LIVING WAGE
Living in London is expensive, even working in this city is expensive. Once you've paid for transport, lunch and any other incidentals in your day it can add up. A really simple concept is that if you're working full time - or even part time - then you shouldn't be also living in poverty. "Working poor" should be an oxymoron, but it isn't.
That's why we pay London Living Wage to all our staff as a minimum, and encourage everyone we work with to do the same.
People in the service industry keep this city going, providing the food, the drink, the comfort and smiles every good city needs. They work very hard but the minimum wage is mindblowingly low, job security is often not great and the cost of renting in London is out of reach. On the plus side, we don't pay the living wage for charity - paying the Living Wage means that our staff retention is amazing, and morale consistently high. It means that our staff are worrying a little bit less about money while they're at work, it means that we still have staff from pretty much the day we opened our doors in 2011, and in our industry that's remarkable.
Paying people a Living Wage shouldn't be a big deal. It makes personal and financial sense. But the truth is not everyone does it. We should all be asking "Are you paying a Living Wage?”.
Our Living Wage suppliers and friends: