The Holiday Bonus: Managing Employee Expectations

By Thursday Bram

When the holidays roll around, employees can get excited, hoping for a big bonus to fall in their laps. But, as the boss, you may have the opposite reaction to the idea of holiday bonuses. You may find yourself in the position where you’re facing very optimistic employees and have to break the news that the business just ins’t in a position to give big bonuses — or even any bonuses. You can take some steps to make the process more manageable.

Take a Look at What You’ve Done in Years Past

One of the ways that expectations tend to get built up is because there are years when you may have been able to offer big bonuses. If you can take a look back at what you’ve done in the past, you can at least get a sense of what your employees may be expecting, you may also be able to have some conversations about how years past differ from the current situation in your business and manage expectations on that level.

Emphasize that a Bonus is Not Mandatory

Giving the same bonus, year after year, leads employees to expect it as a portion of their regular income. If you haven’t built up that expectation, however, it’s worthwhile to make sure that your bonuses are viewed as a reward for exceptional work. There are a variety of ways to do so, such as offering a percentage of the sales a particular employee has brought in over the year as her bonus. The only thing to truly avoid is giving your employees all the same bonus, every year. Ideally, a bonus should be dependent on performance, with great performers earning a larger bonus.

Have an Honest Talk with Your Employees

At the end of the day, if your employees are expecting bonuses and you won’t be able to meet their expectations, you will have to sit down and have a talk with them. If you can show the business’ position to them, at least financially speaking, they may be disappointed, but they’ll most likely understand. It’s also worthwhile, provided that you do want to offer some sort of bonus, to see where you can really help your employees. Sometimes, a cash bonus is nice, but other times an extra day of paid leave can be just as helpful. Considering that the holiday bonus may be separated out from performance and be based more on your interest to spread the holiday cheer to your employees, it can be worthwhile to think of it in terms of a gift, rather than a bonus. What would your employees truly like as a gift? Talking with your employees is the only way to really be sure what they need and what you can offer.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 13th, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under Workforce. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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