Companies are doing away with this tradition
The holiday bonus is a tradition both disdained and welcomed, by employers and employees alike, but in recent years, it has become more and more a memory.
Very few companies in the United States offer a traditional holiday bonus, said Ken Abosch, compensation group leader for human capital consulting resources company, Aon Hewitt.
“They had their place at one point in time, for sure,” he said. “I just think times are different now and employers feel like there’s a better way to thank employees and use (their) money.”
Those companies that are offering employees some sort of bonus program are doing away with the no-strings-attached traditional holiday bonus in favor of programs related to performance.
About two years ago, Cardiovascular Consultants Medical Group in southern California decided to replace its long-standing holiday bonus program with a productivity-based program because of the uncertainties caused by the fluctuating economy and changes in healthcare.
“We decided people count on (the holiday bonus). It’s really kind of crappy to take it away from them,” said Kelli Nicholas, practice manager. So, the medical group instituted its productivity program. In addition to monthly incentives, a bonus (in June) is offered if the practice is financially healthy.
When Cone Health, a North Carolina-based health system with just under 85,000 employees, considered offering a bonus program for their employees, it opted for a program based on company-wide performance rather than a holiday bonus.
“We wanted the entire organization to be focused on what we want to accomplish as a system,” said Grace Moffitt, Cone Health’s vice president of human resources. “We feel it’s more important to focus on how we’re performing as an organization and on our strategic goals.”
On the face of it, you’d think employees would resent the replacement of their holiday bonus with a performance-based bonus, but it’s not often the case.
“Actually, employees, I think, value the more structured incentive plan as well,” said Abosch. “Employees also value it because they tend to actually have greater earning options under a structured plan than they would have under a holiday bonus plan. The typical Christmas or holiday bonus is somewhere in the order of magnitude of $25 to $50 historically, whereas the average employee bonus would be somewhere closer to anywhere from $1,000 to $4,000.”
Both Moffitt and Nicholas said the performance programs at their workplaces have been well received by employees.
“I think it was the climate change that made (the program switch) a little easier to swallow,” Nicholas said.
“If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would have told you people would be in an uproar and walking out if you take (the holiday bonus) away because they plan on it, they count on it, they know it’s coming. As of two years ago, we were pretty happy to have jobs still and decent benefits and nice people to work for.”
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