Changing Bonus Pay

Ukadder

Ukadder

Ukadder

Associate
Joined
3 Aug 2004
Posts
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Location
Essex
Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone can shed some light on this, should they have consulted before changing?

We get a company bonus on 2% of the profit after TAX every month, this 2% goes into a pot which is then split between employees.

I use to get 5.5% of said pot and various people got a different %.

They have now changed this so everyone gets 2%, but they have added onto my pay some extra £££ to make up for the loss of %. However, their calculation for doing this means I'm worse off than under the old method as they didn't add enough £££ to make up for the loss of %.

I get a bonus 11 months of the year, every year for the last 13 years.

The bits I've been reading online are a bit woolly around a consultation about this before it happened, can anyone in HR point me in the right direction?
 
No figures, just a bland statement as below. On our yearly "pay sheet" where they specify our new pay levels after pay rises it's always said the % bonus I'm on, but that is the only place it's in writing.

Statement from the contract:

7. BONUS
7.1 You shall be entitled to participate in the Company’s bonus scheme. Details shall be provided to you separately. Should you have any queries about the Company’s bonus scheme then please refer your queries to a Director.
7.2 Any bonus payment shall not be pensionable.
Click to expand...
 
Unfortunately as others have said there likely isn't much you can do about it. Usually bonus 'issues' get mitigated with the fact that they are typically discretionary.

However, if your company operates with an employee forum, whereby there are representatives of the staff that meet with the management to discuss everyday/important matters, then that might be an avenue to pursue. I once worked for a company that was going to change our contracts, their newly proposed contract and schedule would have resulted in a loss of earnings for everyone. I did the calcs & offered up an alternative through the employee forum, & thankfully got good results from it.
 
May be worth you call ACAS as if you have had your bonus for a certain period this becomes what's known as "custom and practice" which basically means it becomes the norm so even without it being written into a contract it supersedes your original contract due to having been in place for so long.

ACAS best to advise you on this and it can all be anonymous
 
I think you'd have a reasonable case to try and argue 'custom and practice' as mentioned above.

http://www.shoosmiths.co.uk/client-...gal-entitlement-employment-benefits-5896.aspx

Looking at the four 'key' elements, i'd say you met them generally from what you've described;
  • fair and not capricious - seems to be fair
  • well established over a period of time - 13 years is plenty
  • known to employees - you and everyone else know
  • clear and unambiguous - the percentages have been defined in previous payslips, no ambiguity there
It's by no means a simple thing to argue though, as you'll see from reading that link so you'd need support to do so - is the money you're missing out on worth the potential aggro if you had to follow it up with formal action?

Personally, I think the best course of action would be a word with your manager to explain the loss of bonus hasn't been met by the increase in salary - if we're only talking small amounts of money here they'd likely just bump your salary a bit. Bear in mind though from their perspective, increasing salary would cost them more than paying bonuses as they'd also have to service things like increased pension contributions etc.
 
Thanks for the input guys.

I've got a meeting requested to talk about the change, I forgot to mention but at the time of change I did put across my opinion that I would lose out on money with the changes. It was slightly brushed aside but agreed we would look at it in 6 months time, which is now. I just wanted to get a bit better informed, which you've done.

Depending on how it goes I'll go down the ACAS route and see what their advice is. I'm still hopeful they just apologise and amend my pay accordingly, but this would open the door for 30 other employees who are in a similar situation.
 
Sadly you're going to get shafted because theres no percentage in the contract. My contract has my bonus in with the percentage I get each year and it can't go below this but can go higher based on how well the company is doing. Sounds like the employer actually went out of their way to give you a pay rise to try and offset the financial loss which I know a few places who wouldn't do this!
 
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