What are some criteria you’ve been hearing from you manager that will quality you for an exceeds? All I keep hearing is visibility blah blah have your efforts known by the “top” brass. Seems that you will have to move mountains and make serious changes. I can be the one with a great and just delegate it out and have them do all the work.
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Been a while. Haven’t seen Rsu in a long time too
All that you said is true. Another way to say it is you have to walk on water and it freeze behind you.
Schwab leadership is doing what it does best: mislead. Usually they get away with it but occasionally the SEC notices and the firm has to pay a $200mm fine ( only b/c clients are involved). Calling it an “annual bonus opportunity” while the pool is funded well over 100% with most employees still below target is how the system is designed to work.
Leadership celebrates record results, collects the largest bonuses and stock awards then heads off to week-long leadership conferences funded by the same pool everyone else was told to be grateful for whatever they got from it.
Gather round. I say this as a people leader with many reports. There is no single exceeds criteria. Weakest on the team. Best. Middle. Successful on big projects. Failure on intermediate ones. What gets you the best bonus? Nothing. Read that again. No-th-ing.
In normalization I've argued over extra hours worked, cost savings, revenue impacts, compliance, audits, salary normalization, KPIs and many other metrics. I've yet to see anything make sense. I have heard absolutely absurd arguments, however. Joe shouldn't get a bonus because. Tom should because. The because? Unbelievably petty and irrelevant things.
The biggest raise and bonus you can get will be from a new job at a new company. Even with a slowdown, your bump will be greater as a new hire.
For OP. We say visibility as code. It puts the blame on our management. And it feeds egos. It is easier to argue for a bonus when there's name recognition. But it hurts as often as it helps. It's an arbitrary system. And deliberately that way.