Should government or crown corporations pay out bonuses?
The point of a bonus should be to hold back a portion of an employee's salary and then pay it out plus a little more if they do a good job. For example. Instead of giving a salary of 100,000 with no bonus, a bonus structure would offer a salary of 90,000 with an opportunity to make an additional 20,000 in bonuses. 0 if you under perform, 10,000 if you do average and 20,000 if you exceed expectations.
Therefore, not getting any bonus is actually a cut in pay for poor performance and if you miss more than 2 years in a row you should be fired too.
I am in favour of that kind of bonus. Unfortunately, bonuses have often been used as a cash cow to allow already overpaid positions to load up the trough one more time.
I would not move to do away with bonuses. Rather I would go to the root of the problem and insist on a full review of all salary and compensation packages for all senior positions in gov't and crown corporations.
If the salary and benefits are brought in line first, then a bonus to incentify excellence can be a good accountability tool.
