Are YouTubers wrecking it for the rest of us?

[Mike OReilly]

With regard to tipping, it is a terrible way to pay people. It benefits the businesses, and potentially wealthy people, but it produces an unhealthy subservient relationship, and allows business owners to artificially lower advertised prices while transferring the cost of employees directly onto the backs of customers.

Beyond this, it has been well studied. Here is a research study which combines the work of a bunch of research papers. The findings are as the paper head says:

Restaurant tipping and service quality: A tenuous relationship

Abstract: The connection between service quality and tip sizes is tenuous at best, as shown by an analysis of 14 studies (involving 2,645 dining parties at 21 different restaurants) that examined the relationship between service and tips. The meta-analysis of the studies sought to statistically combine 24 correlations between tipping and service. While the studies taken together found that, indeed, tips increased with the perceived quality of service, the relationship was weak enough to raise doubts about the use of tips to motivate servers, measure server performance, or identify dissatisfied customers.

[Sojourner]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

With regard to tipping, it is a terrible way to pay people. It benefits the businesses, and potentially wealthy people, but it produces an unhealthy subservient relationship, and allows business owners to artificially lower advertised prices while transferring the cost of employees directly onto the backs of customers.

Beyond this, it has been well studied. Here is a research study which combines the work of a bunch of research papers. The findings are as the paper head says:

DUDE! Remember I said once I'd enjoy a convo and beer with you? I was typing this as you were typing that, but I decided to delete it because it was disjointed and then read yours after so here it is I'm not crazy, just caffeinated heavily this morning

I can't believe we're having a US waiter tipping argument..... how can there be any debate? In the US (where I lived for 18 of my 40 years and am a citizen, New Mex, Tex, Colo) tipping wait staff is SOLELY because they are not paid a wage. 1-2 USD per hour is poverty. The customers are EXPECTED to subsidize the wages the proprietor chooses not to pay their staff to save money. It has been turned into a 'cultural' thing, something that has a justification so business owners don't feel bad for stiffing their workers. It is despicable.

Get bad service at your mechanic, or ignored at the boutique, a poor product at the market, do you have the choice to whinge about it with a bad tip? Nope. They already get a living (more or less debatable) wage. You take your business elsewhere like a person. But if the chef messes up your order, you can feel good about stiffing a waitress raising her kid at that nice US restaurant?? No you cannot, because the owner of that nice restaurant chooses not to pay their workers even minimum wage. In the EU and most every other 1st world country, if you don't like it you can take your next meal to the next restaurant, but at least the staff are paid like humans from the outset. It has zero bearing on the quality of service because the owner can always fire them, and the customer can always go to another restaurant.

To restate: tipping culture IS GARBAGE.

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[jmh2002]

Originally Posted by NorthernMac

...I’d also say when it comes to good food, the US, Canada, mainly MTL, and South America take the cake, euro land isn’t what it used to be, though lots of curry places there now. I know I know all the kool kids hate on America, guess I didn’t drink the kool aid

This comment really indicates to me that you are uninformed on this subject (and is bordering on racist instead of factual).

Originally Posted by NorthernMac

Still I would like to see what the top places do tips wise

I already posted an answer to this question earlier, since both privately and professionally I am quite informed regarding the high end and fine dining part of the industry.

[WalterK]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

I have often thought the single best thing we could do for the world is jack airline prices up to a point people like me can't afford it. The I realize how screwed I'd be and I change my mind. Typical human logic

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[LEOCAT66]

HARDHEAD is dead on right. Hopefully this circus will end before cruising is killed.

[Pelagic]

Putting aside unscrupulous owners who subsidize a fair wage with Tips

Tipping is then a bonus?
That is a good thing and not condesceding

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Then you don't understand human nature!

Whether it be a year end bonus/dividend/balloon payment or Tip....all of which should really be based on Performance.... It works!

Here in the Philippines, we tip everybody who provides good service ....small insignificant amounts but well recied and appreceated by the workers.

We tip more to places we frequently regularly and our favorite waiters greet us by name, know which tables we like, make sure our food is done the way we like and in the order we like. Warn us about bads menu choices... Many details that deserve extra compensation which promotes loyalty.

Many restaurants here switched to "service charge", which really confuses me as there is no incentive to form that added customer service.
Most of them are now switching back to tips

Often agree with you but not in this case.

In Australia tipping dosent happen our wages are very high relative to the US but I've tried various commission strategies on top of wages with staff over the years as a way to motivate ,and this is what I found.

People are motivated to gain pleasure (commissions) or avoid pain ( getting fired).

I had several sales people , I found with a few that their sales didnt improve when I added commissions to the mix, and it's not because they were already performing to their max. Yet I had one guy that fully chased commissions, he was making a small fortune and the business was benefiting very well from him , commissions motivated him a lot, he was selling 80% of all sign ups.

I made him sales manager, I took the commissions of the non performing staff as they didnt respond to them ,I just paided out money for no extra performance. I gave him a big stick (authority) and he was excellent at using it, very fair ,honest, decent boss that also was not afraid to pull sales staff up on their lack of performance or commend for good performance. I gave their commissions to him. Things boomed.

Gaininf pleasure and avoiding pain are the keys to performance, some respond to the first and some to the latter, tips are obviously in the first category and arent always the motivation they are meant to be.

[JoeRobertJr]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

Then you don't understand human nature!

Whether it be a year end bonus/dividend/balloon payment or Tip....all of which should really be based on Performance.... It works!

I completely agree that performance-based rewards improve performance. Tipping is an inconsistent, ineffective form of reward. As others have pointed out, the tipping culture can cause side-effect problems for the servers themselves. I have a couple in my family, so I hear first hand how frustrating it is for them to have their pay dependent more on a customer's attitude about tipping than the actual service they provided to that customer.

Thanks, Mike OReilly, for the link to that study. I do prefer seeing the results of studies over relying on anecdotes such as mine.

Trying to tack back to the thread topic, I'll just note that as I travel, I will continue to be conscientious about respecting and understanding local culture, whether it be with respect to tipping or photography or care of natural resources.

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by daletournier

....Gaining pleasure and avoiding pain are the keys to performance, some respond to the first and some to the latter, tips are obviously in the first category and arent always the motivation they are meant to be.

Hi Dale
What's confusing the issue is that some Restaurants cheat their employees by making them dependent on tips rather than paying them a fair wage.
Thats just plain wrong!

And making the customer feel guilty by knowingly not funding this is also wrong. That's condescending and manipulative to both the staff and the customer

Lived in Australia off an on in Cannes and Brisbane during the 90s .....as usual had my mix of good and bad waiters. (Mostly good)
But I always tipped the excellent ones as a show of appreciation along with a thank you for making this an enjoyable meal.

I never felt it was taken as condescending and a few regulars became friends.

Remember, my working on a Superyacht as a captain, owners rep, I was also in the service industry.

My crew were all paid extremely well but they could more than double their salaries via huge tips.

All of them had to perform to the highest level and all of them shared equally in the tips (except me)

Point is I hired "motivated people" and tips along with balloon payments kept them that way for many years of great service.

Those that could not be motivated, never lasted long.

This is where the customer giving tips for a "good" reason, helps the employer to motivate his team.
So actually, I think we do agree on this..[emoji4]

[Mike OReilly]

So, as I posted, the research on the restaurant tipping indicates there is a pretty weak correlation between tips and quality of service. But there is a very clear connection between tipping and poorly paid servers.

As I said, the only real benefactors of a tipping culture is the business owners who can artificially keep their advertised prices lower by transfering the cost of employees directly onto the customers. It produces harmful tension between front and back line staff, and it places the server into a subservient relationship with the customer.

It's simply a bad way to pay workers. A far better way is to pay people a decent wage for a job well done.

On the question on bonuses for performance (the upper class version of the tip), it too has been studied, and once again it has been found to be weakly correlated with motivating better performance. This has also been supported by psychological and human behavioral research which finds that more money is a poor motivator for most people. It's on the list, but comes in way down the list.

[weavis]

I spent 14 years in the States.

As a partner in a pizza restaurant, (A busy one) The wait staff received $2:13 an hour. Government-mandated, and this to cover things like washing dishes and clearing tables. They generated their own salary by good service.

I'm British. We don't have a tipping culture. Most people here get a living wage. A tip is small and for excellent service in the UK.

My bar staff, 2 females, were the pleasantest and genuinely nice ladies you could meet in and out of the restaurant, helpful, witty and whilst not overtly what you would call sexy, and definitely did not push that attraction, were easy on the eye.

One time we got a tax audit, and they came to me with the issue, and to be honest I was shocked to find that both of them made 1200 to 1500 a week in a small Florida backwater town.!

To negate further problems, i told them and the wait staff (who also made huge tips) that they should put their money into a group tip jar, we would pay the tax and they would get their tips tax paid. This satisfied the Revenue. I told them that we needed to see about $500 each in the jar for it to work. They worked out a system where they also tipped out the table runners about 12% etc.

So in the light of government-approved black market techniques... I think that they maintained their income even with the tax.

The average weekly income in Florida at that time was $230 a week. So working in the food industry was heaven to them. They made more money than we took profit collectively.

I don't like tipping. I came to see it as a hidden "tax" on the customer. In Europe when you get food its inclusive of staff wages so will be a slightly higher cost, and for that reason comparing Europe with the USA is a non-starter.

As for American food being the best...................... Want to talk about the high antibiotic and hormone use? I don't think so...

Tipping is an American way of life. In Spain, no one tips. In the UK it's rare.

Horses for courses...

[Pelagic]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

.. tipping ..... produces harmful tension between front and back line staff, and it places the server into a subservient relationship with the customer.
.

As a server, I never thought of myself as being Subservient, when working for the richest people in the world, nor did I see my crew/team that way.

But I do note that "server" is part of the word "subservient" and accept that my job is to do my best to fulfil their wishes and experience, without compromising my own judgements.

So I think attitude on either side of the coin, is what really matters!

Problem is.. most people fail to listen because their mind is "already listening" and the worst treatment of "servers" is from those arriving with negative attitudes.

Agree with your summery on motivation as providing the crew with an exciting schedule where they got to test out the attractions on a dry run, before our guests arrived, was a key motivator.
So was our investment in their training and skills and above average crew accommodation.

Average stay was 7 years with some now over 28 years.

I think my ( after 5 year service) "balloon payment" definitely encouraged loyalty and kept them steady during the rough periods, but so was the attitude of great yacht owners who saw them as persons and individuals.

[Macblaze]

Originally Posted by Pelagic

As a server, I never thought of myself as being Subservient, when working for the richest people in the world, nor did I see my crew that way.

But I do note that "server" is part of the word "subservient" and accept that my job is to do my best to fulfil their wishes and experience, without compromising my own judgements.

So I think attitude on either side of the coin, is what really matters!

Problem is.. most people fail to listen because their mind is "already listening" and the worst treatment of "servers" is from those arriving with negative attitudes.

Agree with your summery on motivation as providing the crew with an exciting schedule where they got to test out the attractions on a dry run, before our guests arrived, was a key motivator.
So was our investment in their training and skills and above average crew accommodation.

Average stay was 7 years with some now over 28 years.

I don't know you or your people, but I would be willing to put money (perhaps just a small amount ) on a bet that given the quality of staff and management you are talking about, they would have done their utmost regardless of tips or bonuses. IMHO people who understand their job is to get the job done are usually motivated from pride and a desire to make the whole process sing rather than the cash. Certainly I have worked twice as hard for half the money when I was engaged and happy with my job than when it was just work that I had to do.

[daletournier]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

I don't know you or your people, but I would be willing to put money (perhaps just a small amount ) on a bet that given the quality of staff and management you are talking about, they would have done their utmost regardless of tips or bonuses. IMHO people who understand their job is to get the job done are usually motivated from pride and a desire to make the whole process sing rather than the cash. Certainly I have worked twice as hard for half the money when I was engaged and happy with my job than when it was just work that I had to do.

Agree 100%.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Macblaze

I don't know you or your people, but I would be willing to put money (perhaps just a small amount ) on a bet that given the quality of staff and management you are talking about, they would have done their utmost regardless of tips or bonuses. IMHO people who understand their job is to get the job done are usually motivated from pride and a desire to make the whole process sing rather than the cash. Certainly I have worked twice as hard for half the money when I was engaged and happy with my job than when it was just work that I had to do.

The research I've read on the subject agrees with you Mac. Financial bonuses, while not inconsequential, are quite a ways down on the list of motivators of workers. I suppose a combination of approaches, as Pelagic outlines, is probably the best approach.