By Dan Parker
If you received a work Christmas bonus this year, you were one of the lucky few.
Business New Zealand, which represents 70,000 employers, says bonuses are fast becoming a thing of Christmas past and the majority of the nation’s workforce won’t be receiving them.
Some businesses are keeping the tradition alive - Maori TV rewarded almost its entire staff with $1,000 each, while seven senior managers got to split $145,000 between them.
Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples says Maori TV staff “really deserve it, because there's a lot of pressure placed on them to perform, and their ratings went up… New Zealand must be proud that they did so well”.
Large companies like Air New Zealand and BNZ didn't pay bonuses but have given staff presents, while Telecom told 3 News its team got nothing.
Business NZ CEO Phil O'Reilly says Christmas bonuses are now the exception, not the rule, and “tend to be team based or individual based, and… will more often than not be based on a particular target being hit”.
He says staff receiving bonuses just because it’s Christmas is “becoming pretty rare these days”.
Many employers now favour bonding activities over bonuses at Christmas time, Mr O’Reilly says, and the Human Resources Institute's Beverley Main says those who choose to give need to do it carefully.
“It's got to be genuine and it's got to be fair,” she says.
“It shouldn't really be that the senior managers get lots and the people who do the work at the coalface don't get very much at all – it should be reflective of the contribution people make.”
However, the bottom line for most companies though is that tough economic times mean they're simply not in a position to hand out Christmas bonuses.
3 News