Whitbread Announces £15 Million Investment in Team Member Pay
Whitbread, the UK’s largest hospitality company and owner of hotel and restaurant brands including Premier Inn, Beefeater and Brewers Fayre on Friday, October 07 set out a pay support package to help its UK-based hourly-paid team members, recognising the challenges being faced as a result of increases in the cost-of-living.
From November 04, Whitbread is increasing the rates of pay of over 30,000 employees working in its hotels and restaurants and Guest Support teams, making an additional investment of c. £15m in Team Members. Minimum pay rates will increase by over 4 per cent. This follows increases in April 2022 and October 2021, which combined, represents an uplift of over 10% since October 2021.
Rates of pay will continue to remain ahead of both the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage and between 2019 and November 2022, entry pay rates will have increased by 22 per cent.
Approximately 1,400 salaried hotel and restaurants managers will also benefit from salary increases to ensure a minimum differential is maintained, again applicable from 04 November.
Alongside the increase in base pay, Whitbread will also provide a one-off payment of up to £300 for all eligible hourly paid Team Members and its customer contact centre employees at Whitbread’s Dunstable headquarters– with over 34,000 – or 90 per cent – of the total UK workforce eligible for this one-off payment.
Base pay for colleagues is already supplemented by discounts of up to 60 per cent off hotel stays, 25 per cent off food, a matched pension contribution scheme of up to 10 per cent employer contributions and Whitbread’s share save scheme. During shifts hourly-paid team members can also enjoy a meal for just £2.
Simon Ewins, Managing Director UK Hotels and Restaurants, said: “We are really pleased to today confirm a pay increase and a one-off payment to help support our teams with the rising cost of living. As a business, we have seen a strong recovery in the first half as people return to overnight leisure and business trips and we’re hot off the heels of another very busy summer where our hotel and restaurant teams have continued to deliver the outstanding guest service for which they are famous. We want to thank our guest facing team members for their continued support.”
He added: “It remains key to ensure our pay rates remain competitive and that Whitbread remains the first port of call for new talent looking for year-round jobs in hospitality”.
Categories: Labor Relations