Another Bank gets it's bonuses at our expense.

halifax_worker

yes i do get paid a wage to do a job, which i do. but why should i suffer for some big witts mistakes?? its not as if im going to get a 30k bonus its aprox 1k whats the big deal.

piggeh

Chancellor Alistair Darling has announced that the government is limiting bonuses paid out to staff by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
"We want to see a cultural change where short-term bonuses are replaced with incentives for the long term," he said.
Mr Darling said bonuses at RBS would be cut from the £2.5bn paid last year to £340m. There will be "no reward for people who have failed," he added.
And bonuses will no longer be paid in cash, but in shares.
The bank will pay "the minimum it can with regard to its legal obligations," the chancellor said, referring to the fact that some employees are contractually obliged to receive bonuses.
"Of course they've looked after the low paid," he added.
Last weekend, Mr Darling defended the government's handling of the banking crisis in light of expected record losses at HBOS.
Lloyds Banking Group - which completed its takeover of HBOS last month - said its subsidiary will report losses of nearly £11bn for 2008.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7895235.stm

Guessing the shares will be forfeited if someone moves on.

halifax_worker

ok taxpayers may not see the money again but why zoom in on the banks why not complain about other useless things tax payers money goes to?

Rochdale_Pioneers

In my company I get a bonus based on personal performance vs targets, divisional performance and group performance. I suspect that a lot of the bank staff are the same - they can hit their own targets and work for a profitable division but see the group make huge losses because of botched mergers or catastrophic decisions in the investment bank division.

I understand the anger being thrown around about bonuses, but ultimately that should be aimed at the people at the top who are responsible for the disasters. As for shareholders I have no sympathy. You buy shares you take a risk - its explicit that you can lose all your money. If the bank staff have a contract that states they get a bonus if they perform and they hit all their targets and make the bank money, they should be paid on that basis. Its a world of difference from Chief Execs with guaranteed bonuses no matter what they do.

chewmylegoff

this isn't taxpayers money. the taxpayer has made loans to, and equity investments in, the banks. the money became the banks' money once it was handed over, to do with as the banks please (in the absence of any contractual stipulations agreed before the money was handed over).

Ian_Griffiths_Halifax

halifax_worker wrote: »

I work at halifax as low as you can get basic of 12k have nothing to do with the loss so why should i not get a bonus????????

When you took the job, what bonus where you told you WOULD get, not COULD, but WOULD?

What were other jobs paying that you could have taken up instead of this one.

barrooo

Have to agree with many people on here, I don't understand why people are getting a bonus just for doing their jobs.
I used to work in a sales environment and bonuses were only paid if sales were above target, if not then you had to be satisfied with the basic salary.

Julu

It's an absolute bl00dy disgrace. No wonder this country is in a mess - they're all halfwits!

piggeh

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

In my company I get a bonus based on personal performance vs targets, divisional performance and group performance. I suspect that a lot of the bank staff are the same - they can hit their own targets and work for a profitable division but see the group make huge losses because of botched mergers or catastrophic decisions in the investment bank division.

I understand the anger being thrown around about bonuses, but ultimately that should be aimed at the people at the top who are responsible for the disasters. As for shareholders I have no sympathy. You buy shares you take a risk - its explicit that you can lose all your money. If the bank staff have a contract that states they get a bonus if they perform and they hit all their targets and make the bank money, they should be paid on that basis. Its a world of difference from Chief Execs with guaranteed bonuses no matter what they do.

But how would this be worded contractually? It would, I assume, say an allocated amount of the company's profits to be divvied up for bonuses. Otherwise if they're contractually obliged then fair enough.

If it states it's an allocation from the group's profits, then you take the risk that you wont get paid anything. If you're not 100% contractually obliged to receive this money, then you again take a risk by working there that at one point you wont get a bonus, no matter how reliable it's been previously.

Innys

My experience of working in financial services is slightly different.

I worked for different insurance companies for a number of years. I witnessed a cross subsidising of payments to ensure everyone was (reasonably) happy with their bonus. So, if the company did spectacularly well while you worked in an admin area, you got a decent bonus, largely irrespective of your own performance. The money makers (underwriters) got a very good bonus, but they ended up subsidising the back room staff's bonuses.

I don't know if this model is employed in the banks, but I suspect it is. After all, if a counter clerk performs way above average in one year, how do you quantify the bonus to pay them? It is far easier to adjust the bonus of everyone in the company bonus in line with the its overall performance.

If this model is employed in RBS, for example, no one should be getting a bonus at all, irrespective of the tax payer issue. In the good years the counter clerk was subsidised by the CDO trader - in the bad years both get diddly squat.

As for the argument that counter clerks are taken on at below average wages in the hope of a decent bonus, I have no sympathy. They took a gamble and lost.