The company I work for has been saying for months that we will be getting a great cash bonus this year, the first year they’re doing anything more than just a gift card. For months they’ve been hyping it up saying they are targeting a 10% bonus (subject to be adjusted) for everyone in the company to be based off of however much money you made last year: salary, commission, overtime, etc all combined. The final amounts came out this morning, let me break it down.
50% of the bonus comes from how the company did this year as a whole. If the company exceeded expectations then this portion would be higher, if the company did bad then it would be lower. The company had more than double the target growth and profit ratios for 2021. But the bonuses were not doubled, they were increased by 5% in this portion alone.
20% of the bonus comes from how our individual departments performed. My department led the bulk of the company’s profitability for 2021. We were nearly triple our targets. But was our bonus triples to reflect this? No, this portion was increased by 5%.
30% of the bonus comes from our individual performance. Last month everyone in the company had yearly performance reviews where we were given a score from 1-10. The average score for the whole company was supposed to be a 5. So even if everyone did amazing, some people would still be given a score of 1 to keep the desired average. My score was a 9, and I was told that my bonus would reflect my high score. Mine did, this portion was increased by 5%. However, the 5% was only for people who scored a 9 or 10. For scores 4-8, the usual bonus would be given. For scores under 4, the bonus got smaller and smaller until a score of 1 with no bonus.
Found out this morning my bonus was not based on my salary it was based on my yearly earnings. Because I started in April, my yearly earnings were smaller than my actual salary. On top that, my final bonus was multiplied by 75% to reflect the fact that I wasn’t here for the first quarter of the year. So it was double-discounted because I was a new employee in 2021.
Managers have been saying for months we should be putting in overtime and work extra hard to get a bigger bonus. I was stupid enough to believe that I would be awarded for my extra effort. We far exceeded expectations for the year so I would bet anything the president of the company got a bonus of at least a couple million. But nothing for the people who are actually running the company, dealing with customers, and making sales. Total bullshit.