How do you feel when someone just does something to you without giving you the choice of "yes, that's fine" or "no, I don't want to participate"? This happened to my wife at the job she had after the 9-11 Trade Center attack. Each year the company would give a Christmas Bonus to all employees. The Bonus was adjusted to the salary and how many years the employee had been with the company. It was given just before Christmas and a lot of the Mexican factory workers really looked forward to this Bonus as well as my wife and other salaried employees did. What happened was, without asking any employee's, the company decided to donate all the Bonus money to a 9-11 organization. Because of my wife's salary at the time, she lost a nice chunk of money and wasn't very happy about it. I really wondered how all the Mexican's in the factory part of the company felt. Their salaries were fairly low, so to get this Christmas Bonus really helped out with buying gifts for family members. I really wondered what had happened, but after thinking about a little while, I came up with the answer the company President/Owner would say..........."Until the Christmas Bonus money is in your banking account, it is still our money and we can do what we want with it without consulting any employee's." My theory was, that the company knew....."don't ask, just do it", because the company knew what a lot of the employee's would say about donating the money..........."absolutely not". So, how do you feel when someone doesn't give you the choice of "yes" or "no"?
Well in the situation you described with your wife's bonus money I could understand if she was upset about not having a say in what her boss did. I'm sure alot of the employee's were upset with the boss for not even discussing this with them. Even though it went to a good cause...it would have been nice if everyone was given a chance to share their feelings about this decision. I don't think your wife's boss was right in what he did because alot of people do depend on those bonus' and probably some of the employees had already spent theirs ahead of getting that bonus check. Plus I think everyone should have had a say in whether they wanted to give their whole bonus check or just a percentage of it to that cause. How I feel about being given a choice of "yes" or "no" depends on what the situation would be. There are things that I want to have a say in...and then there are things that it is fine either way. For instance in buying a car I definitely want to beable to say "yes" or "no" in this kind of decision. But in buying a new lawn mower...my husband can make that choice all by himself.
I think when people are told "you don't have a choice about this", a persons personality can/does change from good to bad quickly. Leaving the Bonus situation/decision up to the employees would have been much better. Donating or not donating should have been left up to them, but the money does belong to the company until it is deposited into the employees banking accounts.
@Cody Fousnaugh Absolutely! It's akin to being commanded to "OBEY". Americans have traditionally been against being "pushed around". Things are changing, today, however, as Political Correctness spreads it's tentacles around individuality. ALL must be accepting of whatever nuances happen to be liked, or disliked, by some group pushing them. IMO, the results of November's Presidential election underscore a growing public dissatisfaction with it. I truly hope that opinion is correct. 'Course if you happen to be a "PC-er", you will disagree, maybe even violently. European cultures, German especially, have traditionally instilled obedience in it's peoples' thinking. Just sayin'. Frank
if the Annual bonus is part of an employees contract then it would be illegal for the company to dispose of it any other way without the express permission of the employees..
Holly, this was a private company. None of the employee's had a contract with the company. Just an application filled out, resume given to HR (or manager), interview and hired (or not hired). That's all I ever did when I was looking for a job. Apparently the Christmas Bonus depended on the earnings the company made that year. Actually, under the same "choice" idea is when a company here shuts down for a week during Christmas, prospective employee's are told about the shut down when interviewed for a job. The employee either has to use saved PTO or apply for a week's worth of unemployment insurance. Companies don't automatically pay employees for the week of shut down. The prospective employee is given a choice in the matter of the company shutting down for the week, but if the employee doesn't have any PTO and doesn't want to apply for a week's worth of UI, they just won't get any money that week. As for me, I'd rather work for a company that stays open during that week and get paid.