Bonus payment
Under a bonus payment (short bonus ; plural bonuses or bonuses ) are understood in human resources , the allowance to pay , the workers from the employers receive.
General
The remuneration paid permanently (such as wages or salary) resulting from the employment contract or the Operating Agreement and as consideration for the service performance paid. With the employment contracts pay the usual work performance is remunerated by an employer from the obligation to work the employee can expect. The bonus is an additional, usually variable (one-off) salary component as part of a performance-based remuneration , which is usually linked to the achievement or over-achievement of corporate goals (business indicators such as sales or profits ). Bonus and performance allowance are part of the wage differentiation with which the employer rewards special work performance of the employee without this having to be provided for in the employment contract or company agreement.
Today's bonus system was essentially developed by the investment banks in the 1970s and at that time was supposed to represent a sensible profit-sharing scheme.
Legal issues
Except in the case of executive employees ( Section 5 BetrVG ), the works council has a right of co-determination for performance-related payments in accordance with Section 87 (1) No. 10 or No. 11 BetrVG. According to the Federal Labor Court (BAG), the volume of work and the quality of work “ depend on the work content to be determined by the employer by exercising the right of direction, on the one hand, and on the personal, subjective performance of the employee, on the other . The worker has to do what he should and do it as well as he can. The obligation to perform is not rigid, but dynamic and is based on the performance of the employee. An objective yardstick is not to be used ... The person obliged to do the duty owes the 'work', not the 'work' ”. If this standard performance is repeatedly clearly exceeded, the employer can grant a one-off bonus payment. In employment contracts with senior executives, it can be agreed that the employer determines the actual amount of the variable remuneration annually at its reasonable discretion ( Section 315 (3) sentence 1 BGB ), taking into account certain factors and the achievement of agreed corporate goals. If losses occur in the company that could lead to a company crisis, there is no entitlement to a bonus, even if the individual goals have been achieved.
The bonus payment is either a voluntary service or a contractual obligation on the part of the employer. So that bonus payments do not become operational practice and the employer can no longer unilaterally withdraw from them, their voluntariness should be expressly emphasized in writing before the payment in such a way that there is no legal entitlement even if they are granted repeatedly . An employment contract obligation of the employer can result from the employment contract or from company agreements, in which the reasonable discretion is based on the fact that the granting of bonus payments is checked annually by the employer.
Recipients of a bonus payment are employees (often non-tariff employees such as executives ), blue-collar workers , and sometimes self-employed or freelancers .
Bonus systems
Bonus systems are often used as incentive systems in large companies . These are remuneration systems within the framework of performance management , which are often intended to offer an incentive to increase performance in sales . You must take into account that the basic salary already rewards a high level of work and may therefore only be provided for special top performance or overachieving goals. Compensation systems, on the other hand, should not induce employees to take inappropriate risks. They should be geared towards long-term and sustainable goals and be transparent.
The growing public criticism about the bonus systems at banks (especially in investment banking ), the decided European Parliament one in all since January 2014 EU Member States applicable bonus ceiling ( English EU banker bonus cap ) Under Art. 75 para. 3 of the directive must credit institutions of BaFin reports how many employees receive remuneration of more than 1 million euros annually as salary components, bonus payments, long-term premium payments and pension contributions . Article 92 of the directive contains provisions on an appropriate remuneration policy. Variable components may only reach 100% of the basic salary (Art. 94 Paragraph 1g I), the general meeting may decide to increase the basic salary to 200% (Art. 94 Paragraph 1g II). The Euro Banking Association identified in December 2013. Bank employees with more than 500,000 euro annual income as a "significant risk takers" ( English material risk taker ) for which the bonus limit shall be applicable.
In October 2018, the BAG decided in favor of the defendant BayernLB that the setting of a bonus entitlement for non-tariff employees (“bank bonus”) was reasonable. The bank's board of directors then had the right to unilaterally determine the amount of the annual budget for variable remuneration. Such a regulation is permissible because the amount of the bonus entitlement was neither already specified in the employment contract, nor do the parties to the company have to determine the magnitude of the bonus volume to be distributed. BayernLB posted a loss of EUR 5.358 billion for the 2008 financial year, compared to EUR 3.093 billion in 2009; for these financial years it rightly did not pay its employees any bonuses.
economic aspects
Bonus payments act like a reward and increase, mostly short-term, the work motivation and job satisfaction of the beneficiary staff . Although studies confirm the positive effects of financial rewards on the motivation of employees to work, the usefulness of such rewards in the context of target agreements is sometimes called into question. If the bonus is limited, however, the staff will not perform any work beyond that, because this would be associated with additional work suffering. If, on the other hand, the staff with the prospect of a bonus recognizes that they will probably not be able to achieve the bonus target, they either reduce their workload or try to achieve the target in the short term through reduced work quality or increased risk. In order to avoid this, it is advisable to use subsequent evaluation-dependent incentives ( English pay for performance ) or profit sharing ( English profit sharing ).
The economist Bruno Frey has examined the effect of bonus payments on the performance of managers and considers it "scientifically [...] completely clear that bonuses are counterproductive". Managers are tempted to base their behavior on key figures instead of long-term success, which can already be seen in the “obvious practice” that “CEOs usually present conspicuously bad numbers when they take office”. Even an extension to longer-term control variables would only increase their focus on key figures. Therefore, fixed salaries are preferable.
Delimitations
Be distinguished from bonuses are bonuses as volunteer services for a specific reason ( anniversary , holiday or Christmas bonus ). There are overlaps in content with premiums in the form of financial or non-monetary benefits if these are paid for quantitative (“piecework bonus”) or qualitative additional services (“quality bonus”). If a deduction is made from wages in the event of poor work performance, this is called a malus .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Henning Rabe von Pappenheim, Lexikon Arbeitsrecht 2019 , 2019, p. 510
- ^ Stefan Zähringer, Bonus payments using the example of Dresdner Bank: Corporate Responsibility in the Social Market Economy , 2009, p. 2. ISBN 9783640370634
- ↑ BAG, judgment of December 11, 2003, Az .: 2 AZR 667/02 = BAGE 109, 87
- ↑ BAG, judgment of August 29, 2012, Az .: 10 AZR 385/11 = NZA 2013, 148
- ↑ BAG, judgment of March 20, 2013, Az .: 10 AZR 8/12 = NZA 2013, 970
- ↑ Directive 2013/36 / EU of June 26, 2013 , accessed on June 15, 2019
- ↑ BAG, judgment of October 24, 2018, Az .: 10 AZR 285/16 = MDR 2019, 357
- ↑ Edwin A. Locke / Dena B. Feren / Vicky M. McCaleb et al. a., The relative effectiveness of four methods of motivating employee performance , in: Keith D Duncan / Michael M Gruneberg / Donald Wallis (eds.), Changes in Working Life, 1980, p. 368 ff.
- ↑ Reinhard K. Sprenger, Evaluating instead of measuring , in: Personalwirtschaft Heft 4, 1998, p. 82
- ↑ Ralf Ewert / Alfred Wagenhofer, Internal Corporate Accounting , 1995, p. 421
- ↑ Edwin A. Locke, Linking Goals to Monetary Incentives , in: Academy of Management Executives vol. 18, 2004, p. 130
- ^ Sarah E Bonner / Geoffrey B Sprinkle, The Effects of Monetary Incentives on Effort and Task Performance Theories: Evidence, and a Framework for Research , in: Accounting, Organizations and Society vol. 27, 2002, p. 325 ff.
- ↑ Bruno Frey in an interview with Konrad Fischer: Extra payments for managers: "It has long been clear that bonuses are counterproductive". In: wiwo.de. January 7, 2020, accessed January 11, 2020 .
