I found out this week that I am to become part of the bonus culture that is being so heavily criticised. Last year our company pay offer was split into two during negotiations with the union.
As part of offering a lower percentage that we asked for, they added a proviso for a one-off payment if the company met a certain financial target. The good news is that the company did meet that target and so in my next wage packet I will get an extra £150. Before tax.
Does that make me a fat cat now?
I’m sure Sir Nicholas Meyer would say it is not right that I should be rewarded so handsomely for just doing my job, as he said when Question Time came to Crawley, despite the fact he got a knighthood for just doing his job. On balance, given the choice I would take £150 over a knighthood any day.
Don’t let anyone call you a cat! We get sales bonuses – if we hit a monthly target. In our case the budgets are set at the beginning of the year but, each quarter, the staff bonus level is moved up (or down) depending on the store’s performance in the past quarter. This is meant to incentivise staff and in some stores it does – in those stores where getting a bonus is just a rumour I’m not really sure what it does for morale. Our industry is low-paid enough that I think we are more like mangy feral cats than fat ones….
A previous company I was at managed to disincentivise the staff with a bonus. After more than a year of exceptional performance that saved the company a fortune they dropped strong hints of a £400 ex gratia payment in the xmas pay packet and then gave everybody £200.
We all, of course, focused on the £200 we didn’t get rather than the £200 we did get.
That hardly makes you an anorexic vole!
Maybe I am anoriexic – whenever I look in a mirror I see a fat person looking back.
The Merit system of pay rises (at Monotype and MEL) was most unfair and created rivalry and resent amongst shop floor workmates..