Volumatic cash handling solutions can help ease pressure of increase to NLW
07 December 2023
With most of the UK facing a continued struggle to make ends meet in the wake of the current cost-of-living crisis, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has responded ahead of the recent Autumn Statement by announcing that there will be a 9.8% increase to the National Living Wage. This means that from 1st April 2024, it will rise from £10.42 an hour to £11.44 an hour – meeting in full the proposal given by the Low Pay Commission, which advises the Government on what the minimum/living wage in the UK should be.
But while this is good news for wage earners and should help move the UK towards a much-needed high-wage, high-growth economy over time, it’s set to make things even tougher for businesses that are committed to paying their staff the new National Living Wage.
Impact on businesses
In the current climate, businesses not only have to consider the impact of the National Living Wage rise, but also the cost of rising costs throughout the supply chain and delivery services they rely on, who also need to pay more to their staff and whose prices will undoubtedly rise as a result.
Many companies are already being forced to pay higher wage bills to attract the right staff in the aftermath of the pandemic, particularly as the job market is currently booming, and now having to pay even more to meet these wage requirements, as well as other rising costs, many businesses will be forced to look at other options to improve efficiency and save costs.
Everyone in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors is now not only facing wage increases but also further rises in things like National Insurance Contributions, higher corporation tax, and general business and utility rates, meaning they may have to choose to pass on price rises to consumers when many are already suffering from poor sales or a reluctance to shop in-store or eat out, as consumer confidence is still not back to full strength.
How Volumatic can help
As experts in cash handling, Volumatic can offer businesses in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors an opportunity to save both time and money with their innovative solutions, as well as increase the efficiency of how their staff handle cash, replacing the huge amounts of time spent cashing up at the end of the day with more customer-focused activities.
A low-cost option could be our range of money-counting scales. Our CountEasy range can reduce cash counting time to mere minutes which means less cash handling, fewer mistakes and less downtime.
Volumatic also offers an award-winning end-to-end cash handling solution in the form of the CounterCache intelligent (CCi), which serves as a secure storage device, cash counter and forgery detector in one, meaning staff only touch cash once from POS until it reaches the bank. In addition, all cash data is instantly available on a handy dashboard for staff or head office employees for reconciliation purposes via our intelligent CashView Enterprise software, which has recently been enhanced.
All Volumatic solutions are designed to enhance security too and are already used by big and small brands across the globe, including Tesco, The Co-op Food Group, Morrisons, Marston’s and Subway.
And while the business community are certainly not taking the hikes in rates and their wages bills lying down - The British Retail Consortium stated last year that while retailers do support the objective of higher wages, they, in turn, need additional support themselves to enable improvements to productivity - now is the time for companies to be thinking about investing in smarter cash handling solutions themselves.
Mike Severs, Sales & Marketing Director at Volumatic said: “With more consumers turning to cash to help them budget during this cost-of-living crisis, it’s important that businesses are responding to that and doing so in the most cost-efficient way.”
“Volumatic prides itself on delivering quality cash handling solutions that increase efficiency and enhance security, in addition to making daily processes easier for all – which will help them navigate rising costs elsewhere, and that has to be a win-win situation for many businesses right now.”