Volumatic seek to help ease the pressure on businesses following the National Living Wage increase
17 November 2021
With many businesses still struggling to recover from the post-pandemic world, we all had high hopes that last month’s Budget would actively look to help those worst affected and further strengthen the future of the high street.
And while the news seemed positive for wage earners – with Chancellor Rishi Sunak announcing a further rise in both the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage rates from April 2022, a new report out this week (15th November 2021) from The Living Wage Foundation found that there was still “a substantial gap” between the minimum wage announced by the Government and the ‘real living wage’ they have calculated based on the actual cost of living in 2021/22. The new figures state that the true hourly rate paid to workers should be £11.05 (for those living in London), whereas the National Living Wage will only increase to £9.50 an hour in April.
On top of all of this, the budget also confirmed a major hike in business rates and that spells potentially even tougher times ahead for businesses, particularly in sectors already seriously impacted by the loss of revenue during lockdown.
Impact on businesses
The main impact on businesses with these increases to the National Living Wage and National Minimum Wage is the cost of not only their staff wages but also the cost of securing the services of people within the supply chain and delivery services they rely on, who are also needing the 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 following the pandemic, particularly as the job market is currently booming, and with now having to pay even more to meet these minimum wage requirements as well as other rising costs, many may be forced to look at other options to improve efficiency.
Everyone in the retail, leisure and hospitality sectors are now not only facing wage increases but also a rise in things like National Insurance Contributions, higher corporation tax, and general business 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 improving cash handling procedures, 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 improving 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.
Volumatic can offer a wide variety of solutions that are not only cost-effective in a short space of time but will also have a real impact on the way businesses operate. This will allow them to recoup some of the costs of their increased wage bill and rising business rates and achieve the enhanced productivity they need if they want to survive.
A low-cost option could be our range of money counters. Our CountEasy range can reduce cash counting time to mere minutes and means less cash handling, fewer mistakes and less downtime. Or for those with the need to counter larger volumes of cash, our Friction Note Counters are perfect for the job – plus they can detect all known forgeries too and are approved by the Bank of England.
Volumatic also offers an award-winning all-in-one 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 until it reaches the bank. In addition, all cash data is instantly available to the staff or head office for reconciliation purposes.
All of these solutions are designed to enhance security too and are already used by big and small brands across the globe, including supermarkets Tesco, The Coop Food Group and Morrisons; smaller convenience stores Nisa and Londis; high street brands Subway and Wilko and leisure businesses Odeon cinemas and Genting Casino.
And while the business community are certainly not taking the hikes in rates and their wages bills lying down - The British Retail Consortium stated that while retailers do support the objective of higher wages, they, in turn, need additional support (from the Government) to enable improvements to productivity - now is the time for companies to be thinking about investing in smarter cash handling solutions themselves.
With efficiency being at the core of our business at Volumatic, if your business handles cash and is looking to save costs and improve efficiency, contact us today to find out more about our innovative cash handling solutions. Volumatic prides itself on delivering quality products that increase security and reduce theft, in addition to making daily processes easier for all – which has to be a win-win situation for many businesses right now.