I have an anonymous question for Wells Fargo that I want to ask across the spectrum of high earners and low earners - new joiners and established respectively.
What do you do if you get a bad bonus?
Rather than quit or work harder, do you shirk and try to game the system (maybe going on short term leave)?
In my case, I knew - because I was told - my immediate supervisor did not want to rate me below meets, but her 2-up made her 1-up change the rating to inconsistently meets and made up reasons to justify it. That means I only got 1/3 of a $15K bonus instead of $15K, plus I got ZERO merit increase. Now, THAT is what I call a “bad bonus” considering I ki---d myself in the last quarter of that year to deliver a solid project the following February with great success. So I quit! I found a job paying the equivalent to my old base+bonus as the salary. I’m getting paid probably what I’m worth and the new job doesn’t have a spineless middle manager making the shittiest decisions or making up BS about me. I’m FREE!!!
You adjust. Others noted leaving the org, another changing groups. All adjustments. All things being equal, if I felt it was a bad bonus but my feedback and work showed it should be otherwise it would be a conversation with my manager. Depending how I felt after that I would stay making no changes and see what happens the next round or scale back my efforts and begin looking for a move. It’s a very personal choice based on the individual employees needs. Retaining the same overall payout but scaling back work efforts may be what you need right now. Or maybe you need more money so an employment change that provides that but may also increase the workload is the answer.
one year received a bonus less than expected after a year of 70 hour work weeks, working weekends and during PTO. Did not leave Wells but left that group. Best move ever as increased bonuses ever since. Not all LOBs are the same. Oh yeah, and have had a great work/life balance ever since as well.
The issue is that how do you determine if you received a “bad” bonus or not? There is a bonus pool. We don’t receive any information on what that pool is or how it is distributed. We don’t have any way to compare it to what others have received. All we can do is compare it to what we have received in prior years which isn’t an accurate way to distinguish good and bad bonuses.
With how total variable comp works now, one bad year can have negative cumulative effects for several years after, even if you are getting great ratings. If I ever felt like I got outright screwed on incentive I would leave the company for a comp reset as opposed to continuing to pay for my managers mistake repeatedly.
OP, play that out. how do you think either of those behaviors will benefit you in the long run?
If only non-exempt employees received bonuses then I could answer your question.
If they go on leave then mgt starts respecting them and promotes them in retail banking.