New survey shows percentage of hospitality staff found pay discrepancies

A new survey conducted on behalf of Barcats, one of Australia’s leading hospitality platforms, has shown that over recent months, 40% of Australia’s hospitality staff suspected their pay packets were short-changed and of those, a massive 33% found discrepancies.

The survey of 934 hospitality staff and venue owners/operators found that females in the industry discovered more errors in their pays than their male counterparts (50% of females found it necessary to check pay calculations and over 39% found errors, compared to 44% of males finding it necessary to scrutinise their pay and only 21.8% found discrepancies).  

Jeffrey Williams, Founder and Chief Executive of Barcats and a hospitality industry stalwart advises “the pay scandals from the last couple of years have had an impact on staff trust when it comes to their pay.”  

Williams notes “when it comes to cities, more Brisbane-based hospitality staff found mistakes in their pay rates than those in Sydney and Melbourne.

“52.17% of Brisbane’s hospitality staff who checked the accuracy of their pay cheques needed to complain about mistakes vs 33.3% of Melbournians and 26.92% of Sydney-siders.

“The recent pay scandals have driven 54.55% of Australia’s hospitality venues to re-visit their pay rates and policies in the last six months. 100% of Sydney venues surveyed reported checking the accuracy of their pay rates and 25% in that city believe they are compliant with Fair Work Commission pay rate agreements. 100% of Melbourne venues on the other hand believe they are in the clear and are completely compliant.”  

“The majority of pay discrepancies are being found at Head Chef and Manager levels with 47.8% of those checking their pays finding errors. 

“And hospitality staff in the 35-44-year-old age bracket were more likely to find discrepancies in their pay than those in the 25-34 and 18-24 age brackets.”

The Barcats platform provides both hospitality staff and venues the opportunity to report any issues that may arise throughout the recruitment process.  

Williams explains “due to the real-time feedback that we receive from our users, we have removed 35 venues from the Barcats platform over the past 2 years for their lack of accordance to regulations within the hospitality community. Our ever-growing community of 60,000 staff members can also be rated by venues via their individual profiles.”  

Barcats is working with governing bodies such as the Fair Work Ombudsman to provide the 15,000 venues using the platform with easy access to official resources to ensure that they remain compliant to current regulations.

For more information go to www.barcats.com.au