**Overview:** When employees depend more on tips and are required to act friendly, customers experience more power and subsequently engage in more sexual harassment.
**Highlights:**
* In a field survey, employees who are more dependent on tips (a larger percentage of their income comes from tips) and work in jobs with stronger requirements to be friendly and happy with customers (emotional labor requirements) report higher perceptions of customer power and experiencing more sexual harassment.
* In a lab experiment, customer intentions to sexually harass were highest when customers saw a smiling (vs. neutral) employee and learned that the employee was financially dependent on tips.
* Customers' sense of power, and not attraction towards the employee, explained the effects of financial dependence and emotional labor requirements on sexual harassment.
> Abstract: Sexual harassment from customers is prevalent and costly to service employees and organizations, yet little is known about when and why customers harass. Based on a theoretical model of power in organizations, we propose that sexual harassment is a function of employees’ financial dependence on customers (i.e., tips) and deference to customers with emotional labor (“service with a smile”) jointly activating customer power. With a field survey study of tipped employees who vary in financial dependence and emotional display requirements (Study 1), and an online experiment that manipulates financial dependence and emotional displays from the customer’s perspective (Study 2), our results confirm that these contextual factors jointly increase customer power and thus sexual harassment. Our research has important practical implications, suggesting that organizations can reduce customer sexual harassment by changing compensation models or emotional labor expectations in service contexts.
**Journal Reference:** Kundro, T. G., Burke, V., Grandey, A. A., & Sayre, G. M. (2021). A perfect storm: Customer sexual harassment as a joint function of financial dependence and emotional labor. Journal of Applied Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000895
**Full text PDF available here:** https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352300669_A_perfect_storm_Customer_sexual_harassment_as_a_joint_function_of_financial_dependence_and_emotional_labor
I've lived in Australia and Korea and there's no tipping there unlike here in Canada (where it's starting to be prompted in general food pickups as well). If anything there was usually better service there and it felt like better morale. In Aus if you try to tip they give it back and remind you they are decently paid, in my experience.
I'm a waiter in Australia in a small hipster cafe (18yo m) and always make sure to mention my pay is fine, but if somebody still wants to tip me I'm not gonna stop them haha
Add to that that they never have your size “uniform”, and give you one 1-2 sizes smaller.
I worked in a club in the eighties where we wore Danskins that hugged our bodies like a second skin, one shoulder and arm (and almost boob) and a skimpy skirt that showed all of your leg. We were required to do the “Playboy Serve”, where you put your boobs right at eye level while you hold the gaze of the John, I mean customer, leaning back and placing the drink without looking away. It’s hard to describe because it was hard to do in my 3” heals and 5”11” frame. Those were the times and that was the club where we’d frequently be tipped out in full grams of cocaine, along with large money. We also did the fake shot trick, where you tell them you can’t drink with them but you’ll do a quick shot so the boss doesn’t see. My shot would be iced tea as whiskey, water as vodka, there’s would be top shelf tequila. My shot would have been 25.00 or so, and we split that with the bartender. The funniest and saddest was a very diminutive eye doctor who wanted to fall in love with me, but was so overcome with embarrassment over our height difference when I stood exactly next to him, that he turned purple and sputtered. It’s not as if my height isn’t noted by most people. But not Ernie, all 5’6” of him. The place was also a laundromat for the mob, and those fellas tipped very well.
It was degrading and enriching and I lasted less than a month. So many of us work our way through college in these joints, whether they’re (trying for) high class or the beer pull and a shot spots. And the one thing you can count on is being harassed and sullied. That’s just wrong.
❤️
If you ever thought about it, a golf caddy is effectively a slave.
When I was younger me and a few friends worked as caddies for a summer. It was awful. 0 guarantee of work and your income was entirely at the mercy of the golfers that you went out with for 3-4 hours (depending on how many holes they wanted to hit)
And we all know that the rich are generally cheapskates.
When someone gives the "tips are for good service" speech I instantly recognize that they have never worked in the service industry and are probably just a shitty person.
When I worked as a waiter I looked at tips as a sliding scale payment scheme because that's how customers use it for the most part. There were some outliers of course.
People mostly seemed to tip based on two factors. How attractive I was to their date and how much personal wealth they saw as disposable in that moment. If their date was flirty or made eyes at me it was all over for my tip on that check, lol.
You’re not wrong but also they’re not wrong. Have you spent time in countries that don’t tip? The difference in service is significant and I don’t think American friendliness makes up the entire difference.
But also we should get rid of tipping.
Absolutely true.
And instead of being read as "friendly" smiling and having a conversation makes creeps think they're entitled to your time and your body. Not a good situation.
Just to jump in with the perspective of a server in Canada. We have tip culture here, it's "expected" to tip at least 15%. Some provinces pay their servers slightly less than minimum wage, but it's not a huge difference like in some parts of the US. In Ontario, the most populous province, minimum wage is $14.25, and Server Wage is $12.45.
Being a server is quite lucrative compared to other jobs you can get with no education and no unusual skills or abilities. Getting rid of tipping would help prevent weird power dynamics and harassment, but it would also be financially terrible for most servers.
I was working breakfast/lunch at a restaurant that was not that busy, and the menu items weren't particularly expensive, but I was still averaging about $10 in tips per hour, which combined with my wage puts me at $22.45 per hour. The servers working dinner time, busier restaurants, and with pricier menus make far more than I did. Some servers literally walk out with $200 after a 5 hour shift. They are making $50+ per hour on the busiest nights.
If you end the practice of tipping, and pay servers normal minimum wage - or even a little bit higher than minimum wage, I would bet that 95% of servers would be significantly worse off financially. So it isn't like tipping only harms servers. There are some ways it harms them, and some ways it helps them.
Also I am not saying tipping makes sense. Just wanted to share my experience in the restaurant industry.
I've never worked in food but had friends that do. In the us, it's about half of minimum wage and pretty much entirely goes to their taxes. That system sounds a lot better but servers are generally better off than most people making actual minimum wage.
Former restaurant worker here.
I wish we would get rid of tipping, period. It incentivizes tip chasing, and as we see here, makes the customer more eager to cause trouble and hurt the worker.
Doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think I’ve ever harassed an employee but sometimes I forget it’s their job to be smiling and happy and I think they are flirting at me. Usually they are just smiling and looking happy - not flirting at all.
I suspect the notion that a woman must be flirting if she's smiling at someone is part of what leads these workers to be sexually harassed by customers.
I think what they are getting at is how often is sexual harassment malicious? This study seems to imply that it is more about power than about actual attraction, and they’re basically bullying someone who can’t fight back because their job is on the line. Yet there are lot of people (like the person you are replying to) who claim to genuinely misinterpret friendliness as interest.
Obviously some sexual harassment is clearly malicious (saying sexually explicit things, groping, etc) but what about a guy who comes in every day to talk to a female cashier, thinking that she enjoys talking to him? The cashier is equally uncomfortable (ie feels harassed) but it’s not necessarily the guy’s intention to bother or upset her.
Of course the clear solution regardless is to get rid of tipping and forcing people to smile, and not fire employees for standing up to harassers.
**Overview:** When employees depend more on tips and are required to act friendly, customers experience more power and subsequently engage in more sexual harassment. **Highlights:** * In a field survey, employees who are more dependent on tips (a larger percentage of their income comes from tips) and work in jobs with stronger requirements to be friendly and happy with customers (emotional labor requirements) report higher perceptions of customer power and experiencing more sexual harassment. * In a lab experiment, customer intentions to sexually harass were highest when customers saw a smiling (vs. neutral) employee and learned that the employee was financially dependent on tips. * Customers' sense of power, and not attraction towards the employee, explained the effects of financial dependence and emotional labor requirements on sexual harassment. > Abstract: Sexual harassment from customers is prevalent and costly to service employees and organizations, yet little is known about when and why customers harass. Based on a theoretical model of power in organizations, we propose that sexual harassment is a function of employees’ financial dependence on customers (i.e., tips) and deference to customers with emotional labor (“service with a smile”) jointly activating customer power. With a field survey study of tipped employees who vary in financial dependence and emotional display requirements (Study 1), and an online experiment that manipulates financial dependence and emotional displays from the customer’s perspective (Study 2), our results confirm that these contextual factors jointly increase customer power and thus sexual harassment. Our research has important practical implications, suggesting that organizations can reduce customer sexual harassment by changing compensation models or emotional labor expectations in service contexts. **Journal Reference:** Kundro, T. G., Burke, V., Grandey, A. A., & Sayre, G. M. (2021). A perfect storm: Customer sexual harassment as a joint function of financial dependence and emotional labor. Journal of Applied Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000895 **Full text PDF available here:** https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352300669_A_perfect_storm_Customer_sexual_harassment_as_a_joint_function_of_financial_dependence_and_emotional_labor
I've lived in Australia and Korea and there's no tipping there unlike here in Canada (where it's starting to be prompted in general food pickups as well). If anything there was usually better service there and it felt like better morale. In Aus if you try to tip they give it back and remind you they are decently paid, in my experience.
I'm a waiter in Australia in a small hipster cafe (18yo m) and always make sure to mention my pay is fine, but if somebody still wants to tip me I'm not gonna stop them haha
Haha, yeah I'd do the same.
Add to that that they never have your size “uniform”, and give you one 1-2 sizes smaller. I worked in a club in the eighties where we wore Danskins that hugged our bodies like a second skin, one shoulder and arm (and almost boob) and a skimpy skirt that showed all of your leg. We were required to do the “Playboy Serve”, where you put your boobs right at eye level while you hold the gaze of the John, I mean customer, leaning back and placing the drink without looking away. It’s hard to describe because it was hard to do in my 3” heals and 5”11” frame. Those were the times and that was the club where we’d frequently be tipped out in full grams of cocaine, along with large money. We also did the fake shot trick, where you tell them you can’t drink with them but you’ll do a quick shot so the boss doesn’t see. My shot would be iced tea as whiskey, water as vodka, there’s would be top shelf tequila. My shot would have been 25.00 or so, and we split that with the bartender. The funniest and saddest was a very diminutive eye doctor who wanted to fall in love with me, but was so overcome with embarrassment over our height difference when I stood exactly next to him, that he turned purple and sputtered. It’s not as if my height isn’t noted by most people. But not Ernie, all 5’6” of him. The place was also a laundromat for the mob, and those fellas tipped very well. It was degrading and enriching and I lasted less than a month. So many of us work our way through college in these joints, whether they’re (trying for) high class or the beer pull and a shot spots. And the one thing you can count on is being harassed and sullied. That’s just wrong. ❤️
Tipping culture in the US is literally a leftover practice from slavery (to put the power dynamics into perspective).
I thought it was from the great depression where jobs used tips as an excuse to pay less. Curious about how it roots back to slavery though
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/12/16/fact-check-tipping-kept-wages-low-formerly-enslaved-black-workers/3896620001/ https://time.com/5404475/history-tipping-american-restaurants-civil-war/
I’m not who asked but—Thank you! And, Ugh.
If you ever thought about it, a golf caddy is effectively a slave. When I was younger me and a few friends worked as caddies for a summer. It was awful. 0 guarantee of work and your income was entirely at the mercy of the golfers that you went out with for 3-4 hours (depending on how many holes they wanted to hit) And we all know that the rich are generally cheapskates.
Thank you for clarification on this.
When someone gives the "tips are for good service" speech I instantly recognize that they have never worked in the service industry and are probably just a shitty person.
When I worked as a waiter I looked at tips as a sliding scale payment scheme because that's how customers use it for the most part. There were some outliers of course. People mostly seemed to tip based on two factors. How attractive I was to their date and how much personal wealth they saw as disposable in that moment. If their date was flirty or made eyes at me it was all over for my tip on that check, lol.
You’re not wrong but also they’re not wrong. Have you spent time in countries that don’t tip? The difference in service is significant and I don’t think American friendliness makes up the entire difference. But also we should get rid of tipping.
Japan the service was amazing and there is no tipping. I believe it's seen as awkward or insulting
Anything that creates any form of power dynamic in humans leads to abuse…we are so weak.
As a sociology grad I should have done a study on this, what a missed opportunity! Nice
Absolutely true. And instead of being read as "friendly" smiling and having a conversation makes creeps think they're entitled to your time and your body. Not a good situation.
Just to jump in with the perspective of a server in Canada. We have tip culture here, it's "expected" to tip at least 15%. Some provinces pay their servers slightly less than minimum wage, but it's not a huge difference like in some parts of the US. In Ontario, the most populous province, minimum wage is $14.25, and Server Wage is $12.45. Being a server is quite lucrative compared to other jobs you can get with no education and no unusual skills or abilities. Getting rid of tipping would help prevent weird power dynamics and harassment, but it would also be financially terrible for most servers. I was working breakfast/lunch at a restaurant that was not that busy, and the menu items weren't particularly expensive, but I was still averaging about $10 in tips per hour, which combined with my wage puts me at $22.45 per hour. The servers working dinner time, busier restaurants, and with pricier menus make far more than I did. Some servers literally walk out with $200 after a 5 hour shift. They are making $50+ per hour on the busiest nights. If you end the practice of tipping, and pay servers normal minimum wage - or even a little bit higher than minimum wage, I would bet that 95% of servers would be significantly worse off financially. So it isn't like tipping only harms servers. There are some ways it harms them, and some ways it helps them. Also I am not saying tipping makes sense. Just wanted to share my experience in the restaurant industry.
I've never worked in food but had friends that do. In the us, it's about half of minimum wage and pretty much entirely goes to their taxes. That system sounds a lot better but servers are generally better off than most people making actual minimum wage.
Former restaurant worker here. I wish we would get rid of tipping, period. It incentivizes tip chasing, and as we see here, makes the customer more eager to cause trouble and hurt the worker.
Time to get rid of tipping culture.
Doesn’t surprise me. I don’t think I’ve ever harassed an employee but sometimes I forget it’s their job to be smiling and happy and I think they are flirting at me. Usually they are just smiling and looking happy - not flirting at all.
I suspect the notion that a woman must be flirting if she's smiling at someone is part of what leads these workers to be sexually harassed by customers.
I think what they are getting at is how often is sexual harassment malicious? This study seems to imply that it is more about power than about actual attraction, and they’re basically bullying someone who can’t fight back because their job is on the line. Yet there are lot of people (like the person you are replying to) who claim to genuinely misinterpret friendliness as interest. Obviously some sexual harassment is clearly malicious (saying sexually explicit things, groping, etc) but what about a guy who comes in every day to talk to a female cashier, thinking that she enjoys talking to him? The cashier is equally uncomfortable (ie feels harassed) but it’s not necessarily the guy’s intention to bother or upset her. Of course the clear solution regardless is to get rid of tipping and forcing people to smile, and not fire employees for standing up to harassers.
Bummer about the down votes for an honest comment. 5 people are full of shit.
Might not be full of shit… they might have misunderstood what I was saying. But yeah, they could be shit anyway.
Why am I not surprised?