People complaining about their 'bonus'

[extramoney]

Reading a thread about the NHS bonus and everyone unhappy that it's not as much as they expected because of deductions

Made me think that actually people are a bit entitled. we all get taxed on bonus, we should just be grateful we've had some extra.

@Letittow my point was… many NHS employees will be encountering a bonus for the first time.

So they are only just realising how much money you lose from a one off bonus - especially if you have a student loan (although of course SL benefits them in the long run as they will accrue less interest l).

Whereas the rest of us find this out in our early 20s!

It’s under an umbrella, which manages thousand’s of employees with in-house legal and payroll. The type of company who will
add on that £50 they missed out because an couple of hours where missing rather than making you wait to next pay etc.

They personally check in with each departments manager to check that the pay for each employee matches all pay they should get as some are hourly some salary some salary plus bonus pay for any overtime some piece work depending on department, some piece plus hourly. It’s a rather complicated place.

NHS
Teachers
Care Workers
They deserve recognition and these jobs should have status because they are so important for all of us and so beneficial to society. They also deserve GOOD pay. And we should all want that too - what is more important than NHS, Education and Care?
I'm curious what industry you work in - but it's irrelevant really

Don't worry. The Tories are doing their best to ensure it is.

what is more important than NHS, Education and Care?

There are hundreds of industries just as important - Police, food producers, effluent processing, water/gas/electricity suppliers.... The list is endless. Could you live without them?

Everything the private sector has touched has turned to shit

Foreign shareholders own the vast majority of British infrastructure and leach profits out of this country which should be reinvested

Water companies with leaks, inadequate reserves and water shortages

Rail companies with no training programmes for staff, a shortage of train crews and trains running abysmally

Power companies are charging massive amounts and being subsidised by the government

Private health care has it's own issues, from lack of emergency careto poor vetting of surgeons.

Well my bonus is already minuscule so getting taxed on it, makes it even rubbish. I’d rather not be taxed or at least not be taxed on such small amounts! If your bonus was big I can understand it. It’s less of a reward when you are taxed on it so much!

YABU

People in the public sector never get bonuses so how would they know how they are taxed.

Also this isn't a bonus and it's a cynical, patronising government sleight of hand to avoid the recurrent impact of a fair pay rise.

There have been no pay roses since 2008!

YABU It's an insult and none of the issues with staff retention have been addressed. Also when you try to speak to someone to get a breakdown n of the deductions because you believe they're incorrect you get told they don't have the information.

Is that you Rishi?

I think you need to be an nhs worker or civil servant to realise how far behind the private sector the pay actually is. People are struggling and having to claim benefits while working instead of being paid their worth.

Agree OP. I’m in a job where we’ve had bonuses for years, of varying amounts depending on performance. Always obviously taxed, which is a pain, but the majority of employees suffer the same deductions, and it should be no different for the NHS.

I think you need to work in the private sector to have any idea how valuable job security years to a person. I deal with private sector employees that have literally been with a company for one year and 51 weeks and been fired out of the blue for no other reason than they’ve been able to secure the services of another person for 10 grand cheaper. And that’s it bang gone no discussion, no reason required

I was given a bonus of £1500 after covering 3 peoples' work for more than six months and working ludicrously long, stressful hours (not NHS).
As someone wrote earlier, a bonus is useless compared to a pay rise as it's a one-off and isn't carried forward. Also nothing to your pension. As I was paying higher rate tax it was worth very little after deductions.
I walked, handing in my notice that day.

Most of these problems are down to Thatcher.

Originally I would say YABU. However as an NHS nurse I am disappointed in the 50% of nurses who literally couldn’t be bothered to put an x in a box and return their ballot paper.
The majority (not me) were dazzled by what appeared to be a fantastic offer, of course forgetting about tax, NI and pension.
To not even vote is just lazy and if we weren’t all in the same boat I would say it serves them right!!

I am public sector (non NHS) and we are getting a lower pay rise and no bonus, plus we have been on a pay freeze / cost of living only (i.e. 1% or nothing) for 12 years. It's hard to be sympathetic to people getting more and complaining about it, but having said that it shouldn't be a race to the bottom, we should all be getting better consolidated pay rises, and not needing crappy bonuses that amount to hardly anything after tax.

Agree, when you don't get regular bonuses it can be a shock to see those deductions. But there have been many private companies giving cynical, patronising bonuses to compensate/placate for the last few years too.

I usually get a bonus - it isn't "free money" it is part of my salary package and brings it to market rates. It is around 6-10% of my salary. We never got one the 2 years of covid essentially losing 6-10% of my salary each year for 2 years - very significant sums, to me, that we are still personally recovering from financially. We all got a one off £1,000 bonus - taxed obviously - to compensate us.

The NHS is not that different in its approach with a one off bonus for the last couple of years. Except some of my colleagues and friends didn't have the job security and have lost their jobs, and others jobs are still at risk due to many private companies cutting back to recoup losses and keep their shareholders happy. We have just had yet another announcement of 22 colleagues jobs ending 31/12/2023 (Merry Christmas) and the rest of us, already working ridiculous hours which we don't get paid extra money for, will need to pick up the slack!

The grass isn't always greener on the private side of the fence!

Agree - and my DH works for the NHS. I have a friend who posted to complain about her bonus and arrears for her second job - as it's a second job she pays 40% tax. Her wages for her second job is about what many people earn in their own lily job. I felt it was really crass to complain if I'm honest.

plus we have been on a pay freeze / cost of living only (i.e. 1% or nothing) for 12 years

As has the NHS - years of pay freeze followed by a couple of derisory 1%s. We only got the current (still well below inflation) bit by striking.

Thatcher and her government privatised the UK, following 'Reaganomics' and 'Every-man-for-himself-libertarian-capitalism'

No safeguards to prevent foreign ownership of vital infrastructure, no heeding of the warnings of the shit show we now have, just Sell! Sell! Sell!

Her mates got richer, while lauding her as a financial genius and while we were being royally screwed

Rubbish - NHS provides an option to take at in instalments so it doesn't skew things for UC

YANBU. NHS folks are always moaning about pay when many are actually paid very well. My friend is secondary school teacher. Her job is so difficult but there's no claps or pay rises for them, and a lot of hate for the current strikes about pay.

There are pay rises for teachers, not very good ones but still they're only 0.5% less than the agreed NHS ones. Starting pay for a teacher will also be higher than for a NQN, it should be higher for both but it's a bit disingenuous to suggest they have had nothing and the NHS has recieved major ones. I wouldn't say people are overly supportive of the strikes either. It's not helpful to pit public sector workers against eachother.

Rubbish - NHS provides an option to take at in instalments so it doesn't skew things for UC

That's down to individual payroll departments. And even if it's available it won't help people who are caught by an annual threshold rather than a monthly one.