This thread, which addresses vacation time allotted in the U.S. v. the rest of the world got me wondering. Do you outside the U.S. dopers get year-end bonuses? How are they structured?
In Japan it’s pretty common to get a bonus of 1-3 months’ salary in June and December. So common, in fact, that it’s often included as part of the offered salary. The way it usually works is that if you’re offered a salary of $48,000/year, it might be divided into 16 parts. Each month, you’d receive one share, or $3000, as your salary. In June and December, though, you’d get your regular salary, plus two extra shares, or $9,000 altogether. Personally, I prefer to just get the same amount each month.
My company lets employees chose which way they want their salary distributed, and from what I’ve several of the Japanese staff prefer the June/December bonus, while others (and all the foreign staff) prefer an even distribution.
My company also gives out a profit-sharing bonus at the end of the year, although from what I’ve seen we’re a pretty rare exception. The tax rate on corporate profits is about 50%, while the tax on individual income is about 10-15%, and our boss figures we can make smarter use of the money than the government can. This past year was pretty good for the company, and my share came out to about 5 months’ salary.
In Hong Kong it’s usual for companies to pay one month’s salary as a bonus at the Chinese New Year (i.e. this week).
In The Netherlands a common arrangement is to have a ‘thirteenth month’: you get paid a double salary in December. It is not really considered to be a bonus, though, since it is completely unrelated to performance of the individual or of the company. Essentially you just have a lower salary through the year, then get paid double salary in December.
Also common is the ‘holiday bonus’ which is the same thing, only paid out in May to help pay for the holidays.
Performance related bonuses are very rare in The Netherlands, except possibly in top-level management and sales.
The UK company I have just retired from used to pay two bonuses a year . One was based on the company’s ability to meet certain targets. If this was met everyone received the bonus. The other one was a profit sharing scheme where everyone received free shares ( stocks ) every year. This was a proportion of the company’s profits. About a year ago the company merged with another firm and the bonuses were stopped. Instead, at Christmas, we all received a bottle of wine and a large tin of Quality Street, and they made the coffee machines free vend. A poor trade-off.