Why it would pay to pay the living wage
This is a pub which has recently been accredited with paying a living wage — not minimum wage, but a premium which gives people a better standard of living.
The Prospect Inns licensee Suzanne Abrey-Cameron said: “We believe that being a minimum wage employer is not necessarily good for business. Paying above the minimum wage can make it slightly easier to recruit, helps with retention of staff and to motivate.”
She also says that being able to promote the fact you’re a living-wage employer also goes down well with customers.
Now, I’m sure there are many of you out there who are paying above the minimum wage of £6.50 an hour, and those who are really switched on will be ensuring their best staff are well incentivised and retained through a range of measures.
However, do we do enough to broadcast that fact? I would suggest not.
The pub sector is seen as a “stop-gap” job — something young people do while in education, or before embarking on a “real career”. Part of that is down to the perception that you can’t earn a decent living, or that there’s no real career path within the trade.
Now, we all know that’s wrong, but what are we doing to communicate that outside of our own peer group.
That’s where the work of organisations like the Perceptions Group come into play, and its recently relaunched pubandbarscareers.com website will hopefully go some way to improving the image of the trade.
There are some great stories out there — Keith and Diane Marsden, Licensees of the Year, are just one example of an employer that goes above and beyond to develop and retain staff.
We want everyone in the trade to work together to showcase what a great opportunity a career in our area of the hospitality sector can be.
So rather than simply paying above the minimum wage, it would be good to see more and more pubs sign up to be accredited for paying the living wage — that would be a fantastic sign that pubs are not only great places to work, but that we are leading the way in terms of social responsibility.
We would be setting out our stall ahead of many other sectors and making a clear statement that a job in the pub trade isn’t a ‘make do’ time filler, but a viable option with superb career options.
