Home featured Featured Finance Featured The hospitality problem: Why staff are being underpaid and how STP is set to stop it Angus Capel July 30, 2019 By: Angus Capel, Small Business Advocate, Xero George Calombaris is the latest in a long list of hospitality bosses to be caught underpaying their workers. This time, by millions of dollars. And while public response has been swift in condemning the now-former Masterchef star, this behaviour is nothing new within the industry. Indeed, it follows a string of high profile underpayment cases including the likes of Neil Perry, the Shangri-La Hotel and Domino’s. In 2018, a Fair Work Ombudsman blitz found 72 percent of hospitality businesses across drinking and dining hot spots in Glebe, Richmond and Fortitude Valley were breaching regulations. The most common offense? Underpayment of hourly rate wages owed to workers. In an industry that employs more than 830,000 people within Australia – that means an awful lot of money is being unlawfully withheld. So, why do some hospitality businesses continue to underpay their staff? Wrong award classification – from sous-chef to server, there are countless classifications within the hospitality industry. And staff are often paid at the wrong one (consciously or not). Complexity of interpreting award rates – from penalty rates for weekends and public holidays to overtime, mastering awards rates is by no means simple. Systems without flexibility – while hospitality staff regularly work outside of their allotted hours, rostering systems may not have the flexibility to take this into