Singapore Expats

I am leaving work in the beginning of Dec. 2-3 month performance bonus is paid in Apr for work from Jan-Dec. My offer letter mentions about pro-rated performance bonus if I work less than the whole year. However my HR is declining to pay any bonus. I am wondering if I can do something about it.

It probably means that the bonus will be pro-rated if you start part way through the year, not if you leave. Certainly where I work, if you leave before the bonus is paid, even if declared, you won't get it.

^^^This.

Unless he was in a situation were he was a good employee but thanks to MOM his EP/S pass wasn't renewed. Normally, we will give a prorated bonus if his leaving wasn't due to his or our fault.

bgd wrote:Certainly where I work, if you leave before the bonus is paid, even if declared, you won't get it.

Same in the half dozen companies I worked for.

If you leave with sour taste, HR can deny anything and everything, including unclaimed annual leave.

Same experience here too. Which is why in the few weeks after bonuses are paid/banked then you see something of an great annual rotation among employers.

I'd have thought the employment contract would explicitly define the basis of such a bonus. Unless it spells out how any 'guaranteed' element is calculated and paid, even after quitting part way through a year, then I'd assume it's discretionary.

It's like TA here; employer always have upper hand like LL.

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Yep. They sure do. It's their little red dot and they can run it any damn way they want. And that is just what they do. Those that don't like it, know which way Changi Airport is. Some of us get used to it and actually relish the idea of being able to come home knee walking commode hugging drunk at 3;30 am alone and not getting mugged or worse. As the only natural resource they have is the port, They need to make as much money as they can from what ever source they can find. The friendly expat is a good start for mining.

bgd wrote:It probably means that the bonus will be pro-rated if you start part way through the year, not if you leave. Certainly where I work, if you leave before the bonus is paid, even if declared, you won't get it.

Yes, the annual bonus is a "hook" that is granted only if you work until it's paid.
It is not an entitlement that gets pro-rated when you leave early.

JR8 wrote:Same experience here too. Which is why in the few weeks after bonuses are paid/banked then you see something of an great annual rotation among employers.

They all know how it works.

Watch out as well for vesting share plans... HR will cut those off if you leave too early as well (and so they should).

PNGMK wrote:Watch out as well for vesting share plans... HR will cut those off if you leave too early as well (and so they should).

Haha, I love those "deferred" stocks.
One US company that I know gives stock option as part of bonus (e.g. 50% cash, the rest stocks).

Though it is listed stock, you can only sell a portion of it every quarter of year. Thus, called deferred stocks.

If you receive your bonus in March, it'll take you roughly 2 years to cash everything. And this arrangement is made with every bonus you receive.


So, the bottom line is, it doesn't matter when you quit the company. There is no way you can cash all the bonus you supposedly earned.
Those stocks that you couldn't vested will be forfeited.

I guess that's the whole point of this scheme.
It becomes a deterrent when one contemplates on quitting job. He calculates and realizes how much deferred stocks that's been piling up over the years..

Ah erm... yes my experience mirrors much of what you say Oddog. The non-cash element ratchets up very quickly through the ranks. TBH and succinct it's a PITA. The more senior you are, the higher it quickly becomes. If entitlement to a non-cash element begins at say AVP level, it still might be only say 20-30% of the gross/annual. VP maybe say 50%, occasionally but rarely perhaps 100% if you're this year's anointed cannot-afford-to-lose departmental star. All the way up, I remember the NYC/Wall St main board of directors, the base salary might be a '''derisory''' perhaps US$250k, compared to as much as a total annual remuneration of as much as $50m! That of course included the Chairman and President.

I agree bar one significant difference in experience though, the norm for me was that you can quit/be fired but still definitely take your whole stock-plan (vested/unvested) with you. I can't imagine a 'leave and lose it' tie-in. The careerists used to have a strategy of 'you have to optimise your career by job-hopping every c3 years', and that is what such people usually did, totally accepted as normal - there would have been anarchy/revolution if the big-hitters were penalised for doing so.

--- OT: It still irks me to this day, the uninformed populist myth and stereotype of the 'hated over-rewarded rich banker' as, IME/O a) there are few to be in any way envious of, and headlines dwell on them, despite knowing eff-all about what they actually do to earn and deserve it b) most bitter onlookers would never themselves imagine nor accept having maybe 50/+/++/99% of their annual gross income as entirely discretionary/almost random, decided on on one single future day a year.

Maybe you're familiar with how Pte's/PLCs/Inc's are required by regulators to file a report on each 'officer's' [AVP/+] stock transaction. In fact such reported 'Directors Trades' were but less-so now still are tracked as an inside track, to spot trouble looming in a company. Directors bailing out ahead of bad news. So, my take is 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 year tie-ins are to tie you in to ongoing and continued future performance, and restrict a flood of negative sounding blast of reported Director's Trades right after they are awarded...

This rule about bonus payment hurts even more if you have 6 months' notice period. You tender your resignation, you work for additional 6 months without bonus factored in.

6 months notice!? What kind of jobs does that happen with? It's hard enough to get any net value out of a fired employee for a month, in fact having such present is seen as a liability. That's why in banking you get 5-minutes notice, pack any personal belongings and leave, NOW. [And Mr. security-guard here will escort you from this room, via your desk to the street - 'please don't take this at all personally, ok?']

Not mine. But I have seen it on a poor colleague. She was perceived to be a high-valued indispensable employee. So replacing her was a pain. Just as painful as for her. It is like that awkward delayed goodbye. Funnily, she held her stride on the higher moral ground to "finish and hand over" whatever due from her until the end (I'm not trying to encourage the opposite behaviour though). And without that bonus that could have accrued from her 6 months. If she were to be me, I would never have agreed to that in my contract in the first place and I would have asked for more to convince me to stay that long!

I had 2-month notice period in my previous employment and it was bad enough.

3 months is pretty common in India. Can be reduced, I assume by the vendors paying some sort of settlement.