The pub group behind Be At One, Slug and Lettuce, and Walkabout has signed up to income streaming app. Wagestream so its staff can access pay when they need it.
Stonegate Pubs is offering the income streaming service to every one of its 12,500 hourly paid employees across nearly 772 UK pubs and bars nationwide.
So far, 63% of Stonegate Pubs’ hourly employees have enrolled to Wagestream, with 6,000 employees having made at least one transfer.
The company embarked on the partnership because of income streaming’s growing role in recruitment and retention of staff, with as many benefits for employers as employees.
Wagestream — in partnership with Fourth — allows staff to draw down, or ‘income stream’, a percentage of their earned wages any day of the month for a flat £1.75 fee. There are no loans involved and therefore no interest is charged.
This reduces financial stress and helps to prevent employees having to turn to high-cost credit providers and payday lenders when they face unexpected expenses and need to bridge their way to payday.
The Wagestream app will also help Stonegate employees build better financial health as it provides budgeting advice, such as how to understand payslips, and offers financial welfare support in conjunction with The Money Charity and the Money Advice Service.
Employers from across the private and public sphere who use Wagestream — including Rentokil Initial, Hackney Council and Roadchef — have identified a number of CSR and HR advantages to the service.
For those firms who offer shift work, a key immediate benefit is that it becomes easier to fill rotas, because income streaming restores the direct connection between work and pay. In fact, Wagestream data shows that workers enrolled in the service choose to work 22% more hours on average.
Stonegate Pubs was founded in 2010 by private equity firm TDR Capital, after it purchased 333 pubs from Mitchells & Butlers.
Since then, the business has grown dramatically and now boasts 772 pubs and bars across the UK.
Peter Briffett, CEO and Co-Founder of Wagestream, commented, “Wagestream fits hand in glove with the pub sector and the way businesses in this sector employ staff.
“That’s because it’s common for pubs to have difficulty filling shifts, particularly at late notice. However, we know from experience that this ceases to be a problem once staff know they can access pay for those shifts straight away.
“Wagestream provides a golden incentive to workers to alleviate this problem, while both the employer and employee start to see additional hours as mutually beneficial.
“We’ve even found that staff start asking for more shifts at firms who were previously struggling to fill them, such is the power of re-establishing an instantaneous link between work and wages.”
Tim Painter, HR Director for Stonegate Pubs, added, “Our employees have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the introduction of this service.
“Getting early access to money you have already earned, that is to all intents and purposes yours, seems so simple but this is a real revolution in pay that is already making it easier to recruit and retain staff.”