Could this bonus scheme be discriminatory?

[MummaGiles]

I work for a large professional services firm. The bonus scheme for fee earners is based on them recording in excess of 1600 chargeable hours a year, pro rated for part timers. This equates to just over 7 hours per day. Contracted hours are 7 per day, therefore to hit the bonus target fee earners need to record chargeable (ie no admin, training, business development etc) in excess of their contracted hours. In practice this means staying late/starting early, or both.

The people most able to do this are those without children/dependants or those who do not bear the brunt of childcare responsibilities (so generally men). For those who have to keep strict hours, because of the need to drop off/pick up children from childcare (on the whole, women), it is extremely difficult if not impossible to meet the bonus requirements as they do not even write in the time it takes to go to the loo or make a cuppa, never mind all the non-chargeable things fee earners are expected to do as part of their job (mentioned above).

Could this be viewed as discriminatory given the class of people it would generally affect is women?

No idea, but presumably as a bonus is usually for going above and beyond your standard work, it could be argued that a good way to judge that as a starting point is by hours worked

Your clutching at straws

7 hours a day is already less than a standard working week, so no, I don’t see how it can be discriminatory. Do people log on at home to achieve the target?

Agree with Misspiggy

So all these professional women are doing all pick ups and drop offs - what on earth are their partners doing? More hours to get their bonuses??

Yes, this seems to me to be indirect discrimination, however looking at examples from employment lawyers, I can't see that bonuses come up in this manner.

@DontLookBackIntoTheSun chargeable time isn't the same as working hours. Not by a long shot. Unless you've worked in that kind of arena, it's alien!

Your clutching at straws

Fair enough, I thought I might be

As they are pro rating for part timers everyone has the opportunity for bonus so doesnt sound like discrimination to me.

If you work part time and have no flexibility to stay late/early then you are already getting paid the absolute maximum you can to fit with your childcare. Drop an hour or two and make bonus if you prefer?

What would you like the bonus system to be changed to in order to make it fairer?

It may put certain people at a disadvantage but it's not discriminatory because it doesn't disadvantage only people with a protected characteristic.

As they are pro rating for part timers everyone has the opportunity for bonus so doesnt sound like discrimination to me.

But they don’t bc part timers are most likely not to be in a position to stay beyond contracted hours.

I completely sympathise.

Off topic slightly but frankly I think it's bloody impossible to hit chargeable hours targets and have a life outside of the office. I gave up a long time ago even trying. Strangely though, in the law firm I work for anyway, the billing targets are completely achievable and I always exceed them. I don't understand why chargeable hours targets are disproportionately higher - surely it's money in that matters?!

Its just a way of paying people who put in extra, unpaid hours. I don't see why its discriminatory, everyone doing extra hours is sacrificing something or making difficult choices to achieve it.

I don’t think trying to make it a gender/ sex issue is helpful here. What about women who don’t have children? Gay men with children? The issue is about flexibility. By reducing all possible workplace unfairness to women = childcare/ men = no childcare you’re making it harder to address the other more subtle and more dangerous discriminatory behaviours that women suffer. It won’t all be fixed by shared childcare. However in this specific example @LL83 hit the nail on the head.
Some of the ft staff may prefer to be contracted and paid pro rata for 8 hrs / day with no bonus but don’t have that option. Is that discriminatory?

YABU

I agree with Bodear

What’s ridiculous is that all of these professional women that are still solely responsible for childcare. The bonus scheme sounds pretty shitty though- why is it not based on total revenue generated rather than number of hours? But I can’t see how it would be discriminatory and I do think you are clutching at straws, sorry.

The bonus scheme sounds pretty shitty though- why is it not based on total revenue generated rather than number of hours?

Probably to avoid the firm having to pay out as frequently. They upped it from 1500 to 1600 hours a couple of years ago.

Thanks for all the views. I wasn’t really sure that it was discriminatory, but I wanted to put it out to the hive mind. It’s still a crap scheme.

you could argue that the all-or-nothing approach (with an absolute threshold) is less fair than an overtime at fixed hourly rate...

Tbh I do think it is but you would be hard pressed to prove/fight it due to attitudes like the ones on the thread.

I bet seeing a breakdown by age and sex of the people that did manage to get the bonus would be very eye opening.

I think if the chargeable hours were excessive there would be more of a case, but I wouldn't say that an amount just exceeding your contract is excessive.

If you're a woman in a situation where you lose out on a bonus because of this then I think the first person you need to complain to is your partner (if you have one...) with whom domestic labour should be equitably divided to ensure both partners can progress in their careers.

@WhiskeyLullaby you’re probably right that the proportion of individuals who hit the bonus are men but that doesn’t make the scheme discriminatory. It shows that the way society arranged itself is discriminatory.
The people not hitting the bonus are probably picking up the majority of life admin (childcare/ running a household/ whatever). They may also be studying outside of work. What they do outside of work isn’t the employer’s concern though. The problem we have is that women take than role as a default and it isn’t shared with partners in a lot of cases.
It’s only reasonable to expect that someone working more hours than they are contracted for will receive rewards above someone who is working only their contracted hours.

In my experience, the only people who ever really benefitted from a bonus scheme are the corporate lawyers when they've had a big deal go through. In order to charge 7 hours, you realistically have to work 10+ hours a day by the time you've covered client training, business development ( pitches etc), research, admin etc.

There aren't many business areas where you can hit that level consistently throughout the year, or bank enough in a short space of time to cover lulls later.

I think because it is prorated to include part time workers, it is not discriminatory. The threshold is that 1600 for full time workers, so part timers would have a lower threshold. It is just as hard for a part time worker to work extra hours as a full time worker.