The rewarding of poor manager performance is widespread, according to new research from the Chartered Management Institute and XpertHR. Nearly a third (30%) of all underperforming managers in a survey carried out by the two organisations received a bonus in 2014. Over 40% of senior managers and directors judged not to have met expectations received a financial bonus, with an average value of £8,873 last year.
Salaries of managers in the survey sample increased by an average 3% in 2014. The average annual salary across all executive levels stood at £38,328. Data from the survey was taken from 72,206 employees in 317 UK organisations.
Content director at XpertHR, Mark Crail, commented:
‘Another reason so many low performers get bonuses is that there is often a culture of rewarding past glories. The biggest and most significant indicator of whether someone will get a bonus this year is whether or not they got one last year. The longer that goes on, the more people come to rely on the money and the harder it is to stop paying it. 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.’