Ask HN: Annual Bonus Time, Team's Not Happy | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Annual Bonus Time, Team's Not Happy

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I'm a manager of a team in a large company. Annual raises came out. I had a pool to divy up, which I did, and then my recommendations were ignored by higher management. The pool went else where, and my team got scraps.

This team is quite good, they really kicked ass last year. A lot of overtime on a very high profile project. Feedback I got was they expected more, and I did to.

So question; how to handle this? Worst case is I lose some people. Well maybe that's not worst case, maybe worst case it they disengage.

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A lot of really poor advice so far in this thread. Unfortunately your personal best bet is probably to do nothing. If it really bugged you, find a new job silently because everyone is hiring.

The realistic answer is that you deliver the news to your team during your one on ones, explain the matter was not in your hands, and move on. If someone leaves over pay (which is reasonable) but you do not control pay, then it's not on you.

Don't be too hard on yourself.

This can probably be grouped with the "poor advice in this thread"

How's this advice good?

This is not good advice. As a manager you represent the company to your reports. To say it isn’t your decision is not helpful.

If it wasn’t your decision, it tells me that you are impotent and don’t have the pull to get me the compensation I want and I still leave.

Even if it was your decision, I would still leave. Whether it was your decision or not is meaningless to me.

- Raise this issue with the people who decide the pools and pay . The team did everything possible , if not addressed properly , one should not expect them to go above and beyond the norm.

- Communicating to the team that you tried, is not good enough, because that is the least that is expected of you as the mananger ( if sounds rude, i am sorry , not the intention).

Potential Solution :

Making a case to the higher ups , showing them that retaining the great team is cheaper than hiring some one else over a period of 2 to 5 years would be helpful. Show them the impact on delivery of features,etc.

if this did not work, ask why so that , it does not repeat again or you can set expectations saying , this is what you get for what you are paying.

I am assuming , there is no equity involved in these discussions. Equity will change the whole dynamics of this discussion.

Potential Solution # 2:

The rewards need not always be monetary. If you can replace that , with something they want , say sponsoring their Apple WWDC trip or DisneyLand tickets or something , in a way that is not a HR nightmare, would be something to explore. That being said, it is tricky and will not work always.

Cheers.

That cost money either way. The best non monetary compensation you can give is comp days.

This is a tough situation. I'm hoping this discussion gets some traction because I would love to get some feedback from others in the community.

> I had a pool to divy up, which I did, and then my recommendations were ignored by higher management.

Did you raise this back to higher management?

> Worst case is I lose some people.

The cost of losing a good person is much higher than whatever raise they might have gotten (in most cases). I would reiterate this point to the higher-ups.

Next time, do not agree easily on overtimes for your team, if they are not paid generously. Companies say inspirational bullshit to encourage employees to work more than 40 hrs. In most cases, these sacrifices won’t be rewarded, so your people will be miserable and feel betrayed.

I guarantee you they're already disengaged if that's the feedback you got. I don't see anything you can do to get the money for your team. You just have to accept it. It's a shitty situation. Your engineers should leave if they can and they absolutely should disengage if not. That's life. That's what's going to happen barring some miracle from the execs or whoever controls the money. The execs should also know this, but most likely they are psychopaths and don't give a fuck. You seem to be a caring manager who is stuck in the middle. There's a reason these psychopaths put you there and it's to act as a cushion between them and what they consider disposable plebs. I hope they're at least paying you decent money for it. The fact that you get things done and complete the explicitly stated part of your job is for the psychopaths just icing on the cake. Of course, when you don't because your entire team is gone or disengaged, they'll have no qualms about letting you or them go. C'est la vie. This is the position you pursue as a middle manager.

When you say elsewhere.. where did it go? What reason did they give for reallocating it? How's the company doing overall?

Edit: another question: how's the teams compensation compared to market?

If the company performed well, and politics or weird accounting ju-jitsu is the reason for lower raises either across the board or in your department, you can push for the top 2-3 employees to be awarded RSUs or stock options, those usually are very well received and they're good retention mechanisms.

If somebody has ever come to you looking for a promotion or transfer (either works in this case), give them a great annual review (meaning: huge praise, no nitpicking) so they have a better chance at escaping your clearly underappreciated team.

Otherwise, give the news 1:1 (no team meeting for bad news please) and tell the truth, but not bitterly, and don't linger on the topic. Explain the priorities for next year.

As far as your own position, you need to figure out (with top management/your management) how your department is seen, who decides of the final allocation, and why you're getting scraps. Money is feedback and the feedback you're given is no one care about you or your team. No it doesn't matter if they say otherwise, what matters is their actions.

Take a stand - ask for the funds under the condition that you'll resign if you don't get them. If you have to resign, tell your team why. The market is too good to tolerate this sorta thing from a company imho.

All else aside, this would make for a pretty amazing answer to the "So why did you leave your last company?". I can't imagine the loyalty inspired by this type of "treat my team right or I'm out" mentality.

>> "So why did you leave your last company?"

"I left because I was incapable of persuading management of the effectiveness and importance of my team and its contribution to the overall enterprise."

"Wow, don't you think you're being a little hard on yourself?"

"Well, they gave away my team's bonus to another team, despite my objections."

"That's unfortunate, but that still doesn't really explain why you left your last company."

"Well, despite the clear signal they sent when they took away my team's bonus, I didn't get the hint and completely misjudged my importance to the company. See, I painted myself into a corner by giving the executive team an ultimatum."

"Hmmm, yea, not very wise, you probably do suck as a manager."

It doesn't mean you suck as a manger that you don't get what you want. You never get all of what you want. I can only imagine someone saying that has no experience as a manager, or has been lucky and not found themselves in difficult circumstances. What sucks is if you don't even try to advocate appropriately for your team.

Would it be amazing? The people doing the hiring would be his managers.. not the devs he would be managing. They're exactly the people who may decide to take a bonus from his team if he's hired. And telling them that if they don't do exactly what he wants, he'll leave at a moments notice.. isn't a good answer to them (or really at all).

Someone will have to deal with this issue.. either him or the new manager. His job is to handle issues like this.. quitting the moment he runs into a problem is not a sign of a good manager.

Don't you think that's a bit extreme? You shouldn't start a negotiation with your strongest offer, take it or leave it.

Maybe we should learn to work with people without quitting as soon as we don't get what we want.

Not really - this sorta thing is only the beginning - you roll over on a thing like comp and you'll get rolled again and again. Either get it fixed, or get out.

Again, you're assuming the only two options are roll over or quit. There are plenty of ways to fight something like this without just storming out.

Sounds like 100% guarantee to be let go, because who would defend him? Top mgmt obviously considers him a low performer (or manager of a low-performing dept), as evidenced by the "scraps" they got. And the employees under him don't want to work for a manager perceived to be weak, who is unable to deliver at bonus time. (worse -- was unable to even prevent the bonus pool that was initially earmarked for that team to be taken away and given to another dept). Seems like both sides would have no problem replacing the OP with someone else.

Sounds like a 100% bad situation.

Why stay where you are, in the most clear terms, unappreciated?

You're asking to be reorg'ed out of the company anyways. This is one case where following your pride is the right option. It's like ending a bad relationship; things will only get worse.

Never said OP should stick around long-term. But leave on his own terms, after securing employment elsewhere, or with some other plan. As opposed to laying down an ultimatum, in which case he could be shown the door in a matter of days.

Better yet, if he wants to express loyalty to his team, work his personal network on the side to get each of his team members hired at a more appreciative company, and be the _last_ one to jump ship, only after all the direct reports have safely been "rescued" via better employment opportunities.

This advice may be the “right thing” to do by the team but may not be legally sound, depending on the OP’s contract with their employer. In fact it may not be legally sound even in the absence of a contract, depending on how a court interprets the implicit obligations between employer and employee. (I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, of course. Just consult one before doing anything like this.)

That's improper behavior, to work to get your team hired somewhere else, doubly so for a manager, and potentially in violating of your no solicit clause. Quitting, telling your team why you are quitting, why you left, those are proper. Of course a company can treat the people working there poorly.

Of course, companies screw people over, and treat them like shit at times, try to violate your hiring agreement, don't tell you your options. But actively finding your team jobs is foolish, and definitely something they can sue you over. And a new company would be worried you might do it again.

> Top mgmt obviously considers him a low performer (or manager of a low-performing dept), as evidenced by the "scraps" they got.

That's not obvious at all. In large companies there's often a fixed pool. Are other departments struggling even more? Are other departments significantly below market so the pool gets reallocated? 'Manager' could mean many things in large companies, and often being gets caught in the middle.

> don't want to work for a manager perceived to be weak

Again, jumping to conclusions with no evidence.

> was unable to even prevent the bonus pool that was initially earmarked for that team to be taken away and given to another dept

This depends on how OP communicated it, on how to set expectations, which they didn't mention and again jumping to conclusions.

> Seems like both sides would have no problem replacing the OP with someone else.

How? Why?

Not necessarily the case. Many bosses like to pay as little as possible, and often they pay the most to the people who are loudest about it, and not the people who are most competent.

But even if there is a mismatch between OP's perceived competence and actual competence, it's a good time to leave, as it's probably a career dead end.

> you'll resign if you don't get them.

whoa whoa whoa, settle down my friends. Lets not recommend that someone give up their livelihoods so easily.

OP, this was on HN yesterday, check it out: https://georgestocker.com/2019/03/14/my-salary-progression-i...

You should take a stand if its something you feel strongly about, but never threaten to quit. it should be a silent promise, not a threat. If they don't appreciate you, you and your team should find a company that does.

This is the worst advice in the thread. Don’t fall on your sword. You’ll live with the consequences, a loss of income, and a period of unemployment.. and it’ll fix nothing. Your team still won’t receive their bonuses.

,`Feedback I got was they expected more, and I did to.'

Doesn't your company have a set criteria for bonus payout like for eg., Derived from overall company performance, department performance , down to team and individual performance? If it doesn't and you believe your team deserve a higher payout ,clearly the management team doesn't agree with that and so do you as you expected more. Without a set and agreed bonus payout criteria it is left to a committee or judgement of a few , who I believe have weighed the scenario of your teams morale going down and potentially losing a few people. They are okay with that. Clearly wherever the money have moved to is the area they all collectively value. I have seen this happen especially in the case of a team that is managing and maintaining a legacy environment tend to not get favourable bonus payout even when they put in extra hours but other teams who are working on the newer releases etc are favoured as they are the future systems.

It depends on what alternatives you and your team have. If you think they think can easily find better employment elsewhere after they really showed up for you as a leader and put in the effort, doesn’t really seem like it would make sense for them to stay. You don’t get a lot of second chances as a leader, the deck is stacked against you in these cases. I think it would speak volumes about your character if you also showed up for your team when it sounds like they got short changed, at the same time you have to be strategic as well, only risk standing up for your team if you can take the downside risk and find employment elsewhere if management doesn’t capitulate to your request..

If you have a HRBP to go to, I'd suggest going to them with your concerns.

Different corps have different setups, but often a fixed pool across teams and staying relevant (+/- X%) to market across teams is often a common thread.

Could you speak with your senior management, including HR and your Head, and seek to align your expectations with theirs. Sounds like something you need to sit down with them and voice concerns in a mature way, but don't expect an approval for extra budget. Doing this is prep for the coming assessment and salary adjustment cycle. HN can only do so much and that's often jumping to conclusions or a commentator being blinkered by their own experience only.

Do a lot of companies do bonuses in March? Are there other ways to compensate the key devs? We have awards we can give out monthly. It’s nice to compensate extra effort right when it happens.

OP, if your company hands out bonuses in March/April you may wanna change your profile's email address... It was super easy to find out who you are, where you work, etc..

Bonuses, or raises? Not clear.

Seems like this already happened, so there isn't anything to handle. Tell your people that your managers ignored your recommendations and that you're looking for a new job where they don't do that.

The answer depends on your political position, goal, and capital in the organization.

Bonuses are done. They generally don’t come out again. I would focus on understanding why and getting better positioned for next year.

You have horse shit management. Been there. Not much you can do except tell him/her how you feel.

This is on YOU.

Leave

So much of this thread is just people working off the assumption a bonus is part of your comp.

Its not. It's a bonus. If it's part of what you think of as your comp, you got shafted during negs when you got hired.

This might be your view of the world, but most people don't work that way. Companies often have "target bonuses". If most people don't get their it, and there was no big problem justifying it, people will quit.

Were they paid for their overtime?

Not op, but very unlikely if they are salaried in the US. I should know. I’ve been a salaried drone putting in way too many hours for years. ;)

Salaried employees almost never are.

I don't get the premise of the question. You say "they really kicked ass last year", and then "they expected more and I did to." Which is it? Did the team do well or poorly?

The team expected a bigger raise

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