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The Bonus Dilemma

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The Bonus Dilemma
Jon Jacobs
INTRODUCTION
As bonus time looms, the financial services industry around the world faces an unprecedented situation of government financial participation and intense political scrutiny. Both 2008 compensation and the pay paradigm for future years are being reshaped under this spotlight.
This White Paper focuses on public relations aspects of the dilemma confronting U.S. investment banks over reformulating compensation – both near-term and long-term, from the C-suite to the operations staff. Due to recent and ongoing injections of taxpayer funds, decisions that traditionally aimed to balance employee retention needs with budgetary constraints must now also weigh the interests of a daunting array of …show more content…

However, the Swiss bank said that for most of its employees,
"the current system of variable compensation will basically not change." (5)
CURRENT YEAR 'S BONUS CALCULUS
The political spotlight on compensation poses both near-term and longer-term risks to financial institutions. An obvious near-term risk is an institution reining in year-end incentives more severely than its peers might lose talent to competitors early in 2009. Any perceived inequities that arise between similarly positioned firms are a potential trigger for defections. Even hobbled banks and hedge funds will seize opportunities to scoop up top talent that 's disaffected with their current employer.
Thus, even more than usual, recruitment staff should spend this period seeking real-time information about what their closest counterparts are doing in terms of year-end incentives. Internal recruiters can provide valuable intelligence to divisional and department heads and other compensation decision-makers.
Besides risking defections in the near term, an institution perceived as letting public officials dictate its compensation procedures runs a risk of gradually metamorphosing into something like a government agency itself. In public agencies, salaries often are set by published charts rather than managers ' discretion, and bonuses don 't exist. To the

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