There should be no Tet bonuses

When I used to be a salary earner, I would look forward to my Tet bonus every year. Now, as a business owner myself, the bonuses only give me a headache.

I don't know about other companies, but in mine, employees' monthly pay is already much higher than their actual productivity.

Every year I have to rack my brains to balance the bonuses paid to different departments.

A relative of mine who works at a firm abroad said they never get any New Year or Christmas bonus, and are paid for the amount of work they do. Workers get a raise when they take on more responsibilities or are promoted.

I believe Vietnamese companies should follow their lead. It means year-end bonuses should only be handed out if there was significant profit or high productivity in the previous year. Tet should not be used as an occasion to extract bonuses.

It should also be stressed that workers need to be paid in accordance with their abilities and they need to be paid on time, and not rewarding productive employees is just plain exploitation.

Companies should also consider splitting the bonuses into monthly salaries. It would make no difference and workers would get their hard-earned money sooner.

Tet bonuses also make it more difficult for workers to balance their finances through the year. Many depend on a large sum of money at the end of the year to spend big, which should not be the case.

But do Tet bonuses actually motivate workers or are they just a way to exert pressure on businesses?

I believe people should be rewarded as soon as possible for their work, and the Tet bonus is an outdated formality. It is advantageous to neither workers nor companies, and some just wait to get their bonus before quitting their job.

If an employee is fired a month or two before Tet, they lose.