How much for a Christmas bonus?

S

sinead

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Help..... Second Christmas in business but first as an employer and I am not sure what the "norm" for a Christmas bonus is....

I've two excellent staff members one started 5th Sept and works part time and the other started 10th Oct and works full time

Any suggestions as I don't want to be too stingy but don't want to set the standard to high :confused:
 
The norm in any job I've had over the past 20 years or so has been precisely €0. Thankfully, in most cases, the normal remuneration/benefits package has more than made up for the lack of such bonuses.
 
With the company I am with, the Christmas bonus is your contracted hours. So I get 12 hrs Christmas bonus. To qualify for Christmas bonus you need to be 6 months with the company in permanent employment but thats just my employers............have plenty of mates that dont get a cent extra so anything would be a bonus to them !
 
My experience is bonus for permanent full time staff with the co longer than 6 months equal to one weeks salary subject to owners/mgmt being satisfied with that employees performance during the year. Goes down very well. Excellent for morale! Hope this helps.
 
Like Clubman, my christmas bonus is €0. The updide is that there is no comparing of bonuses or recrimination regarding relative bounuses.

aj
 
The only time I have got an Xmas bonus was when I stacked shelves in Dunnes Stores.

Is there a precedent for such a bonus in your line of work/business? Would an Xmas lunch/dinner not be just as appropriate to say 'thanks'?
 
You could just buy them a gift.

There seems to be no standard practice for Christmas bonuses. I would say they are more appropriate to people on very low wages. I know several people on very high salaries whose bonuses are less than €100, if anything.
 
You could give them gift vouchers up to a value of €250 euro each. This is a revenue approved way of paying bonuses to staff and as such is tax free, i.e. if you pay them €250 they will be taxed on that whereas €250 vouchers is tax free.

C
 
They're with you a very short time to be getting Christmas bonuses aren't they? How about getting them a voucher for a restaurant or something, small amount but a nice gesture.
 
Hi,

we get a really nice xmas hamper - prob only worth about €100/200 but I appreciate it more than getting the cash.
 
Don't forget that an employer can give bonuses of up to €250 in value (cash or in kind) free of BIK income tax/PRSI liabilities.See section 2.3 of [broken link removed] and note that the €100 amount mentioned has been superceded by the higher €250 amount since the guide was published.
 
Thank you for all your replies. Isn’t amazing how much it differs from company to company.

I agree they are not working for me that long but they have put in a huge amount of work since starting working here and as a result have increases sales around 70% so I wanted to thank them both.

Over the years I have worked in some companies where I got a bonus (of some sort) and then I worked in companies where I got nothing and regardless of what I got it was always nicer to get something rather than nothing!!

I am out this afternoon to look at hampers or failing that I’m going to get a one for all gift voucher which is nearly as good as cash.

Thanks again and happy Christmas to you all :)
 
Personally, I'd prefer a decent guaranteed remuneration package all year round than non guaranteed/discretionary bonuses at Christmas and maybe other times of the year.
 
"Personally, I'd prefer a decent guaranteed remuneration package all year round than non guaranteed/discretionary bonuses at Christmas" - but would you not prefer a decent guaranteed remuneration package all year round *and* a non guaranteed/discretionary bonuses at Christmas to either of the above ?

z
 
got 2 bottles of wine (very poor) one year. Everyone in the entire company got the same
 
I don't know if it's still prevalent, but when I worked in France a lot of employers (not mine, though :rolleyes: ) used to operate a system called the '13th month' — i.e. they would pay employees 1/13th of their annual salary each month and then a double payment in December.

OK, it's not really a 'bonus', depending on which way you look at it — and obviously it doesn't really help the original poster, here — but it did seem to generate a certain amount of goodwill, and I'd imagine a lot of people found it very practical from the point of view of coping with the dreaded January credit card bill...

Sinéad, I think Clubman has a point — if you can put a reasonably accurate figure on the extra money your company is making directly as a result of these two employees, maybe you could consider giving them a small raise, or some kind of commission, or a quarterly performance-related bonus? I'd imagine a lot of new employees would expect to have some kind of salary review within a year of taking up employment, and all the more so if your two are (presumably) aware of the extra money that they're making for you?
 
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