Late, broke a glass, did not turn up. A figure comes off what they are paid and nobody wrote down why. Whether you may do it at all has a strict answer where you are, and most venues have never asked.

Somebody was late, or did not turn up, or broke something. An amount comes off what they are paid that week.

⚠️ Nobody wrote down the amount, the reason, or who decided it — and in most places the rules on taking money out of somebody's pay are far stricter than the rules on almost anything else you do.

⚠️ What this page cannot tell you

⛔ Whether you may deduct anything from pay at all, what must be agreed and in what form before you do, what limits apply, what must appear on a payslip, and what happens if you get it wrong are employment law questions with strict and specific answers where you are. ⛔ In many places most of what is described below is simply not permitted, agreed or not.

⛔ This page recommends no deduction and takes no view on any arrangement. ⭕ Ask an employment adviser before deducting anything, before writing any of it into an agreement, and before continuing anything you already do.

⭕ What follows is the operational half only: what the practice does to the venue, and what has to be written down whatever the answer turns out to be.

Why it starts

Four reasons, and none of them is greed.

It looks like the obvious answer

⇒ ⭕ Somebody costs the venue money, so the money comes off. ⚠️ ⭕ The logic is clean and it is the wrong domain — pay is regulated separately from everything else in the business.

It came with the building

⭕ The previous manager did it, so it continues. ⚠️ ⭕ Nobody who currently works there decided it, which means nobody has checked it either.

⇒ The Standard That Only Exists In Your Head

It is the only lever that seems to work

⚠️ ⭕ Conversations did not change the behaviour and this appears to. ⭕ It usually changes the behaviour of everybody except the person it was aimed at.

And nobody complains at first

⇒ ⭕ Somebody who has just been late feels they are in the wrong, so they say nothing. ⚠️ ⭕ Silence gets read as agreement, and it is not the same thing.

The four kinds, and they are not the same

⛔ Ask your adviser about each separately — they are treated differently in most places.

Time not worked

⇒ ⭕ Somebody arrived an hour late and is paid for an hour less. ⭕ Operationally this is the least contentious of the four, and it still needs to be recorded accurately rather than estimated.

A charge on top of time not worked

⚠️ ⭕ An additional amount, over and above the missing hour. ⛔ This is a penalty rather than an adjustment, and it is where the legal exposure concentrates.

Damage or loss

⭕ A broken glass, a missing float, an unpaid tab. ⚠️ ⭕ The amount is usually estimated, and the estimate is made by the person recovering it.

⇒ The Cash That Sits In The Safe

And recovering something advanced earlier

⇒ ⭕ This is a different thing again, and the rules on it are different too.

⇒ The Money You Lent Somebody In March

What it does that you did not intend

Five effects, and the money is the smallest of them.

It converts a standard into a price

⚠️ ⭕ Once lateness has a fixed cost, being late becomes something that can be bought. ⭕ The person who can afford it stops treating the start time as a standard at all.

⇒ The Person Who Is Always Ten Minutes Late

It ends the conversation that would have worked

⇒ ⭕ A deduction settles the matter, so nobody asks why the person was late. ⚠️ ⭕ The reason was usually fixable — transport, a second job, a shift pattern nobody reviewed.

⇒ Graveyard, Swing and the Shift Nobody Wants

It is applied unevenly

⭕ Applied to some people and not others, on some nights and not others. ⚠️ ⭕ Uneven application is worse than no rule, and everybody can see it happening.

⇒ The Rules You Enforce Only Sometimes

It removes the reason to tell you early

⚠️ ⭕ Somebody who will be charged for not turning up says nothing until the last minute. ⛔ ⭕ A late warning is worth more to you than the charge is, and the charge is what stops you getting it.

⇒ The Shift You Filled At Six

And it is the thing people repeat afterwards

⇒ ⭕ Of everything that happens in a venue, this is what gets described to the next person considering working there. ⚠️ ⭕ It costs more in recruitment than it ever recovers in deductions.

⇒ Why Your Best Staff Leave in Month Four

What the amount is usually based on

⭕ This is the part nobody examines, and it is examinable.

An estimate made in the moment

⚠️ ⭕ A broken bottle becomes a round figure that nobody sourced. ⭕ The real cost is knowable and almost never looked up.

The retail price rather than the cost

⇒ ⭕ Charging what a guest would have paid treats a breakage as a lost sale, which it usually was not.

A figure that has not moved in years

⭕ Set when prices were different and carried forward unchanged. ⚠️ ⭕ It is now either trivial or disproportionate, and either way it is arbitrary.

And nothing at all

⇒ ⭕ In a surprising number of venues the amount varies by who is on that night. ⛔ ⚠️ That is not a policy, and it is the hardest version to defend.

What has to be written down, whatever the answer

⛔ Settle with your adviser whether you may do this before using any of this. If the answer is that you may, the record is not optional.

Date, person, amount
Which of the four kinds it was
What the amount was based on
What was agreed, when, and in what form
Who decided it
What appeared on the payslip

The basis matters more than the amount

⇒ ⭕ "Ninety, because that is what the bottle cost us" is a position. ⚠️ ⭕ "Ninety" on its own is not, and six months later nobody can reconstruct it.

Written before, not after

⭕ Anything agreed after the event was agreed by somebody who was already in the wrong. ⛔ Whether that agreement counts for anything is a question for your adviser, and the operational point stands regardless.

And it has to be visible to them

⚠️ ⭕ A deduction the person discovers by comparing two payslips is how a small amount becomes a formal complaint. ⭕ Told in advance, in person, the same amount is usually accepted.

⇒ The Split Nobody Has Explained

What tends to work instead

Four alternatives, all cheaper than the practice and none of them legally fraught.

Record it without charging for it

⇒ ⭕ Lateness recorded, counted, and reviewed monthly changes behaviour without touching pay at all. ⚠️ ⭕ Most operators have never tried the counting on its own, because the charge was there first.

Fix the shift rather than the person

⭕ Somebody late for the same shift every week is a scheduling finding. ⚠️ ⭕ Three people late for the same shift is definitely a scheduling finding.

Shorten the gap that causes the no-show

⇒ ⭕ A confirmed shift two days out is kept more often than one confirmed a week out. ⭕ This is cheaper than any charge and it works on the cause.

⇒ No-Shows: The Money That Never Walks In

And pay closer to when the work happened

⚠️ ⭕ A long gap between working and being paid produces most of what deductions are aimed at. ⛔ Whether you can shorten it is a question for your adviser.

⇒ Paying People At The End Of The Shift

If you already do this

⭕ Most venues do, in some form. This is the order to take it in.

Ask your adviser first, not last

⛔ ⚠️ Before changing anything, before writing anything down, and before discussing it with anybody who works there. ⭕ What you may do about past deductions is part of the same question.

Find out what has actually been deducted

⇒ ⭕ Across everybody, for a year. ⚠️ ⭕ Most operators cannot state the total, and it is almost always smaller than the recruitment cost of the people who left over it.

Ask three people what the rule is

⭕ Three different answers means there is no rule, whatever is written anywhere.

And do not quietly stop

⚠️ ⭕ Stopping without saying anything looks like an admission to some people and like inconsistency to everybody else. ⛔ How to say it is part of what you ask your adviser.

⇒ The Two Weeks Before Someone Quits

What good looks like

The basis test

Pick one deduction from last month and ask what the amount was based on. ⇒ A source means it is a policy. A round number means it is a habit.

The evenness test

⚠️ Ask who was late last month and who was charged. Two different lists is the finding.

The advance test

Working     — the person knew the amount before the event, and it is written
Not working — they found out from the payslip

Three to hold

1  A fixed charge turns a standard into a price, and the price gets paid
2  Charging for a no-show removes the reason to warn you early, and the warning is worth more
3  The total recovered in a year is almost always less than one replacement hire

Where the record has to sit

Date, person, amount, which kind, what the amount was based on, what was agreed and when, and who decided — with the other operating records rather than only on a payslip line. ⛔ Settle with your adviser whether you may deduct anything at all before any of this, because in many places the answer is no. Kept there, you can see within a year what the practice actually recovers and what it costs you in people. Kept nowhere, an amount nobody can explain comes off somebody's pay, and the first time anybody looks at it properly is when somebody outside the business is asking.

⇒ The Report You Open Every Monday

The Money You Take Off Someone's Pay