Dive Brief:
- With the year almost at an end, there will be a decent percentage of employees receiving a little something extra at work as 2015 turns the page to 2016, according to a new Aon Hewitt survey.
- Aon Hewitt's recently released "Performance, Reward & Talent" study reports that 44% of surveyed employers plan to give traditional holiday bonuses, with the majority providing cash gifts - pretty much in line with pre-recession findings.
- Of those companies that don’t give traditional holiday bonuses, only 39% say it’s because of cost. Instead, most companies (52%) say it’s because they prefer to tie rewards to performance. This is double the number of companies that indicated as much prior to the recession. Eighty percent of companies surveyed said they have a variable pay program in place today.
Dive Insight:
Other key conclusions of the holiday bonus survey include: 72% give bonuses to show thanks and appreciation; 55% wiill provide a cash gift (a median value of $950 per employee); 30% will give gift cards (median value of $50 per employee), and 63% are planning holiday parties, expecting to spend about $50 per person
“Companies want to thank employees for their hard work at the end of the year and are willing to do so through small gifts and cash bonuses,” said Ken Abosch, Aon Hewitt’s broad-based compensation practice leader. “Yet we’ll continue to see most allocate the majority of their compensation budgets toward programs that are more structured and focused on rewarding high performers.”
