Is it possible to get more than your target bonus? Do you think this year’s bonuses will even hit the targets?
19 replies (most recent on top)
If you want a bonus, switch to another bank. It is really the best way to get ahead. Stay anywhere for more than a couple of years and leave money on the table. At least that’s what Charlie told us.
Average +5 percent base… unless you’re greater than $200k then less or nothing. However, 10-15% less on TVC than last year unless you’re exceeds or consistently exceeds. Most people come out with less than last year. For lower paid folks, you come out ahead since your bonus was smaller to start with.
Just be glad you have a job for many of you in your 20's are going to experience what a true recession is like. I will never forget coming into work in 2008 with Wachovia and we were told we were insolvent and did not know if we'd even have a job, thus the Wells buyout. Since then, it just seems our bonuses are much less than our competitors as well as annual raises. For the longest time even if you exceeded expectation bonuses were minimal and raises averaged 1.5% tops so welcome to big banking in an economic downturn that is meant to cool this job market and I've yet to see the Fed ever get it right.
@2onr+1j78hK5T Total Variable Comp - this isn’t QVC.
Total Value Comp no targets. Manager discretion so you are as good as your last email.
@2ucf+1j78hK5T Right, that’s essentially what they already did when bonuses were paid early this year. I am more concerned about the reports in this thread that suggest further changes are coming to the comp structure.
There are no bonus targets anymore. What happens is whatever the bonuses were last year is the manager's starting budget. It's up to your manager or her manager (or maybe a few more levels up) to ask for more money if bonuses should be higher, otherwise they're flat and will be divided up across the team hopefully by how well people did.
@1jgh+1j78hK5T Any BOA or JPM transplants care to chime in? A woman on our team came over from BOA 4-5 years ago and she’s been warning us ever since the layoffs sped up that bonuses were next.
Granted, her experience is a bit dated but she told us the role equivalent she had here for 30% target was more like a 10-15% target over there. She also said her base was lower there. She was doing similar work here as she was there.
I’m getting the feeling she’s going to be telling us she “told us” for years this was coming.
I thought that the recent changes to compensation were already done to be more reflective of other large bank comp structures.
I’m not intricately familiar with comp structures at our competitors so if someone could explain specifically how our comp structure is going to further devolve, it would be helpful.
@1upk+1j78hK5T Look at our competitors (BOA, JPM) and you will know what’s coming.
Everyone focused on the “average raise” when the telling numbers are the merit and bonus pools specific to your LOB. Averages are just that. How much money did your LOB get allocated is really the best indicator of what you may get.
So what is the change in bonus structure specifically? I understand that it’s likely going to “move the goalpost” and blur the lines between base and bonus further, but can you add any more details around the new structure?
I haven't gotten a bonus since I started working here three years ago.
Changes coming to bonus structure this year. Not to the employee advantage. TVC or Total Variable Compensation was essentially a Trojan horse for what your bonus and base would be once this change is announced.
It does two things - brings WF in line with the bonus structures of other non-sales area equivalents at other FIs and lowers the dollars paid for bonus at the company level.
The post about 5% average raise this year is an offset to this change. The majority of people will see a net loss year over year on their comp package.
There be no such thing as targets, but the expectations remain because everyone remembers what their target is outside of newbs from that last year or two.
Yes. Last year I received the highest bonus in my whole career. So, it is possible.
Bonus? Just be happy you're not riding the rails! Wobbly harmonica and all that.
Targets went away in 2020.
no such thing anymore as “target” bonus