I’m in the software industry. We get a bonus once a year based on a formula that takes into account how well the company did as a whole, how well our particular division did, as well as our individual performance over the past year. This year it amounted to about 7% of my annual salary.
Ed
I have a small business that’s just me, another part owner and one guy beneath us. If we have cash at the end of the fiscal year, we usually give ourselves about 2 weeks pay.
Our business is so up and down it’s really hard to part with large sums of cash, not knowing whether it will come back and bite us in the ass later down the line or not.
I work with a co-op deli and we get a bonus at the end of the year that’s based off of how well the business is doing, plus a percentage of profits as members of the co-op, and additional bonuses throughout the year depending on various factors.
We also get paid a pathetic amount otherwise.
The OP here- just to clarify, everyone gets an end-of-year (Christmas) bonus as well. $10 for every month of the year you worked there, taxed.
I used to work at a huge conglomerate of doctor’s offices that was notorious for lousy pay, but they had a very sweet end-of-year profit-sharing bonus program. My first Christmas there I’d been there for only 4 months, and still got $450. It went up by $150 every year after that. I miss that.
We get $100 taxed Christmas bonus.
There is also a Employee recoginition program. Other co-workers can fill out a post card and these are placed in a ballot box. Once a month a drawing is held and names are selected from all the post cards from all divsions. If your name is drawn you win a $50 American Express Gift card. I have been put in 9 times and won twice. This is taxed as well.
There is also a Note of Excellence that is also employee driven but more for the managers to have one of their employees get a $250 prize for work excellence. I think names are drawn twice a year and again is taxed.
I am sure the higher ups get big bonuses but that is all we get.
DoD’s pay system is being changed from the old GS scale to a pay-for-performance model. As part of this, when your end-of-year evaluation is done, depending upon how you score, your “shares” are divided between raise and bonus according to some magical formula. At our command, there is an effort afoot to ensure that, for example, all engineers working at the same level get the same pay, as opposed to the GS system where your pay was determined by your longevity. In that respect, the new system hurts me as a long-time employee (34 years.) At the end of the year, I’ll get the same amount of dollars that my performance merits, but more will be shifted to a bonus rather than base pay, whereas the engineers who have only been around 4 or 5 years get more salary and a smaller bonus.
The reason it hurts me is that my retirement (theoretically within 2 years…) is calculated from my base pay, so naturally, I want that to be as high as possible. The “system” isn’t set up to oblige me. So I get more bonus than raise.
Some years back, I worked in an office where the boss gave “on-the-spot” awards that were supposed to recognize employees who went above-and-beyond. In reality, it was a case of “whose turn is it to get it this month?” I figured that out when I got mine ($250) and the accompanying citation did little more than enumerate my job assignment that month. Oh, I took the money, but I didn’t get any warm glow of accomplishment - it wasn’t an award or a bonus - it was just my turn.
I work at a hotel. I get a bonus if a) revenue is over budget for the month. (did it for april , well short for may) or if we hit 100% occupancy for a day. (one day this month, did it with no no-shows.)
I’m in retail sales, so our bonuses are tied to the stores performance. As an assistant, I get 2% of every dollar over budget every month, with a minimum $5 payment, before taxes. Managers set a set dollar amount plus a percentage for every dollar over 100% of budget. We rarely hit budget, but we finally have, two months in a row. Last month, my bonus was $12…after taxes, it was just enough to buy lunch at one of the fancier places in the food court. This month, I’m expecting about $40 pre-tax.
Financial Industry - generally get around a 20% bonus every December. Usually works out to ~15-20k.
Retail worker for a large retail store chain. We get a few different bonuses.
The first is for meeting or beating sales goals; we get a reduced bonus if sales are between 95% and 100% of sales, increased bonus if sales are above plan. Awarded quarterly, simultaneously with the second type of bonus…
…and that second is similarly constructed, regarding profit levels (taking into effect things such as store expenses, as well as profit levels on products sold).
The above replaced other bonus plans done over the years, and still gets tweaked every year. It’s nice, though-- it used to be a yearly bonus, and dramatic drops in a given quarter would wipe out whatever we’d built up in other quarters. This way, we get a bonus for a good quarter without worrying that our traditional summer downturn will hurt us in the end. We’ve been getting between $100 to $400 a quarter; nearby stores have gotten a few thousand.
A third, minor type-- Christmas bonuses. I believe these are not available to most normal employees hired since 1996 or so, but is an older program that is maintained for long-term employees who are grandfathered in. It’s a minor amount-- I think I get $50-- that will become more and more meaningless as inflation makes it a pointless token.
I’m a nurse in a hospital and we get a customer satisfaction bonus of about $250.00 to $300.00 IF our customer satisfaction surveys are above whatever percent, which they never are (this year because of construction noise and room shortages, last year because of room shortages).
We also can qualify for another bonus if we meet certain goals do certain projects over the course of a year. I made about $250.00 in this program last year, but one could earn up to about a thousand dollars for various qualifying activities.
We also get a $25.00 grocery coupon for Christmas and Thanksgiving and small gifts throughout the year. Most recently, we got a foldable lawn chair, an umbrella and a two of free dinners on site- one for hospital week and one for nurses’ week.
These are not a lot of bonuses, but I think they are more than most nurses get.
When I worked for EDS, I got one bonus, after what may have been the largest migration of tapes in the United States (we imported just short of a million tapes, I believe). I got $100 for that.
Other got bonuses more regularly, but I had been flagged as a troublemaker early on, and no amount of actual work or skill could overcome that. Thus, while I did the work, I did not get bonuses. Then they stopped giving bonuses. Or raises.
When I worked for ADP, I got a bonus once, about $80 if I recall.
Those are the only bonuses I have ever received, in about 14 years of working as a Computer Operator (the redheaded stepchildren of the IT world).
We get great bonuses on about a quarterly basis. I work for an architectural firm and I love my job. The bonuses are the icing on the cake. (Now I’ll go bake a cake).
The plebes at work get a yearly “performance sharing” bonus, but it’s based on the performance of pretty much all of the company’s divisions in California. Above a certain level, people get (or don’t get) yearly bonuses based on their personal accomplishments. Performance sharing: about $1500/year. Individual bonuses: can you say Lexus? I’m still in the plebe category.
Some contracts also get double-top-secret incentive awards based on their individual programs’ milestones, determined about twice per year. (I get these; about $3000/year).
We also get friendly pats-on-the back spot awards of $25 or $50 in gift certificates. Incredible overachievers such as myself get about $75/year worth of these.
Before my company got bought out by its present owners, we’d get a free turkey for Christmas. (Well, a gift certificate for groceries worth the price of a decent-sized turkey.)
I’ve had two jobs which have had a bonus/incentive program and one in which I got a bonus for a special project. At my current job we have a quarterly incentive program that pays out based on a number of metrics. The first year I was here we got a year-end gift card. Some people were grumbling because it was less than it had been in years past but it was my first one and I’m always happy for free money. This past year we went from being a privately owneed subsidiary to a publicly traded company and everyone who was working here got a “Founders Grant” in the form of a contribution to their company stock fund. We also have a thing where we can earn time off but I have no idea what the criteria are for it.
At a former job I worked in a brand-new collections department and we got incentive based on such things as getting an account paid in full and some other things. I loved it because I usually bumped my base pay by 15% or so per month. After about six months of that the program was discontinued. We were notified of it the same day that the company reported being out of a debt, a debt of which our department retired one dollar out of every six. I started a Pit thread about it.
Bonuses? Hahahaha! Hoo boy! Excuse me for a moment while I compose myself.
No, we don’t get no stinking bonuses. Despite claiming to, the college where I work also doesn’t give out merit raises. There’s absolutely no financial incentive to work hard at your job or try to make things more efficient. It sucks.
Corporate IT.
Like many others, our bonus is based on a fancy formula that takes into consideration company performance as well as individual performance.
Last year I hit the jackpot and received the equivalent of 3 months pay. I mentioned to my boss that it was more than my entire first year salary when I started 17 years ago.
Taxes reduced the joy a bit, but lots of bills were paid and I got some new toys out of it.
ETA: I forgot to mention the yearly stock options, and just recently they began giving out actual stock (a few hundred shares) that you have to wait 3 years to get vested. Nice.
More than I get. Bank IT infrastructure guy here, and we’re flat-out ineligible for bonuses.
You have to be either a manager or a sales and service goon to qualify for a bonus. Do the sales droids ever thank the people that keep the systems running so they can sell accounts? Of course not.
Nope. I work for the taxpayers- a public school district. My annual raises have been anywhere from 4% to 8.5% in each of the last 4 years.
But 5 weeks of vacation, 3 weeks of very flexibly permissive sick time, 7 discretionary and two personal days each year, fully paid life insurance, fully paid family health, dental and vision coverage and a $300 mileage allowance make me not miss bonuses too much.
Oh, and I work 1.4 miles from where I live.
And twice a year I get three days/nights at the Embassy Suites downtown (Chicago) with the wife ostensibly attending conferences.
LOL, yes. A lot of my pay is based on bonuses. In fact, I’ve earned 10,000 dollars in bonus pay this year just for **not **quitting!
I work for a brokerage firm and the other companies in this area have tried to lure my company’s employees away. Thus, management actually pays out bonuses to not leave.