Football Pool Tipping Etiquette

10 Public Pool Etiquette Tips for Triathletes By Michael Nystrom Every pool has posted signs with various regulations to follow, but the unwritten rules of shared swimming areas are sometimes not as intuitive as you'd expect—especially for new swimmers or triathletes. How much (if any) should you tip to the house, bartender or others running a football pool if you win? If you win more than once with the same box? Is it a percentage or is there a max/min? This is a hypothetical question as pools are illegal. Bistroy Intermediate Member Username: bistroy Post Number: 280 Registered: 01-2006. Rating: N/A Votes: 0.

1. How Much Do You Tip For A Football Pool
2. Football Pool Tipping Etiquette
3. Football Pool Tipping Etiquette
4. Office Football Pool Tipping Etiquette

1. Distribution of tip pools should be based on the level of service or amount of customer contact. Tip pools are legal when they are designed by the employees who benefit from pooling. Employees must walk away with at least the full minimum wage. All tip pooling policies should be recommended and not mandatory unless specifically approved by your.
2. The Etiquette of Pool: Mind Your Sticks, Balls and Holes. The pool room can be an intimidating place if you are not familiar with its unspoken code of conduct. This short guide will help you learn the basics of proper behavior in order to avoid embarrassment, thrown drinks, glove slaps or worse.

When it comes to tipping in restaurants and restaurant labor laws, tip pooling is one of those very controversial topics.

Tip pooling—the practice of requiring all tipped employees to contribute a certain amount of their tips into one collective pool which is then divided evenly among that group of employees—is one of the several ways that restaurants approach making sure that staff receives a fair wage. Besides the debate over whether or not tip pooling increases or decreases staff motivation, even just sorting out how tip pooling might work isn’t as straightforward as it might seem because figuring out what does and doesn’t constitute a valid tip has to be squared away first.

Here’s a quick refresher:Restaurant labor laws regarding cash tips, check tips, and service charges are the same across the U.S.—any tip left as cash or part of a cashier’s check is considered to be 100% the property of the employee. Service charges, on the other hand, are not considered tips and are the property of the establishment. Credit card tips are where it gets murky. Some states require the establishment to give the employee 100% of the tip left on a credit card, while others allow restaurants to subtract the credit card processing fee from the tip.

This handy graphic from Card Fellow is a good place to start your individual research based on your state to figure out what does and does not count as a tip eligible for pooling.

Now that we’ve got a grasp on what is and isn’t eligible for pooling, here’s what you need to understand in order to know your rights about tip pooling in restaurants.

Valid Tip Pools Can Include Untipped Staff

In March 2018 a new law, explained more below, rolled back a previous requirement that said tip pools could not include untipped staff. Now, tip pooling CAN include back of house (unitpped) staff. As Gov Docs explains: “The bill did roll back the 2011 regulations that prohibited sharing of tipped employees with nontipped employees, but only in cases where the employer pays the higher minimum wage. This means when workers are paid the full minimum wage, it is legal for tipped employees to share their tips with non-tipped employees. However, the bill prohibits employers, managers, or supervisors from collecting or retaining tips made by employees.”

Pooled Tips Cannot Go To Your Employer

Your employer is not allowed to participate in the tip pool either. As mentioned above, only traditionally tipped staff can participate, which explicitly excludes restaurant owners and, in some states, the same goes for managers and supervisors as well. Often, bussers, servers, counter staff and service bartenders are included in tip pooling… not employers. While your employer can legally require you to participate in a pool, they are not allowed to benefit from it.

Tip pooling is different from tip sharing or tipping out.

Tip Pooling Cannot Detract From Minimum Wage

By law, your employer is required to pay you minimum wage and tip pooling can’t detract from that. Especially if your employer takes a tip credit (ie, you get paid less than the federal minimum wage because you’re a tipped employee), be sure to keep an eagle eye on your income each day and make sure you’re getting at least the federal minimum wage, if not more depending on your state’s laws. If contributing to your tip pool takes you below minimum wage, that’s illegal. You’re not required to participate in the tip pool in that instance.

What Are The Penalties For Employers Not Following Tip Pooling Laws?

Tip pooling is a hotly disputed practice.

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Some people argue for it, claiming that it equalizes pay among tipped and non-tipped employees. Others will say that the practice has been corrupted and is often used as a mechanism for justifying lower wages for traditionally non-tipped restaurant employees like dishwashers and cooks.

Whatever way you feel about tip pooling, there’s one thing that’s sure across the board: there are laws that regulate tip sharing in restaurants.

If you work in a restaurant that pools tips and you’re not sure whether or not the rules are being followed, here is a quick rundown of tip pooling laws and the penalties for breaking them.

Tip pooling laws vary by state

Federal law allows for tip pooling under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), but below that some states regulate it if they don’t flat out outlaw it. Some states—take Arizona, for example—allow tip pooling, while states like California, allow it but regulate it further than federal law does. States like Minnesota ban it all together. The place to start in your investigation of whether or not your restaurant’s practices are legal or not begins with your local laws.

In order to figure out what the penalties are for breaking tip pooling laws, you have to first figure out whether the extent to which tip pooling is allowed and regulated in your state. A good place to start your search is state’s department of labor website.

Tip pooling has changed as of 2018

The Trump administration passed a bill that rolls back many of the regulations that prohibited tip sharing, according to Gov Docs. The March 2018 bill was passed, allowing for tip pooling as long as workers are paid full minimum wage. However, it also clearly outlined a fine for violating tip pooling laws:

“Any employer who violates section 3(m)(2)(B) shall be liable to the employee or employees affected in the amount of the sum of any tip credit taken by the employer and all such tips unlawfully kept by the employer, and in an additionally equal amount as liquidated damages,” notes Gov Docs.

However, it’s important to note that this specific penalty for violating tip pooling laws only exists at the Federal level. If tip pooling is happening in your state where it is illegal or you restaurant’s practices are in violation of the regulations around tip pooling in a state that allows is, there’s a good chance that there are additional penalties that employers can face on top of federal ones.

The unfortunate thing about tip pooling laws is that the exact penalties aren’t always clearly and readily available, but what’s important to know is that they do exist. If you think your employer is violating laws, don’t hesitate to reach out to get advice from your state’s Department of Labor office.

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If you run a restaurant or other business where tipping is prevalent, you’ve likely wondered if you should consider a tip-pooling policy. After all, tip pooling could potentially offer numerous benefits from increased teamwork to better customer service.

However, instituting a tip-pooling policy is not something you should do on a whim. There are state and federal laws that exist to protect tipped employees. You should do your research beforehand to make sure you’re creating a valid tip pool.

In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about tip pooling arrangements. We’ll go over what tip pools are, which businesses can implement them, and the pros and cons of doing so.

Lastly, we’ll touch on tip pooling regulations to help you better understand how to legally implement one of these policies in your small business.

What is tip pooling?

The practice of tip pooling means that a group of employees at an organization share the tips that they’ve made individually. Employees’ tips are “pooled” together and then distributed evenly amongst everyone.

A bustling restaurant provides a perfect illustration of how tip pooling can be beneficial. Let’s say you’re having dinner at a restaurant. Typically, the waiter or waitress is the “upfront” person — the individual who you interact with the most.

But this person’s ability to provide an excellent customer experience is bolstered by restaurant staff including:

• The cook who prepared the customers’ entrées
• The bartender who made their cocktail
• The host who seated them at their favorite table
• The busser who cleaned the table
• The supporting kitchen staff who prepared ingredients or plated meals
• The food runner who delivered the hot meal

It’s hard to argue that each of these restaurant employees didn’t play a role in the meal, and yet often, only the waiter receives a gratuity.

With tip pooling, every person who interacts with customers — and in some states, every employee involved in the transaction at any level — will receive part of that extra pay, encouraging them to step up and make sure they are satisfactorily performing their role.

What kind of businesses participate in tip pooling?

Most businesses that would take part in tip sharing are industries where tipping is the norm — primarily the hospitality industry, which includes establishments like restaurants, coffee shops, and hotels.

These businesses have both front-of-the-house employees — those who work directly with guests — and back-of-the-house employees — those who serve as support.

This distinction is important when it comes to tip pooling laws. Typical examples of front-of-the-house and back-of-the-house employees include:

• Restaurant front-of-house employees: greeters, servers, bartenders, food runners, bussers
• Restaurant back-of-house employees: cooks, chefs, barbacks, dishwashers
• Hotel front-of-house employees: guest services attendants, bell personnel, concierges, room cleaning crews
• Hotel back-of-house employees: janitors, laundry crew

Just because you tip someone doesn’t necessarily mean that the business participates in tip pooling. For instance, if you go to a barber for a haircut, you may tip a few dollars.

However, this is the only individual who provided you with the service. There are no “front of the house” or “back of the house” employees for a routine haircut. So in this case, there probably isn’t a tip pooling system in place. What you see is what you get.

But let’s say you go to a barber and have multiple services done. Perhaps one person cuts your hair, another highlights it, and a third person shampoos it. When leaving, you provide a tip. In this case, tip pooling may take place since multiple people had a hand in your experience.

So as a rule of thumb for business owners, if you provide a service that requires the participation of multiple employees, you may want to consider tip pooling.

To pool or not to pool?

If you work in the service industry, you may be wondering whether tip pooling is right for your business.

There are a few legal ramifications that go along with tip pools, which we’ll detail below. But for now, we’ll look at some of the general pros and cons of instituting a tip-pooling policy.

The main benefit of tip pooling is that it instills a culture of teamwork where one job isn’t perceived as more important or lucrative than another. For instance, imagine you don’t tip pool.

Why would the bartender work just as hard for someone in the dining area as he or she would for someone seated at the bar? The bartender’s service at the bar impacts their personal tips while their service for the dining area impacts another person’s tips.

If you pool tips, you instill a belief that all jobs are important and that working harder and treating all customers fairly can lead to more lucrative gains for everyone, not just one or two employees.

Of course, there can be drawbacks as well, specifically that servers may hesitate to go above and beyond if they feel they won’t be recognized for exemplary efforts.

Why would employees work harder if they know most of the funds are going to be taken away from them? If the waiter would make $20 without tip pooling but $10 with tip pooling, what incentivizes them to provide excellent service?

Perhaps you pay your non-tipped employees more than your tipped employees, knowing that tipped employees will earn their fair share by the end of their shift. But if you pay all employees close to the same and are looking for a fair, collaborative environment, tip pooling can be the solution — provided, of course, you have followed applicable local tip pooling laws.

What are the tip pooling laws you need to know?

So far, tip pooling has seemed pretty straightforward. But where it gets tricky is in the differences that arise based on whether you take a tip credit or whether you pay your employees the full minimum wage. This can impact how you run payroll for your business.

The decision to take a tip credit, which means you pay employees less than the minimum wage with the expectation that their tips will make up the difference, is often up to the owner. However, state laws also play a role in determining this. As this map from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) shows, some states, particularly on the west coast, don’t allow tip credits at all.

States that require employers to pay employees the full state minimum wage before tips include:

• Alaska
• California
• Hawaii
• Minnesota
• Montana
• Nevada
• Oregon
• Washington

If you are an employer who does not take a tip credit — that is you pay the full minimum wage whether because of state law or personal choice — then you can include back-of-house employees, such as cooks and dishwashers, in your tip pool. This is an update to the U.S. DOL’s Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as of March 2018.

If you do take a tip credit out of employees’ wages, then your tip pool can only include the customer-facing employees who would ordinarily receive more than $30 in tips per month. If you take a tip credit for bartenders or wait staff, these individuals should not have to tip share with non-tipped employees (those who you aren’t taking a tip credit for).

While you as the employer might believe that tip pooling will raise the bar on service, some employees might feel otherwise. However, you have a legal right to insist that your employees participate in tip pooling, assuming you meet the other requirements.

It’s important to note that tip pooling laws prohibit employers, managers, and supervisors from participating in the tip pool. The position of “supervisor” or “manager” is determined based on the DOL duties test.

Under the duties test, a person qualifies for supervisor or manager status if they are exempt under the overtime rule, supervise at least two other employees, and have the authority to make hiring and firing decisions.

How Much Do You Tip For A Football Pool

Additionally, another stipulation to the rule is that owners must inform employees of the pool’s existence and the format by which the pool will be distributed, such as hours worked.

Finally, make sure to check any new state laws that might include tip pooling laws specific to your area.

Check your state’s Department of Labor website to get the details on tip pooling laws that apply to you. Hiring a trusted attorney could also help ensure you are compliant with state and federal laws.

How to implement a tip pooling policy template

If you’ve decided that you want to implement a tip pooling program in your small business, you’ll want to figure out the best way to go about doing so.

So long as you follow federal and state laws, companies have flexibility in determining how they can run their pools. Below is a skeleton outline of things you should consider when instituting tip pools.

1. Decide on the metric for splitting tips

Options include an even split among all employees, a proportional split according to customer service time with more going to servers and bartenders, or a set percentage breakdown — for example, 10% to the chef and 25% percent split among the rest of the back-of-house staff.

Calculating customer service time could be as simple as dividing the tips by the total hours worked for employees, weighing customer-facing hours more highly. Consider the equation:

(1.10(x) + y) ÷ z = a

In this scenario,

• A = per-hour tip
• X = hours worked for customer-facing employees
• Y = hours worked for non-customer-facing employees
• Z = total tips

In this example, customer-facing employees earn 10% more than non-customer-facing employees. You can figure out the per-hour tip amount and then multiply it by 1.1 to figure out how much customer-facing employees should earn.

2. Factor in credit card fees

By law in most states, an employer can deduct the amount of the credit card fee from the tipped amount. For example, if a credit card company charges an employer 3.5% to process the fee, the employer may take that percentage from the tip, effectively making the tips to be pooled 96.5% of the total that was left.

Again, double-check with your own state law.

3. Make sure your tip pool accounting is within the law

Here are a few key tips to help you remain compliant:

• If you work on a tip-credit basis, you may only count the amount an employee actually receives from the tip pool toward your tip credit.
• If that’s not enough to meet the minimum wage requirement for your state, you must make up the difference.
• Service charges, often imposed on larger groups, do not count as a tip and cannot be included in your tip credit.
• Remember that managers and supervisors are not allowed to participate in the tip pool.

Football Pool Tipping Etiquette

Always check with your state and local tip pooling laws to make sure you aren’t in violation.

4. Communicate your policy

Be sure to share your new policy verbally and in writing with all employees. It’s not just a good idea, it’s a tip pooling law.

As a final tip, wise leaders always include their staff in the decision-making process. This is especially important so your new policy doesn’t feel like a surprise.

Share your intentions. Share your thinking. Share the benefits. Get feedback. And give your employees plenty of time to prepare for whatever the changes might be. Avoiding miscommunication is crucial when instituting a new policy for your business.

Football Pool Tipping Etiquette

Are tip pools right for your business?

When done effectively, tip pools could be a worthwhile addition to a business. There is no black-and-white answer as to whether they’re an ideal fit for your company, though.

If you’re considering a tip pooling arrangement, the most important thing to remember is that you do your research.

Brush up on state and federal laws regarding tip pools, consult an attorney for additional guidance, and talk with your employees to figure out what they think of the plan.

Office Football Pool Tipping Etiquette

As is the case with any significant change to your business, diligence and preparation are key. Taking your time will allow you to determine whether tip pooling is right for your company.