Are you still getting a bonus?

[sleepyhead1980]

For the companies that are still doing well, are you still getting paid your agreed bonus? I run a company that suffered when COVID hit. Our turnover dropped as did profits. We put a lot of hard work in and got the turnover back up and have now exceeded our pre-covid budget for the year. This means that we are now eligible for the bonus that was agreed at the start of the year. My colleague mentioned the bonus in a discussion yesterday with one of the directors and was basically told "we need to talk" as in.. we aren't getting it. I don't really think that is fair at all considering we still exceeded our targets despite covid, and it was a direct result of a lot of blood sweat and tears. We are owned by a holding company who also own two other companies. Those companies are apparently breaking even although I do suspect they are probably making a loss in reality. We are nothing to do with those other companies so I don't see why we should be suffering just because they aren't performing well (they are badly run). Also, I am pretty annoyed that they have had no intention of paying us our bonus but have decided not to mention it until we mentioned it to them. Curious to know what is happening at other companies that are still performing well. It feels like the company are trying to use covid as an excuse to get out or paying a bonus.

I personally am not as I have not had the length of service expected as only moved to this organisation 3 months ago but my colleagues are

Your part of the business may be performing well, but if elsewhere (eg the other companies in the group you mention) isn’t, or there is a risk that future income will fall, they may well not pay bonuses they can’t afford as a group. Better no bonus than no job.

Of course there may be businesses that have done well and just use it as an excuse. But unless you know the bigger picture you won’t know which it is. They should explain it to you, but possibly they will given the reference to talking about it.

We considered not paying a bonus at the beginning of the outbreak (a delay in paying rather than not paying), there was a brief dip in profits, concern for how we would sell work from home but then people got into the way of things and work got back to normal - and we've done alright and so we have paid normal bonuses this year.