Do you get a bonus at work?

[Gailete]

Once I got a bonus of $20 at the nursing home I worked at. All the patient's families that wanted to contribute to a Christmas gift for us sent in money and it was divided among the staff. When I worked in a hospital at times we might get a turkey. That was it.

My son that worked at a grocery frozen food manager got a bonus every year of ~$300. Never got something like that at all. Yet I worked in a job where people's lives were literally in my hands and it wasn't like I just worked at non-profit hospitals, even the for profit didn't give nursing staff anything.

Kind of amazing to hear what some of you guys get!

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Yes. Right now he's at 15% every 6 months of work both cash and stock so about 20% with company and personal performance was the last one in Feb. So it works out something like 40% of his income. He also gets a quarterly bonus paid out as $2500/quarter. It'll likely go up more with next promotion like corn. I am thinking he'll hit 50% of salary. He passed up a job where the bonus would have been more than salary. Very incentive based. Too much work though so he passed.

[Fishindude77]

Setting up a structured bonus plan for all managers was one of the better things we ever did in our company. We set it up so you could earn bonus, about 2/3 based on the performance of projects you were directly involved with, and about 1/3 based on companies bottom line. If you performed during a good year, bonus could easily equal 50% of your base salary.

We paid it monthly to keep people more involved and focused, rather than year end like some companies do. Also was very open about sharing company financial information with employees.

[disneysteve]

We paid it monthly to keep people more involved and focused.

I do like that our bonus is quarterly for that reason. A lot of it (80%) is based on patient satisfaction and quality of care metrics so keeping us focused on those things on an ongoing basis is really beneficial.

[ladonnarosso]

I'm a nurse and we don't receive bonuses. My husband is a teacher and we don't receive bonuses either. I wish that we did, as it would an incentive to strive for excellence. However, since those are both service positions and not business or "producing" positions, we never went into them with the expectation of a bonus.

[bjl584]

I get an annual bonus. It is based on company profit goals and some personal goals. It usually ends up being around 10% of base pay.

[Gailete]

I'm a nurse and we don't receive bonuses. My husband is a teacher and we don't receive bonuses either. I wish that we did, as it would an incentive to strive for excellence. However, since those are both service positions and not business or "producing" positions, we never went into them with the expectation of a bonus.

Boy do I hear you on that, but look at Disney Steve. He is a doctor and now gets bonus. For most of my active career I worked at places that for the most part, seemed to resent the fact that they couldn't run the hospitals without the nurses and nurse helpers. At least it seemed like it every time there was a round of lay offs, it was nursing staff that seemed to get hardest hit. I guess I will have to say the best bonus I ever got was when I worked at a prison and got a commendation from the warden for saving an inmates life.

[AnnieG]

Mine was 3% of my sales. I seem to remember that it was about 30% of my income. Not working at this time.

My husband's is 15% of base pay from previous year * personal performance # * business performance #.

Personal number is always near 1. Business number varies, but hasn't strayed too far from 1 recently.

[Kaoru]

I work an hourly contract, but at a reasonable rate.. my boss give me some weekly bonuses if I hit specific performance targets, but it's at something like 5% of my pay, not much of an incentive at this stage.

[Goldy]

Mine is currently 15% of base * performance multiplier so I would up with a 21% bonus this year. The next level up is a flat 30% of base and I'm hoping to hit that level in a year.

[JoeP]

We used to get them when I worked for "the big yellow box." It was actually an integral part of the economy: local retailers and auto dealers would increase their advertising and the bonus kept these places in business. It wasn't uncommon to see new cars in the neighborhood after bonus time.

Then it became expected and when the company fell on hard times, it became the "bone us" because some people banked on that extra money as part of their operating income rather than a legit bonus (extra). A lot of smaller companies folded due to the bonus going away, along with other factors of course.

[disneysteve]

some people banked on that extra money as part of their operating income rather than a legit bonus (extra).

That raises a really good question. How many of you consider your bonus to truly be extra and how many just expect it and budget accordingly? I'd guess that most of the regulars here spend based on their regular salary and know that the bonus may or may not happen. Still I can easily see the temptation for me to think, "Gee. I got $2,000 for the first quarter. That means I'll get $8,000 for the year. "

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Bonus is that bonus. I tell friends that all the time not to buy a house based on bonus. But who actually listens? No one. Most people count it as income/salary. I guess it is. But if it doesn't come? It sucks to count on it. It's really how DH and I end up saving a lot of our income is that we just bank all the bonus. Sure we save for retirement the 15-20% but the real savings come from banking the bonuses.

[Gailete]

That raises a really good question. How many of you consider your bonus to truly be extra and how many just expect it and budget accordingly? I'd guess that most of the regulars here spend based on their regular salary and know that the bonus may or may not happen. Still I can easily see the temptation for me to think, "Gee. I got $2,000 for the first quarter. That means I'll get $8,000 for the year. "

While we didn't get bonuses at my last job, we did get travel reimbursements. So one of the women that I worked with, the one that went bankrupt, heavily depended on her travel reimbursement as part of her liveable income. I put all my expenses on my Discover card, added up all those charges each week and wrote a check out for the amount used. Come pay day when the paycheck was automatically deposited, I had 4 checks ready to send to Discover, any extra from my travel reimbursement went into my car savings account and that added up. During the three years I worked there (before I went on disability) car repair bills never struck terror in my heart and I actually would find myself asking when they would call to tell me the estimate before doing the work, "Is that all?" Having the money in the bank for those repairs made it all seem so much easier and not nearly as expensive as when you don't have $500 for the current bill. Of course, since she didn't do that, she had her reimbursement, her pay check and her child support check that she used for liveable income, and still went bankrupt! The other two of us that were single got along just fine. Not rich mind you, but comfortable. She also would 'find' ways to stretch out the miles she drove. My son in hearing about her exploits called her 'XXXX the Gambler', and that she was.

When my son got his bonus, he would use it to get whatever was on his current 'wish list' or would use it to pay off a bill if needed. So he thought about what to do with it and didn't depend on it.

[amarowsky]

coming up on 10 months at my new job. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to get a bonus.

Standard rate for my level: 10% of Salary.

This number is 5% based on company performance and the other 5% based on employee performance.

I just did my annual review, and it seems my boss was fairly happy with my performance as a new employee. So maybe I can on the end of the spectrum closer to 10 and 0!

I can't imagine making a bonus anywhere over 25% of salary, that just seems like to much money. My cousin gets a bonus like 200-300% of his salary, but he does have to work >12 hours a day, plus this is based off his performance and focus to work. It seems pretty average for investment banker/acquisition jobs @ ~150-250k bonus.

I don't think there's any amount of money that could keep me working that many hours for any extended period of time...

If I did that kinda work for that kind of pay, I would work 1-3 years at MOST and then retire to a part time job. And probably regret those ~3 years lost to be honest.