Payment machines with screens that have pre-fixed tip percentages appear in businesses all over Canada. Even in places you least expect — fast-service outlets like coffee shops, ice cream parlours and even automotive shops.
These pay devices are commonly being replaced with tablets, operated by companies such as Square, which offers a quick and efficient transaction between the worker and the customer. But what seems like an innovative breakthrough in technology, is leaving customers feeling pressured to tip at places they normally wouldn’t says Allan Dwyer, a finance professor at Mount Royal University’s Bissett School of Business.
“Technology allows vendors and retail settings to push into consumers’ faces a technology of tipping that traditionally never existed.”
Dwyer explains that there’s a whole psychology behind the phenomenon. Customers are presented with a screen that has effortless pre-fixed tip options. At the same time, customized no-tip options can be difficult to navigate and embarrassing to choose during busy hours and long lines.
“Nobody wants to admit that they are poor or that they are saving money or that they are short on money this month,” says Dwyer. “Out of shame, many people just say, ‘Oh, it’s a couple bucks,’ then they hit 18 per cent.”
For a lot of people, tipping is commonly known as a reward for good service at restaurants to the individual who served you.
Living off tips
However, Amy Jordens depends on her tips to pay her bills as a full-time student. She works as a server at a brunch spot during the week and bartends at a nightclub on the weekends, as well as resells vintage clothes as a side hustle.
“If I don’t get good tips on a night of bartending or throughout the week as a server, it definitely makes an impact,” said Jordens.
Her hours serving depend on how busy it is. She currently works around 13 hours a week on minimum wage of $15 an hour and that amount, she says, is not livable income without tips.
“To be honest,” says Jordens, “I definitely got into the restaurant industry because I knew that I didn’t have the full-time availability to work a nine-to-five, Monday to Friday job. So I knew that tips would be a way to balance that out. I do feel like it [tipping] is kind of an expectation now at this point.”
The tip percentage expectation has also risen by significant amounts, also known as ‘tipflation’, as compensation for hourly wages. In a report published by Angus Reid, most Canadians are being asked to tip more (62 per cent) and do it more often (64 per cent) to which they frequently oblige.
Jordens recognizes that payments from the customer’s standpoint can be uncomfortable, but she does think a minimum of 15 per cent is a reasonable tip amount.
Tips included with the service
Although your server may not fully benefit from your generosity. Often servers are forced to give away a percentage of their tips to the kitchen and management, and those payment apps will take a commission of the total amount before the tip of each sale as well, according to Square’s website.
Some cultures don’t believe in tipping at all, such as Europe or Asia, where the tip is built into the meal price. This idea raises the question for Canadians, should Canada adopt a no-tipping model as well?
In the same study by Angus Reid, 59 per cent of the Canadians asked say they prefer a “service-included” model which would eliminate tipping on top and meal prices to include service charges and a higher base wage for servers.
“I would rather get paid more by my employer than to have to watch people have that social insecurity or even uncomfortability,” says Ben Legge, who worked in the service industry for years. He added, “I think tipping in itself is for charity. I don’t want people to feel bad that they need to.”
Legge says that his server friends would express their frustration over receiving bad tips but claims that frustration is misdirected. Instead, it should be aimed at the employer because servers are not earning enough to meet their basic needs.
“It’s getting to the point where it’s a breaking point,” says Legge. “They shouldn’t have to have a side gig. Housing should be a human right.”
