Help Our Hospitality: ‘Venues need to look after the employees who make their businesses thrive’

Last week, Chronicle & Echo launched ‘Help Our Hospitality’ with the aim of supporting and raising the profile of venues across the town.

In this week’s coverage, we spoke to the founder of an innovative business that ensures hospitality workers receive the tips they have worked hard for and deserve – as the switch from cash to card threatens that.

The concept encourages hospitality venues to look after the people who keep their businesses going strong, as the industry would not survive without them.

Oliver Pugh, the founder of TableYeti, is originally from Kingsthorpe and lives and breathes the hospitality industry.

He grew up regularly visiting pubs and restaurants with his grandparents, where he developed a true love of hospitality and its workers – before becoming a waiter at The Windhover himself.

During his time there, he would earn lots of cash tips and very few were made by card, which was “a motivating factor to give great service to customers”.

In 2018, the 35-year-old was shocked to learn the majority of tips are now paid on card due to contactless being so popular.

As he knows first hand how much of a motivating factor tips are for working long hours in a fast paced environment, he set out on a mission to turn card tips into cash equivalents for the people who deserve it.

TableYeti’s first physical product was launched at the start of 2019 and it introduced the world’s first contactless tip jar towards the end of 2020.

The ‘tap for tip’ device sees employees receive 100 percent of tips, as it is easy to track how much has been tipped and whose pocket this ends up in.

The total tip amount is split between the waiters depending on the hours they worked that day – and in the future, TableYeti would like to introduce a device where customers can tip a certain waiter directly.

As this is a complex task, they hope to begin working on this in the latter half of the year.

Another of their devices takes payment for the entire bill like a normal card machine – but the option is given at the end to provide a tip that will go directly to the employees in the same way as the ‘tap to tip’ machine.

More than 1,000 of TableYeti’s devices are currently housed in around 450 venues globally, including Brewdog, McManus Taverns, and Boom Battle Bars.

Oliver said: “Businesses and venues need to invest in the people who make them thrive.

“Generally, hospitality workers are paid close to minimum wage and the margins in the industry have always been slim. The budget to employ staff just isn’t there.

“Tips allow workers to earn a fair wage without it impacting the ability for the brilliant hospitality industry to stay afloat.”

Oliver went on to describe tips as an “incredible motivating factor which act as an instant feedback loop” on their service.

When he was younger, he quickly learned that if he was friendly and attentive to customers, the cash tips would flow.

“It is an easy cycle to understand,” he said. “Tips mean workers provide a better service, which creates happy customers.

“They continue to come back and feed money into the business – meaning more staff can be employed or the existing ones can be paid better.

“Tips simply drive better experiences for all. People initially come for the food, but come back for the service.”

Oliver believes if tips die off, the motivation to provide good service by employees will die with it.

The business founder fears the switch to automatically adding a service charge to every bill, as it will reduce a customer’s likelihood to tip as they assume employees will see some of this money already.

Oliver is pleased to see that legislation is being introduced, which will require all venues to split 100 percent of tips made on card between staff members – as currently there is no way to prove this is the case.

TableYeti’s devices have created excitement for hospitality workers and this is why they continue to expand into new venues every month, with there expected to be 1,400 devices globally by the end of March.

Oliver said: “Staff see the tips going up on the devices in real time. You’d never get that with an ordinary card machine.

“This business survived the pandemic and we have continued to work on solving problems in the hospitality industry.”

With 15 permanent employees, TableYeti is “only just scratching the surface” with its potential.

“We know other payment companies are bigger,” said Oliver. “But if we continue to focus on the workers and what they deserve, we know TableYeti will become the de facto way to pay.”

Looking to the future of TableYeti, they are working closely with an innovative third party that is looking to develop a debit card where any tips are directly put onto – so workers can instantly spend their earnings after a shift.

They are also looking to improve their devices to encourage more people to give higher tips.

With a five-and-a-half inch touchscreen on TableYeti’s devices, they want to explore prompts that may encourage more to be given, including a recommended amount or the option to give a rounded up tip.

There is already a feature that enables customers to leave feedback on their waiter, and reports are fed back to the venues so they can constantly improve their service.

Oliver said: “We just want to continue helping businesses look after the people who help them.”

The Help Our Hospitality campaign and TableYeti share the same message – we should not only be supporting hospitality venues, but the employees who continue to make them thriving places to visit, eat, drink and socialise.