to see a particular member of staff working. Each evening there would be a particular style and persona associated with the bar.

The distinctive thing about that system was that, although I have always paid well above the minimum wage, their evening's earnings fell outside of the National Insurance threshold. That is quite a saving.

Here at the Railway I've two principal members of staff both of whom work pretty much full time. It is far easier to organise staffing in this way and between them they ensure coverage of most of the sessions. But this inevitably leads to greater on-costs such as National Insurance payments, holiday and sick pay requirements. I have no wish to shirk any of my responsibilities but the price of having someone working a few extra hours is a bewilderingly complex array of bureaucratic procedures which have huge cost implications ~ in time and money. At its most basic I'm footing a bill with an extra 10 per cent added.

I could minimise some of these costs by resuming my policy of having more staff but each on fewer hours. It would require extra training and some duplication of effort. But my ability to call on my 'pool' of staff in emergencies or to cover sickness or holidays is dramatically increased. There are many advantages in operating in such a manner.

But I find myself a little uncomfortable about this policy. It seems cynical and morally bereft.

When I first toyed with entering the catering and hospitality industry more than 30 years ago I fully realised how poorly paid and, in general, treated the workers in this trade were. Things have barely moved on. It is still dominated by part-time workers and workers from differing national and ethnic backgrounds. It is an area ripe for exploitation and abuse.

I would hope that I could exhibit a degree of benevolence and employ staff to work in a good environment with training and support, a decent provision of holidays and care and a step up in a career in an industry that I believe has a promising future.

So I am disappointed that all the governmental legislation designed to protect and enhance workers' conditions paradoxically continues to perpetuate the inequalities they sought to eliminate.

I don't want to be an exploitative employer but it appears that this route is significantly cheaper. It makes it difficult to talk about a career in the licensed trade. And it doesn't seem to sit comfortable with an industry trying desperately to improve its image in Britain.

Related topics Legislation

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