I am about to change jobs and I just wanna know your opinion of the performance bonus that most companies offer nowadays.
I am currently working in a Taiwanese company where I get paid 70k/month and a bonus of one month (Fixed) as the Chinese New Year bonus.
I have found a better job, a Belgium company and both parties seem to agree (Me and them). When asked for the salary expectations, they preferred I give them a yearly figure over a monthly figure. My figure was close to 1,200,000 NT$, which at that time I was confident is a good pay package and a decent increase from what I get right now. Keep in mind that I have not even completed a year in my current job (that’s how much it sucks)
Their package distribution was:
Monthly Salary - 77k/Month
Joining Bonus - 110,000 (They gonna help me cover the CNY bonus that I’m not gonna be able to get. They badly want me to join in January)
Chinese New Year bonus - 1.5 Months (154 k)
Performance bonus - 15% of the annual salary - 154,000 K
Now, if I remove the joining bonus (that’s just covering up the bonus of my current employer), I am earning close to 1,193,000. The only problem here is Performance bonus is variable. So the 154,000 , which I am Entitled to , is variable and that makes me uncomfortable.
Keep in mind that I am not in a managerial position but an engineering position.
Do you people have any experience regarding these performances bonuses? Can they be trusted? Finally, if you have to change something or give me negotiation advices, please shoot!
Mostly, yes.
But I am speaking from a different industry.
My experience is that unless you screw something up on a regular basis, you will get the full performance bonus.
Some companies tie it to being to work on-time. Might want to check up on that.
Best thing you can do is to ask them how the performance bonus is calculated and what is it based on.
Not an engineer, but I have worked for several engineering-focused companies (but in software) in the past. All in the US.
Bear with me if Taiwan varies, but in my experience performance bonus amounts were tied to the firm’s profitability. Period. That’s why it’s variable.
There was also a merit bonus, and that was tied to guess what, merit. Basically it was a way to reward talent and punish a lack of talent (it was ‘illegal’ to talk about your merit bonus, nudge nudge wink wink).
If you’re not management then obviously profitability is out of your control.
Its not too bad an offer, you should hope to get at least half of the performance bonus in any year .
That said this is the first year I will get a performance bonus in three years. I negotiated for yearly amount as well which was split by 13 months and did not include performance bonus.
Regarding how is the bonus calculated (Mentioned in the offer letter):
" The actual amount payout will be measured on your personal performance against
agreed targets as well as the company’s performance of the year; and the bonus will be
prorated by working days."
Thanks for the reply. Yeah you are right, and that’s what mentioned in the offer letter as well.
" The actual amount payout will be measured on your personal performance against
agreed targets as well as the company’s performance of the year; and the bonus will be
prorated by working days."
Now, what makes me uneasy is the company’s performance of the year part. Independent of my performance, there exists a hypothetical situation where I would not be able to get 100% of the bonus due to the company not being able to generate enough money or whatever.
@Brianjones Yeah, I would have preferred the same way. Where my annual expectation was split by 13/14 months and did not include performance bonus.
I am trying to negotiate on the monthly pay package now.
Yeah where I worked there was a bonus for each. So if profitability was down it didn’t affect the merit bonus. This was a big deal for 2009 when the company I was with then was not profitable (due to the global 2008 financial collapse). The merit bonus was actually boosted to make up for that.
Anyway, a question I would ask is, if profitability is zero I would still expect a bonus based on my personal performance. Is that the way it works? Has there ever been a year where profitability was so poor that no bonus was issued to any engineer in my group?
Many companies do this including mine , so my targets were over achieved this year, but it is partly dependent on company performance so it’s still a little dicey. For instance salary raises are also linked to this.
They’re paying you a signing bonus. That right there is a sign to trust them pretty well. They are basically paying the cost of another company. Only firms that really need someone, or truly like and need the person they want to hire, will do so.
Always remember that a company does not want to lose an excellent employee. If they thought about not giving you a good bonus next year, then they run the risk of you leaving their firm (presuming you are an excellent employee) and then they have to pay opportunity costs of finding a replacement. Costs that include time to find one, down-time without that position filled, and potentially having to pay another person a signing bonus. So, relax. If you are an excellent employee, then that company will pay you the market rate of a bonus.
Heck, even financial firms that have horrendous profit years still have to attempt to pay the going market rate for their bonuses in order to not lose employees to their competitors.
Generally yes if the company has been around for a while and have a reputable owner/owners and executives. Most of them are smart enough to even sacrifice their own bonuses on a down year to keep good employees happy and they’re better at judging their expected profits.
I do trust them and yes, I do get a positive vibe as well. But 15% of my base income is not a small part, and this is the first company that offers an amount this big as a performance bonus. In my previous jobs, all I got for performance bonuses was half a month of salary, hence, I am a bit worried.
Hopefully I can indeed perform well and get the bonus. Thanks for the positivity
@Andrew0409 Well, it is a multinational company and they opened their office in Taipei back in the early 2000’s.
Thanks for the positivity, I have met and heard about too many bad laobans and that often perturbs me to the point where I lose trust even in the good ones.
Yes thanks to both of you guys. Dropped enough hints that one can deduce roughly which company it is so thanks for the juicy detailed data on package! Will come in handy for next interview