Cui Bonus?

[steepholm]

This poll is prompted by the recent fuss about Stephen Hester's bonus, but it's something I've often wondered about. Just how widespread is the practice of giving performance-related bonuses? We tend to hear about it in connection with bankers, and others who are already paid ridiculous amounts, but is it much more widespread? I can see the argument for incentives, but would find it strange if only rich people needed them, and only in the form of yet more money. While the rest of us are expected to do our jobs properly from a sense of professional pride, are only the rich venal and lazy enough to need a couple of extra million to get out of bed? Surely not!

ETA: I of course should have included "Self-employed" in the job options, as I know that applies to many here, but I guess that falls into the "Not that simple..." box.

[Poll #1815171]

Comments

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I've a vague feeling we did get a bonus in 2006 when, for reasons quite unconnected with anything we'd actually done, sales exceeded expectations. Can't remember now how much it was, and not sure whether the scheme disappeared when we were taken over.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

In a sense, it's not that simple. When I get paid to give a talk, that's very vaguely a bonus for the part of the work I do which consists of writing. That would be maybe 1% a year of my salary, or a bit less.

In the US, the reason so much pay comes as bonuses is not that they're rewards but that they're tethers. Bankers and stockbrokers know secrets and have clients. If they got all they're income monthly, as salaries, they could leave for a competitor at any time. If 50% or more of their income comes only at the end of the year, they will be far less likely to move before the year is out. So really bonuses represent the part of your salary you would have to sacrifice if you moved elsewhere during the calendar year.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I don't consider being paid to give a talk a bonus, let along a performance-related one. It's a fee. By "performance-related bonus" I mean specifically rewards that come (at least nominally) as a result of meeting performance targets, or of exceeding expectations.

I can well believe that the tethering system you describe exists, but it seems to me that it isn't performance-related pay but rather deferred pay, and that it's dependent not on doing a good job but simply on not staying with the company.

[nightspore.livejournal.com]

On staying with the company, yes. Deferred pay, but only if you don't leave. (It probably gives businesses an option to get rid of people too and not pay them the deferred money, though one doesn't hear much about this.)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I wrote 'not leaving' first time round, and screwed up the correction.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Do freebie historical academic textbooks for review count as a bonus, I wonder? I'd be disinclined to shell out the full price for some of 'em! :o)

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Nope - they're part of the fee for the job. Unless you only get to keep them if you write a good enough review?

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Some of them are so dreadful that I have to grit my teeth and try to find something positive to say. I'm not a tenured academic, so I can't get away with 'pot boilers'.

[larryhammer]

I don't get performance-related bonuses -- instead, the amount of my one-a-year bump in salary is performance-indexed.

Our sales staff, on the other hand, do get performance bonuses.

---L.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I don't get bonuses, though I do get step-raises.

Our store consistently wins prizes for being top of the region in various goals. Our money goes into (non-alcoholic) office parties. When asked by management what I would like done with the money (ie, what sort of restaurant/food I'd like), I tell them that if we have extra money for the store, it can damn well go into our paychecks.

This is greeted with the frustrated expression parents often get when trying to explain to their children why they can't have a sweet before dinner.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's frustrating! And the parent/child is quite right, since that's how you're being treated.

I don't know the term "step-raises", but I'm assuming it's an annual increase in wages based on some combination of inflation and/or years in service, rather than performance.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

You're pretty much spot-on about the step-raises, though they also involve merit/performance issues for the year (they're awarded on an annual review basis).

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

When I was in telecom (account support) and at a dotcom, there were performance-related bonuses, directly linked to sales and customer satisfaction.

Some US universities (especially the non-union ones with actual money) have merit pay -- there's regular cost-of-living raises, and promotion raises, but then administrators look at a combination of teaching evals, courses/number of students/level of students taught, service, and publication (not always in that order, but I know that at my grad uni, at least one of the history chairs denied merit pay to people who slacked on service and teaching undergraduates to focus on writing and teaching postgrad seminars).

At my uni, there's no such thing as a bonus, but I do get the feeling that faculty who pull a bigger load in some areas seem to get a little more travel money from discretionary funds, and sometimes are presented with opportunities that others don't get, like being asked if we'd like to represent the university at a workshop that doesn't really carry any institutional follow-up and is held in a nice place.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It sounds as if your university relies quite heavily on patronage of the old-fashioned kind, which works iff the people in charge of the discretionary funds don't practise favouritism and are reliable in their judgements.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Sorry - I meant to add that, having read some of your work posts, I get the impression that in the case of your institution (or at least department) this is in fact the case; but it's easy to see how it might not be.

[joyeuce]

I filled this in relative to my last job, and then realised I shouldn't have answered question 1 ... sorry. Anyway, none of my jobs have involved bonuses; one did include a proportion of profit-related pay, but I can't remember, if I ever knew, how this was calculated.

I suppose one could argue that M's wedding and funeral fees count as bonuses, as they are additional to his regular stipend, and ministers will get different amounts depending on how pretty their church is, how willing they are to marry divorcees and/or conduct blessings of civil partnerships, how good a relationship they have with the local undertakers, etc.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I tried finding a gainly way of saying "the job you have now or one you had in the past", but gave up - but I really meant both!

I don't think I'd count the fee for performing ceremonies as a performance related bonus - it's just a fee. Unless, that it, M gets more money for doing it with extra vim?

[joyeuce]

Sadly, no! In fact the best services he does are those for church-connected people, because he knows them, and those are the ones where he waives the fee.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Back when I worked for the Taxman (who is mostly female), performance related pay was introduced. In order to get it, you had to achieve a particular standard in your assessment. Our head of local office sent down a memo stating that no-one on a particular grade or below was capable of achieving that standard.
He hadn't seen the assessments, nor did he interact with us peons. He just knew.
Performance 'bonuses' (in this case, it was a couple of £100 a year): only for the upper echelons even when the system tries to allow otherwise.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's contemptible.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Yep. We were deeply not impressed. I think the union had a word with him, too.

[roselet.livejournal.com]

It's really interesting to see that Stephen Hester's caused a fuss with his bonus in the UK when here in NZ a chief executive at the local city council has caused a similar fuss with his payrise. Not as much as what Hester was receiving, but given our status as recovering-from-a-natural-disaster it's quiiiiite a lot.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's a wonderfully low-key headline, but a pretty dispiriting story.

If I were allowed to pass one law, it would be replacing the term "remuneration committee" with "gravy boat".

[gillo]

I answered for the job I left last year. Private school, salaries on national scale plus a very small addition. No bonuses, spending own money on some resources.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

I have to say I answered this question as if I were still in my last job. Now I don't have one at all!

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

And the bonus is... I don't have to go to work!!!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

That's certainly a silver lining! (And all the cheese you can eat?)

[sheenaghpugh]

I was a lecturer. We didn't get bonuses. Bankers seem to get them automatically just for doing their job, which rather makes a nonsense of the meaning; it clearly isn't a reward for unusual effort or success any longer. Is it just a tax fiddle, calling part of the salary a bonus?

[shark-hat.livejournal.com]

I got a bonus one year at my old job- I can't remember how much it was, certainly hundreds rather than thousands! I'd been sort-of-seconded into a project, while still doing my normal work; it was really nice to be rewarded for that, and I had no idea the college had the capacity to give bonuses, so it was a complete surprise.
I think the concept of getting a bonus every year just for doing what you've been recruited and paid to do anyway is a bit odd, really.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I've been in two posts which supposedly awarded bonuses - both public sector - and though I'm sure I met my targets both times, I saw neither hide nor hair of any bonus...