Everyone in this industry is talking about a crisis right now and depending on who you ask, it's a completely different one. Owners blame tax and wages, staff blame being run into the ground for less real money than they made last year and guests say the service isn't what it was, despite paying more for it. I've worked all three sides of that triangle over twenty years, across the UK, New Zealand, Thailand, Hong Kong and Australia and none of them are wrong.
So the picture that emerges is this. Staff are more satisfied with their pay than they have been in years. They are still leaving. What they actually want is work that feels meaningful, a sense that they are growing and a life that is liveable outside the shifts. These are not things you can fix with a pay review.
