Which company would you choose? The company where the owner arbitrarily decides what you receive, or the one that presented you with a documented incentive plan tied to the business strategy that also shows you how to earn your bonus and how much it will be?
A significant shift is occurring in the engineering and construction (E&C) industry in how companies are paying employee bonuses. The trend is to move from purely discretionary plans toward structured incentive plans (with some discretion on individual performance measures).
Owners need not disclose their actual profit numbers when using structured plans; communicating as a percentage to goal (e.g., company performance is at 105 percent to goal) is sufficient. Employees can look up performance on a pay table and identify their award percentage next to the achievement percentage.