Company Benefits
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@dashrender said in Company Benefits:
@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:
They have challenges at large companies because managers don't want to have the hard conversation and cut someone's bonus who didn't perform so they can pay someone who DID perform.
Eh? That whole pool thing is just crap to me. That company I always relate back to - they have a yearly, I guess I'll call it raise pool. It's like 2-8% of the entire teams salary into a single pool.
Let's assume 2% was put in the pool. The top earner made $210K/y and the bottom guy made $120K/y. Let's also assume that the top guy just did a stellar job this year, and the boss wants to give him 5%. If he does this, he has to allocate many of the 2% from the $120K/yr guys to cover that one $210 guy, basically cutting the $120K guys completely off (or at least someone on the team is getting nothing or next to nothing). I'm sure someone here thinks this is OK, I don't. I know this isn't about bonuses, this is about annual raises. And even that is a crap thing! Raises should be tied to two separate things - cost of living adjustments (not really a raise, just keeping the status quo) and merit increases (raises).
Much like forced ranking.
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@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:
@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:
@quixoticjeremy said in Company Benefits:
@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:
I REALLY dislike bonuses. Those are not a benefit. That's a trojan horse benefit, looks nice on the surface but in reality is just a way to lower employee pay through trickery.
This is astronomically true across the board. I actually was about to say the same thing.
Bonus pools for the last year I can find data (2015) showed pools funded at 89% (I suspect it's gone up as the economy has gotten better).
Anecdotally they don't work at Small companies because arbitrary thresholds often keep them from getting paid at all.
They have challenges at large companies because managers don't want to have the hard conversation and cut someone's bonus who didn't perform so they can pay someone who DID perform.
In the biggest companies I've seen (Fortune 10) they use bonuses with the junior staff and not with the senior staff. They will actually threaten to move top performers to bonuses systems if they aren't good enough to stay out of the bonus pool.
At the top it's all about stock as capital gains is a hell of a lot lower in the long term than your marginal tax rate. That's a double punch as it increases your tax liability.
@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:
@dashrender said in Company Benefits:
@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:
They have challenges at large companies because managers don't want to have the hard conversation and cut someone's bonus who didn't perform so they can pay someone who DID perform.
Eh? That whole pool thing is just crap to me. That company I always relate back to - they have a yearly, I guess I'll call it raise pool. It's like 2-8% of the entire teams salary into a single pool.
Let's assume 2% was put in the pool. The top earner made $210K/y and the bottom guy made $120K/y. Let's also assume that the top guy just did a stellar job this year, and the boss wants to give him 5%. If he does this, he has to allocate many of the 2% from the $120K/yr guys to cover that one $210 guy, basically cutting the $120K guys completely off (or at least someone on the team is getting nothing or next to nothing). I'm sure someone here thinks this is OK, I don't. I know this isn't about bonuses, this is about annual raises. And even that is a crap thing! Raises should be tied to two separate things - cost of living adjustments (not really a raise, just keeping the status quo) and merit increases (raises).
Much like forced ranking.
The reality is that managers not wanting arguments and defection of the plebs will only cut bonus's of people who they are wanting to fire and using the bonus system as a signal that it's time to start looking for a new job.
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@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:
@dashrender said in Company Benefits:
@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:
They have challenges at large companies because managers don't want to have the hard conversation and cut someone's bonus who didn't perform so they can pay someone who DID perform.
Eh? That whole pool thing is just crap to me. That company I always relate back to - they have a yearly, I guess I'll call it raise pool. It's like 2-8% of the entire teams salary into a single pool.
Let's assume 2% was put in the pool. The top earner made $210K/y and the bottom guy made $120K/y. Let's also assume that the top guy just did a stellar job this year, and the boss wants to give him 5%. If he does this, he has to allocate many of the 2% from the $120K/yr guys to cover that one $210 guy, basically cutting the $120K guys completely off (or at least someone on the team is getting nothing or next to nothing). I'm sure someone here thinks this is OK, I don't. I know this isn't about bonuses, this is about annual raises. And even that is a crap thing! Raises should be tied to two separate things - cost of living adjustments (not really a raise, just keeping the status quo) and merit increases (raises).
Much like forced ranking.
Forced rankings are dumb, but never having any layoffs means large companies starts to accumulate bozos as better workers will go somewhere that will reward success and managers try to amass huge armies of reports to justify bigger titles. Layoff's force companies to re-evaluate projects and departments and enable them to hire and double down on growth area's.
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@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:
@scottalanmiller said in Company Benefits:
@dashrender said in Company Benefits:
@john-nicholson said in Company Benefits:
They have challenges at large companies because managers don't want to have the hard conversation and cut someone's bonus who didn't perform so they can pay someone who DID perform.
Eh? That whole pool thing is just crap to me. That company I always relate back to - they have a yearly, I guess I'll call it raise pool. It's like 2-8% of the entire teams salary into a single pool.
Let's assume 2% was put in the pool. The top earner made $210K/y and the bottom guy made $120K/y. Let's also assume that the top guy just did a stellar job this year, and the boss wants to give him 5%. If he does this, he has to allocate many of the 2% from the $120K/yr guys to cover that one $210 guy, basically cutting the $120K guys completely off (or at least someone on the team is getting nothing or next to nothing). I'm sure someone here thinks this is OK, I don't. I know this isn't about bonuses, this is about annual raises. And even that is a crap thing! Raises should be tied to two separate things - cost of living adjustments (not really a raise, just keeping the status quo) and merit increases (raises).
Much like forced ranking.
Forced rankings are dumb, but never having any layoffs means large companies starts to accumulate bozos as better workers will go somewhere that will reward success and managers try to amass huge armies of reports to justify bigger titles. Layoff's force companies to re-evaluate projects and departments and enable them to hire and double down on growth area's.
I agree. Forced ranking was super terrible in a three person team where two people knew they would be kept and one knew they would be let go. The two would always want to hire someone TO BE FIRED each year to make sure that they were not the one to be let go. Forced ranking forces good people to avoid the company, bad people to cycle through and mediocre people to focus on keeping good people out.
