New rules about tips came in to force at the beginning of October:
We welcome the introduction of improved regulation to make sure that tips get given to staff.
Additional guidance on new workplace tipping rules
To add to the existing guidance around the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Act 2023 that came into effect last week, the Government has published an additional non-statutory guidance resource to help employers engage with the new rules, with handy template documents for a tips policy, allocation of tips record and a worker’s access request to a tips record.
You can read the new guidance – Distributing tips fairly: non-statutory guidance for employers on GOV.UK.
The new guidance informs employers that agency workers should be treated the same as direct workers under the employer’s tips policy, e.g. If an employer has a policy that during the probationary period workers get a smaller share of tips than more experienced staff, applying this in the same way to agency workers is likely to be fair.
The guidance also restates that the new tips rules prohibit employers pooling tips received across multiple sites or different branches. Tips must be shared between workers at the workplace where the tips are received.
Employers should consider which job roles directly provide customer service when thinking about which staff get a share of tips, and justify this in their tips policy. For example, including a doorman in a restaurant would likely be permitted, but a marketing manager would not.
You can also gain further understanding of employers’ new duties by reading the Acas statutory Code of Practice on the new tipping rules, which an employment tribunal can take into account when dealing with workers’ claims arising from the Tips Act.
You can read more about this in our new website content Check what tips and service charges you’re entitled to.
Tom Togher,
October 2024.