Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Opinions on Xmas bonuses

What’s everyone’s thoughts on receiving Xmas bonuses? Let’s say you’ve been working faithfully for a company since it started 15yrs ago and it was bought out last year and now for the 1st time in your 30yr career you don’t receive an Xmas bonus. Do you let it bother you? Do you tell yourself it’s just the current times we live in? Does the company appreciate your faithfulness and hardwork ethic throughout the year?

If the other 26 pay checks in the year hit my account with no drama I'd soldier on...

for the people that never got a bonus at work, you probably won't get much sympathy

If the xmas bonus was substantial, like Clark Griswold planning on putting in a pool with it, then I suspect you're about to see some turnover at the company because it will bother a lot of people working there.

We lost our Xmas bonus when our company was bought out many years ago, but the company they merged us with never got one to begin with, so it was an adjustment we all had to make. Some people were pretty sour about it for a couple of years, but they still had a job and overall it paid pretty well.

"Does the company appreciate your faithfulness and hardwork ethic throughout the year?"

No.

Employers generally expect, or even demand, "loyalty" to them, and yet, they don't give a flying schidt about you. You are an unfortunately necessary business expense. If they thought they could make a dollar without you, you would be dropped in a heartbeat.

My Christmas bonus is about enough to cover a couple weeks or so of gas money.... gas used to get... to work.

Cousin Eddie wouldn't let it slide 😉

Any employee can leave a company with, at times, great expense in developing said employee. Same works the other way.

Seems to me that a minimum bonus of 18% needs to be added on to each paycheck an employee receives would be necessary to keep the company from being viewed as contemptible. Perhaps the people that do business with the company could be asked to come up with this bonus rather than it actually coming from the company.

I'd be looking elsewhere, but that's just me.

I got a Christmas bonus the years I was a project superintendent. It was sometimes small, sometimes large, based on the projects I supervised.

Most companies don’t realize that a bonus would help moral and improve productivity, you have to throw your dogs a bone every now and then. But the company I work for use to give $200 for Christmas and now they give 0.

Organizations have the right to allocate bonuses on their terms. A bonus is just that...... A bonus. We tend to get them in the spring. I never take them for granted, and express gratitude when they arrive. It is interesting to see how the bonus amounts have varied with the different leadership within the company.

This, mostly.

An employment agreement is a voluntary contract between two parties. Look at the overall package and decide if it’s satisfactory. Buyouts have consequences. You work for a new employer now.

If it is not in the contract, it is not owed. Easy enough.

You should have heard the bitching and moaning when our place got a new Superintendent and people thought they might be denied their Christmas turkey.

A leadership seminar a few years ago, satifiers vs non-satisfiers was discussed.

Not many years ago, nobody had ever heard of toilet paper. And they did not miss it, but try to take it away from them today!...nonsatisfier
Bonus money and increased wages is the same, after basic requirements of life are met. Nobody misses it until it is taken away.

Giving a crew earned vacation, or decent, affordable health insurance.....satisfier

If you have employees, once you give them something or do something for them, it's not good business to take it away. Granted, this is a buyout, but still, if employees have been receiving a Christmas bonus for 15 years, you have to expect some will get restless when that is taken away.

I like Christmas bonuses. I get one for a side gig I have. I give one to my employees in a business I own.

Did you ask why?

Some years are good, some not so much. When I get one I'm greatfull for the bonus, when I don't I'm greatfull I have a job.

We had a very structured compensation program at Shell. Pay, bonus and stock. None of which were offered to the hourly or to young professionals. We needed to know that you were a long term asset worth investing in before anything over base salary was offered. Pretty simple actually.

When I became a foreman, my company started giving me a small 4 figure bonus. I use it every year to take my crew of 7-8 guys and their wives out to dinner for Christmas. They earned just as much as I did.

I worked for the same company 39 years, and never heard of a Christmas bonus. I was 110% fine with that.
That company did give end of fiscal year ( Not Jan 1) performance bonuses. Some people received nothing, some received huge amounts, and everywhere in between. If you performed at a high level, you were well compensated if you didn’t, you were not given a bonus. That financial incentive went a long way toward the success of the company and the financial success of the better performers.