DoorDash and Amazon Won't Change Tipping Policy After Instacart Controversy (forbes.com) 71
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Forbes: The tipping controversy that prompted Instacart to reverse a compensation plan to its contract workers isn't likely to go away: Rivals DoorDash and Amazon Flex are continuing to adjust driver pay based on how much they get tipped, saying doing so ensures a minimum payout. The practice, which has its roots in the way brick-and-mortar restaurants pay waitstaff, has been adapted to suit the needs of app-based delivery companies. The difference is that gig-economy workers are independent contractors, and so aren't protected by the minimum wage laws. Instacart, a $7.6 billion grocery delivery company, made a change in October 2018 that workers would receive at least $10 per delivery order. Customers and shoppers didn't realize that the tips were counting towards that minimum instead of being a bonus on top. So if someone tipped more, Instacart effectively had to pay less. That's how one Instacart delivery driver ended up with Instacart only paying 80 cents and the rest of the minimum being met with tips.
The company reversed its decision on Wednesday after public outcry, admitting that counting tips in its payout totals was "misguided" and has moved to a new pay scale that doesn't factor in tips at all. But DoorDash and Amazon Flex, the contract workforce that delivers packages for Prime Now, continued to stand their ground. DoorDash claims it has been transparent about the tips being part of its delivery driver pay since it made the change in 2017, including on a blog post on whether customers should tip, and maintains that delivery-driver retention and overall satisfaction both "increased significantly" since the change. Both DoorDash and Instacart insist that they never turned the payment dial down if someone received a large tip. Instead, both companies used an algorithm to calculate a base pay rate that would include things like time and effort it took to deliver. If that base pay plus tip fell short of the price they guaranteed, then both companies would pay out more to make sure its delivery drivers reached the payout they had been promised. But in cases where the tip plus its initial calculation reached the promised payout, then the companies would only contribute the amount that the algorithm had calculated the delivery person deserved. One simple solution if you want to make sure your tip gets into the hand of your digital delivery worker: tip in cash.
The company reversed its decision on Wednesday after public outcry, admitting that counting tips in its payout totals was "misguided" and has moved to a new pay scale that doesn't factor in tips at all. But DoorDash and Amazon Flex, the contract workforce that delivers packages for Prime Now, continued to stand their ground. DoorDash claims it has been transparent about the tips being part of its delivery driver pay since it made the change in 2017, including on a blog post on whether customers should tip, and maintains that delivery-driver retention and overall satisfaction both "increased significantly" since the change. Both DoorDash and Instacart insist that they never turned the payment dial down if someone received a large tip. Instead, both companies used an algorithm to calculate a base pay rate that would include things like time and effort it took to deliver. If that base pay plus tip fell short of the price they guaranteed, then both companies would pay out more to make sure its delivery drivers reached the payout they had been promised. But in cases where the tip plus its initial calculation reached the promised payout, then the companies would only contribute the amount that the algorithm had calculated the delivery person deserved. One simple solution if you want to make sure your tip gets into the hand of your digital delivery worker: tip in cash.
Tipping in cash (Score:4, Insightful)
is an ideal solution if you are just tipping a merchandise delivery driver. With food orders if you tip on a card presumably some of it gets to the cooks and kitchen staff as well. Not every situation is the same.
Re: Tipping in cash (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Tipping is a terrible practice.
Do you tip everyone you buy something from?
We need to pay locally sustainable wages for goods and services all the time and the cost of doing so reflected in the price of the item. If your hotel room is not clean, your waiter is rude, your cab driver is mean, your barber does a poor job you need to make a choice.
Pick a new vendor or work with the one you like to get the service you like.
Re: Tipping in cash (Score:4, Interesting)
The people who handle the food I eat are in a different category. I consider the tip a social form of insurance, or a small ransom on the safe handling of something I'm about to ingest.
Sadly, much as the lottery is a tax on folks who can't do math, tipping is a tax on the generous to the benefit of the frugal.
Re: Tipping in cash (Score:2, Insightful)
So...you tip *before* you place your order? I mean, tipping after you ate wouldn't ensure safe handling of your food.
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So when's the last time you tipped your doctor? Your auto mechanic? Or the pilot on your flight?
All three have the potential to cause your untimely demise. Shouldn't you hand over a 30% tip just to be safe?
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So when's the last time you tipped your doctor? Your auto mechanic? Or the pilot on your flight?
All three have the potential to cause your untimely demise. Shouldn't you hand over a 30% tip just to be safe?
Although it's tempting to argue that people employed in these vocations tend to be more professional than the waitstaff at the local steak house, I have in fact tipped a doctor once and our mechanic every time he does a job for us... a gift card for dinner out to the doctor, a case of hand wipes or a bottle of whiskey to the increasingly rare honest mechanic. Small things really, yet they set you apart from the average grumbling, unappreciative customer.
Thoughtfulness is a vanishing trait these days, and I
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We frequently use a regional food delivery service, undoubtedly based on these national chains. After talking to a few delivery employees, we've discovered that no tip up front on the original order may place your delivery's priority behind one with a tip on the credit slip. Folks who say they'll tip with cash at the door on the invoice sometimes do not, apparently.
Our solution is to tip some up front, and some cash at the house... which seems to get the food here still warm and pleases the driver(s).
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Or don't tip. A living wage is the responsibility of the employer, not the customer.
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With food orders if you tip on a card presumably some of it gets to the cooks and kitchen staff as well.
If you presume that, you'll be wrong 99% of the time.
Are tips in the app visible to the driver? (Score:2)
With doordash, you pay with a credit card and assign a tip when you place your order. If that amount is visible to the driver before delivery giving a cash tip upon delivery would leave you at risk for angry drivers fucking with your food thinking they weren't getting a tip.
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1st time with a 0 tip on slip: you give expected service, and hope for the reward at the door.
After that... though, it will be swayed with how you rewarded with tips from then on out.
Re:Are tips in the app visible to the driver? (Score:4, Funny)
Delivery address:
Joe Blow
666 Anywhere Lane
Apt 2 - Cash Tip!
Anytown, OK 24601
Re:Are tips in the app visible to the driver? (Score:4, Insightful)
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With doordash, you pay with a credit card and assign a tip when you place your order. If that amount is visible to the driver before delivery giving a cash tip upon delivery would leave you at risk for angry drivers fucking with your food thinking they weren't getting a tip.
Why would the driver care if you don't tip? They get paid the same either way. With Doordash, the more you tip, the less they pay the driver. You're not tipping the driver, you're tipping the company. It's pointless. Might as well stiff 'em.
Don't worry! (Score:1, Funny)
Don't worry, they "gamified" employment.
You can see your ratings, compare your hours worked, get feedback, and valuable XP!
Switch companies or jobs, and your XP resets to zero, just like in game!
and with bonuses, you might get a loot-box!
Some very rare loot-boxes include:
-full time employment
-healthcare
-time off
-sick days
Keep on playing, and remember to keep on paying!
"Ensures a minimum payout" (Score:2)
Here is another solution (Score:3)
Re:All Right!! (Score:5, Informative)
Re: All Right!! (Score:4, Informative)
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Because a tip tells them that the server actually made a net positive impression, and that you are sufficiently enriched by the experience with the server you had that you are willing to reward it.
If that's never happened to you, well that's fine for you too. If you still can't understand it, then that's a limitation of your own ability to imagine things outside of your own experience, not a reflection of whether or not it shouldn't happen.
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As I said, the premise behind it is simply when a person has felt sufficiently enriched by their professional interactions with an individual that they are wanting to directly reward the individual above and beyond any mere legal obligation to pay for a debt that may be owed. This reward comes in the form of a tip.
So yes, there most certainly is a reason to do so.
That you may not have ever felt willing to so reward someone above and beyond whatever you felt you were legally required to do is entirely
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And it's exactly this reward bollocks that leads to the insane arms race that tipping has become. You have to tip above and beyond if you want to reward the exceptional, but as soon as you do that it becomes the standard and every surly grouch with a tray expects that new level. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I'm not old yet, and I can remember a time when 10% was a good tip.
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