The National Living Wage will be the minimum starting rate for all of the company’s 5,000 employees across its 27 sites, irrespective of age. Presently, 42% of its workforce (2,095 employees) is aged under 25.
Rod McKie, CEO of Welcome Break, said: “We are dedicated to offering dependable jobs to the very best people available, and pride ourselves on ensuring Welcome Break is a great place to work.
“If you want to attract the best people you need to reward them accordingly, and as such we’ve made the decision to give all of our employees, regardless of age, the National Living Wage.
“This is alongside the excellent career development opportunities with our world class brand partners and a host of other benefits, all our employees receive.”
Welcome Break will spend an additional £4 million to ensure it attracts the best recruits and some employees will see an increase of 33% on their current wage.
Welcome Break reported a turnover of £314m and profit before tax of £18.97m for the year to 27th January 2015. It was recently suggested that the operator is fielding a number of takeover enquiries around the £700m mark.
The operator, founded in 1959, has 27 sites across the UK and attracts 85 million motorway customers annually. Chains including Subway, Starbucks, Tossed, Burger King and Harry Ramsden’s.