One third of managers given bonus after poor performance

One third of UK managers who “did not meet expectations” were still awarded their annual bonus, according to The Chartered Management Institute's National Salary Survey.

The report, which analysed the pay packets of 70,000 senior roles, found that the average remuneration for underachieving leading managers was £8,873, whilst sub-par directors were awarded a staggering £45,000.

Mark Crail, Content Director of XpertHR, the intelligence service who conducted the survey, blamed this development on an insistence of clinging on to previous successes. He claims: “The biggest and most significant indicator of whether someone will get a bonus this year is whether or not they got one last year.”

"In those circumstances, employers really should think about whether it would be better to address the level of basic pay rather than finding spurious reasons to add on an arbitrary annual bonus that has little basis in performance.”