What is a BONUS actually for?

Corruption

and if anyone saying I am wrong

"Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense which is undertaken by a person or an organization which is entrusted in a position of authority, in order to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's personal gain"

Isn’t this just capitalism pure and simple? The rich get richer. The so called ‘trickle down’ of wealth is a myth. We need a different system.

Fully agree with Maw. I was just reading a similar thread on Facebook, which included criticism of Thames Water's bonus.

However the inequality exists everywhere: I used to work in a branch of the criminal justice system, where the senior management were apparently paid a bonus on the efforts of the workforce meeting certain targets, this was kept quiet and of course non of the the coalface workers got recognition for working additional hours or their efforts to meet those targets.

I did however once get a 'payout' - a long service award of a couple of hundred quid after I had worked there for over 30 years, so something like £7 a year for putting work before my family and health.

This, coupled with a restructure requiring us to carry out pretty much the same work but with a pay cut of £2,500 a year, the saving from which were frittered on a conference with a theme of patting themselves on the back!

Oh, and I got a tacky medal for my years of service, which went straight in the bin.

Me, bitter?! No of course not!

When my son was a child he once asked DH what would be his ideal job. DH replied 'Boss of a water company'.

Tories believe society is better for all when some people have high incomes & others don't. I see the opposite in people around me, its best for rich people when some have high incomes, a bonus is just another way of giving people extra money, it isn't always related to good performance

could capitalism be coming to an end? it is an unjust system,but im not aware of anything better,unless we go back to tribal living, but can't see that done in a hurry.

I think it’s utterly disgusting and a disgrace that bosses/ executives of utility companies receive bonuses at these rates.
I’m stuck on universal credit because of an accident and two serious health conditions. As family of five we receive £1650 a month to live off. We haven’t been able to afford to put the heating on for two years. I had a great career and a good salary before my accident and paid my taxes and NI.
Thus winter there won’t be heating and I can see me not eating very much either. How the hell is this fair?

Bonuses . . . to hades with them

Along with the inevitable political statement

"We have been working tirelessly/incredibly hard/non-stop" etc. etc. to which my first thought is

"Yes . . . your point being that hard work is optional?"

Boris Johnson as London mayor was behind Thames water desalination folly project. Water should never have been privatised. Shocking

"Katie1950" the poor don't get poorer - the bloody workers that are paying for the poor and the rich are the ones that end up paying. Don't think Labour will stop all these outrageous bonuses or OTT salaries either, they're all on them too.

My friends son before he was 30 owned 3 houses bought outright with bonuses! He is an accountant for a large London firm. I was fed up with her telling me how hard he worked!!! and he totally deserved it in her mind. House in Home Counties, flat in London and a house in Cotswolds.

The manager of the store I worked in got a performance bonus based on annual takings, we did all the work he got the bonus.

I was amazed how RBS, which we (the taxpayer) bailed out kept giving bonuses even when they made huge losses. If there is a loss, where does the money for bonuses come from? Oh, wait - it’s the taxpayer again. The ruse was that the bank needed to pay bonuses to compete and attract top executives - but they weren’t all that great if they never turned a profit. It makes me sick. Train drivers who are now withdrawing overtime availability are accused of having an ’unofficial strike’’. As per usual the hard working employee is not expected to determine what to do with their own time, while the executives wallow in non-earned bonuses

My DH was a consulting water engineer, not on the supply side but a designer and project manager who worked all over the world as well as the UK. He cannot understand why Thames Water can't make this expensive desalination plant work properly. He has designed and built several and they always worked as expected.
It used to be said that only the worst engineers would join the water companies, the better ones would become consultants. However after the dreaded Thatcher privatised the industry it effectively destroyed much of the consultancy business in this country and the boards of companies like Thames Water are manned by fat cats who move around between them all the time. Many of them have no technical knowlege and we can see the results of that.
The idea of privatisation was that they would be better run and some of the profits used to improve the system for the consumer. To be fair some of this has happened in some areas, but now the profit has to be split with the shareholders and the board members too.
It has been recently suggested by one water board member that there was a problem with insufficient resevoirs - they actually sold off reservoirs within London some years ago, including those which are now the Wetlands Centre in Barnes. I imagine that this is true of others too.
However the major problem is that board members effectively set their own targets, so cynically I presume that they choose targets that can easily be met.

The way to change this is, to the extent possible, withdraw your financial support, send letters and emails, hit Twitter, organize a protest. When we had AT&t for our phone company, we quit the them and went with another company, which cost more, because AT&T had just laid off thousands of mid-level employees, yet given the CEO who was leaving a golden parachute, even though the company was doing terribly. Right now I have Amazon in my crosshairs because they are taking advantage of employees and have pledged to pay up to $4,000 for any woman to go and get an abortion if there isn't a clinic within tomato throwing distance.

We don't have a choice of water suppliers,*hcw*. So can't go with an alternative.

Bonuses, these days, are rather like the 'medals' given to all kids in a race simply for taking part. The idea of bonuses and medals are surely to encougage everyone to try harder to achieve the top slot. Mind you, the entire House of Lords get around £300 each simply for turning up, regardless of how long they stay there. Most of them stay to have a nap.