Peter Brown
PAYdata Blog, 04 February 2011
 

This week the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that he was increasing the levy on bank profits, raising an extra £800 million this year and a total of £2.5 billion every year.

Mr Osborne accepted that he had not yet struck a deal on limiting bankers' bonuses but he said that the move on the profits levy would help banks know the context they were operating in before they announced their bonus payments.  He said, "I'm still confident we can … see that bonuses are lower this year than last year."

It was therefore unfortunate timing that this week also saw the results of a survey of 1,000 bank workers, conducted by Hays Financial Markets.  As reported by People Management, the survey found that, “65 per cent said they were not satisfied with the last bonus they received and half said they would look to leave their organisation if their next bonus did not meet their expectations.”  This is despite, according to the survey, 48 per cent of front-office bank workers seeing their bonus increase from last year while only 32 per cent saw it decrease.  It is going to be interesting to see how this squares with Mr Osborne’s confidence in lower bonuses this year.

In the face of such news, it is tempting to engage full banker-baiting mode.  In particular, if you have enjoyed neither bonus nor pay rise in the last 2 years, the feeling that, “They just don’t get it” is a hard one to dislodge.

Later this month we will be publishing results from the January running of our own UK Reward Management Survey.  This survey covers a broad variety of sectors, mainly some distance from the finance industry.  As we did in January 2010, we have asked for details of actual or expected bonus levels.  Will the picture look any different from the world of finance?  You can almost bank on it.

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