Commission Or Hourly — What Each Pay Model Teaches Your Staff
How you pay entertainers and floor staff decides what they chase on a slow night. Hourly rewards turning up; commission rewards selling; a guarantee with a cut sits in between. Here is what each model actually teaches, where each goes wrong, and how to check yours against your own numbers.
On a quiet Tuesday, one venue's entertainers sit together at the back and chat. At the place down the road, they are working the room for every drink.
Same kind of staff. Same kind of night. Different pay.
⚠️ Pay is not only what you spend on staff. It is the strongest instruction you give them.
The short version
- Hourly teaches people to show up and stay — not to sell
- Commission teaches people to sell — sometimes too hard, and only to the guests who spend
- A guarantee plus a cut sits between the two and is where most venues end up
- Each model goes wrong in a predictable place
- Check yours by looking at what happens on slow nights, not busy ones
Three models side by side
| Hourly | Commission | Guarantee + cut | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it rewards | Time on the floor | Spend generated | Both, weighted |
| Slow night | Staff stay, sell little | Staff leave or push hard | Staff stay and still try |
| Busy night | Same pay for more work | Strong earners earn a lot | Strong earners earn more |
| Your risk | Paying for idle time | Losing people after bad weeks | More to calculate |
⇒ No model is wrong. Each one simply teaches something different.
One — hourly
Pay = hours × rate
⇒ Easy to explain, easy to calculate, and people know what they will take home.
⚠️ Where it goes wrong: nobody has a reason to sell on a slow night. Your best sellers notice that they earn the same as the person on her phone, and some of them leave for a commission venue.
Two — commission
Pay = share of drinks, ladies drinks, requests and tip-out
⇒ Strong earners do very well, and the room is worked hard.
⚠️ Where it goes wrong:
A bad week ⇒ someone earns almost nothing ⇒ she stops coming in
Pressure selling ⇒ guests feel pushed ⇒ they don't come back
Staff fight over the big spenders and ignore everyone else
⇒ The last one is the quiet cost. New guests get the least attention, and new guests are where your next regulars come from.
Three — guarantee plus a cut
Pay = a base for the shift + a smaller share of what they generate
⇒ People keep coming in on slow weeks, and still have a reason to sell.
⚠️ Where it goes wrong: set the base too high and it behaves like hourly; set the cut too low and nobody notices it. And it is harder to explain — if staff cannot work out their own pay, they assume it is wrong.
How to check your own model
Busy nights tell you very little — everyone earns on a busy night. Look at the slow ones.
One on your three slowest nights last month, what did staff actually do?
Two who left early, and who stayed?
Three how many first-time guests were looked after properly?
Four what did your top three earners take home in their worst week?
⇒ Four is the one people leave over. If a top earner's worst week is very bad, she is the one most likely to walk.
Changing the model
One show staff the last three months under the old model and the new one
Two let everyone see what they would have earned
Three give at least two weeks' notice
Four review it openly after two months
⚠️ Never change pay quietly. Somebody always works it out, and then every number you give them is doubted.
The numbers to keep
One pay per person per week, including the worst week
Two hours worked per person
Three spend generated per person
Four first-time guests per night, and how many came back
Five departures, and what pay model they left from
A sheet for the office
────────────────────────────────────
Pay model
Hourly …teaches showing up
Commission …teaches selling (watch new guests)
Guarantee + cut …both, harder to explain
Check SLOW nights, not busy ones
Watch each top earner's WORST week
Change openly: numbers, 2 weeks' notice, review
────────────────────────────────────
Common objections
"Commission is the only thing that works"
⇒ It works for selling. Check what it does to first-time guests and to people after a bad week.
"Hourly is fairer"
⇒ It is more predictable. Your best sellers may not find it fair.
"A guarantee costs too much"
⚠️ Compare it with what it costs to replace someone who left after two bad weeks.
"Staff don't care how it's calculated"
⇒ They care the first time the number looks wrong. Make it something they can check.
This week
One list each person's pay for the last four weeks, including the worst
Two pick your three slowest nights and note what staff did
Three count first-time guests on those nights
Four write down your current pay rule exactly as it works
Five decide whether it teaches what you want taught
Doing it by hand, or on a screen
The model is a decision. Working out what it actually paid each person, week by week, is where it slips.
By hand …adding up shifts, drinks and requests per person from paper or a spreadsheet
On screen …shifts and earnings per person already recorded for payout
⇒ tasteck records shifts and the amounts paid out per person, so each person's weekly pay — including the worst week — can be read from the same records.
⚠️ Cash tips handed over and never recorded will not show up. Any comparison only covers what was written down.
Wrapping up
- Hourly teaches turning up; commission teaches selling
- A guarantee plus a cut sits between, at the cost of being harder to explain
- Judge your model on slow nights
- Watch every top earner's worst week
- Change pay openly, with numbers and notice
Whatever you pay for is what you will get more of. Make sure it is what you meant.
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