exbert, post: 347561, member: 6143 wrote: Anybody willing to offer some insight of what is an acceptable Christmas bonus? When my dad ran things, he would hook us up, but I think he was too generous. I am the employer. Is $500 enough? $1000? one weeks pay? two weeks pay? Lastly, I have the money to pay the guys, but just curious what other employers and employees thought. Thanks!
I'd say since you are the employer it is time to start looking at things in a calculated annual percent of profit in a pool that is spread out based whatever split you decide. Hours worked in a year, Years at Firm, years in the industry, Performance of individuals. Ranges can be all over the board based upon # of employee's to split pool and size of pool. If you had a small year then provide what you can and just be open about it and genuine. 500-1500 for crews, 500-2500 for office staff. Honestly it's hard to say what will work for you but it's awesome that you are able to do it. Cheers!
My family owns a Subway store, and we will not take any bills larger than a $20. For one thing, we just don't want to have a lot of cash around that invites robbery. For another, and more importantly, on a couple of occasions we have been stuck with "washed" $20 bills. Person bleaches the ink off of a single, then photo copies a $20 onto the paper. They are extremely convincing bills. The perp will pay for a $2 drink with such a bill and walk off with $18 of real money. It's just too easy to counterfeit. Accepting larger bills just increases the motivation, and the risk.
Its' also much harder for our staff to steal debit card transactions from the till.
My family owns a Subway store and we do not accept any bills larger than a $20. Even at that, we have been stuck, more than once, with "washed" $20 bills. Perp takes a single and bleaches the ink off it, then prints the image of a $20, $50, or $100 on the paper. These are extremely convincing counterfeits.
Change in the cash drawer is an invitation for robbery. By thugs coming in from the street and from the staff themselves.
we have OXXO stores here, like a 7-11
they do mostly cash. big bills go directly in an envelope slot in a safe. periodically the cash register notes too much cash in the drawer and everything stops until the clerk deposits the excess in the safe.
Costco has pneumatic tubes that run into the secure accounting room. the cash register also notes too much cash in the drawer and everything stops until the clerk deposits the excess in the tube.
both require counter signatures
Sure. We have procedures like that in place. Drop cash to the safe. Trouble is getting the "sandwich artist" on duty to do it in a timely manner.
Keeping enough cash on hand to be able to make change for large bills means keeping enough cash on hand to be worth stealing.
Believe me, this is not trivia for the thousands of Subways and similar stores in the world. There are a lot of cretins out there.
Mark Mayer, post: 347866, member: 424 wrote: Sure. We have procedures like that in place. Drop cash to the safe. Trouble is getting the "sandwich artist" on duty to do it in a timely manner.
Keeping enough cash on hand to be able to make change for large bills means keeping enough cash on hand to be worth stealing.
Believe me, this is not trivia for the thousands of Subways and similar stores in the world. There are a lot of cretins out there.
Around here (as in many places I'm sure), there are "customers" who do their very best to pass off bogus bills when purchasing items. For a couple days, a convenience store was scanning bills in their safe which is supposed to confirm a "real" bill. A $5 I had gotten the day before as change from that very store came up as fake.
This was always a point of contention with me when I was an employee. We received 2 healthy (compared to most of what I'm reading above) bonuses per year. They were based off of your pay. It was BS. I always made the argument that x% of the yearly profits were set aside for bonuses and I should be rewarded for my percentage of profit generated. We had software in place to delineate profit by crew. Finally when the reports were run and the truth came out some feelings were hurt, but my point was greatly proven. Myself and another member here had netted over $400K in the first qtr. The entire engineering dept did less than $250K.....
There were a couple of survey crews that lost $29K and $40K respectively. Do you make them pay you back at bonus time? No, but not getting one because you lost money for the company would be a pretty good incentive to get off your butt.....
"...There were a couple of survey crews that lost $29K and $40K respectively. Do you make them pay you back at bonus time? No, but not getting one because you lost money for the company would be a pretty good incentive to get off your butt....."
That would merely turn under-performing employees into bitter under-performing employees. Better to terminate their employment.
During the process of determining bonuses, I have at times come to the conclusion that a particular employee did not deserve a bonus; therefore, they did not deserve continued employment. I usually end up kicking myself for not having terminated them sooner. I try very hard to help the employee to be successful and sometimes need to do a review to make the hard decision. The major factor at that point is have I made it clear to them in the past about why their performance was deficient? If so, my conscience is clear.
Bonuses are one thing that seem to have no consistency at all from one company to another. I think you just have to do what you consider reasonable.
One local surveyor is well known for being extremely hard on his employees, but he is also known for giving very generous Christmas bonuses, on the order of several thousand dollars. I think this is the main reason some people stay with him.
Other times, very well-liked employers give little, or even no bonuses.
You may have to do what you consider best and see what type of reaction you get. Next year, adjustments may be necessary.
Mark Mayer, post: 347881, member: 424 wrote: "...There were a couple of survey crews that lost $29K and $40K respectively. Do you make them pay you back at bonus time? No, but not getting one because you lost money for the company would be a pretty good incentive to get off your butt....."
That would merely turn under-performing employees into bitter under-performing employees. Better to terminate their employment.
I agree to an extent. If it were my call, which in this case it was not, I would give them one bonus cycle with no bonus to correct the problem. After that, if they felt I should keep them around while they lost money for the company then they would be sadly mistaken.
The ice cream stand in my neighborhood has a sign stating "We do not accept $100 dollar bills"
I can't imagine paying for a cone of Rocky Road with a crisp $100...the sign always makes me smile
And the use of plastic by me greatly heightens the chances of identity theft. I would never use a card for a small purchase, say under $100...
My standard rule of thumb is that if they don't want my cash, they don't want my business. Options exist for whatever it was I wanted. I am very adamant about this. That is part of the reason why I purchased a new computer monitor the other day directly off the shelf instead of having Mrs. Cow order one via Amazon. Sure, I might have saved 10 bucks on the identical item doing it that way. I don't care. Our small communities need all the stores we can keep open. They disappear when too many drive past them on their way to Metropolis. This particular store is rare as they also do repairs.
a year later, now that i've just sold my business...
by christmas bonus season i had a pretty good grip on what the balance sheet was gonna look like on 12/31. i couldn't, in good conscience, not be generous with the guys when i knew i was going to be getting a pretty decent sized lump just a couple weeks later. the guys' bonuses were somewhat dependent upon time served and rank, but i took the ballpark net number for the end of the year, cut in in half, and divvied it up roughly equally among the 5 of them. the other half (minus taxes) was mine.
also learned that giving them pre-loaded visa cards is way better for everyone involved, tax-wise, than a check or cash.
I don't get any bonuses. I work for a cheap !@#$%^&*
Oh, wait, I'm self employed!
Well then you know the cheapskate to talk to, don't you? Get with it! :grinning:
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Bonus, this is what I think of. 🙂
"I don't get any bonuses. I work for a cheap !@#$%^&*
Oh, wait, I'm self employed!"
I'll second that. I can call it anything I want to call it.