I'm not questioning the profit-sharing, that's a great incentive (the best IMO) and I'm actually working in a company with that incentive. I'm questioning automatic prizes.
Bonuses are incentives, and they only work if they make you work differently that you would if there wasn't any. That's not what happens with seniority.
Maybe the incentive is not to work better but just to retain the seniors in the company. But retention is a completely different problem altogether. Bonuses tied to profits may not be the best way to retain people if you have a bad year (no profits). I think competitive salaries are a much better incentive for keeping people in the company (better pass the message that you want them to work with you, regardless of how well the company's done on that year).
And sure, performance reviews can be unfair but that's not a reason for dismissing them - just keep improving the way you conduct performance reviews. At a certain point, you'll have to have some kind of peer review, better start now. There are many companies where these reviews actually work well.
The problem is that almost everyone who had bad experiences with performance reviews in previous companies (which seems to be the case of peldi) tend to dismiss them instead of improving them.
Mmm, very good point. Perhaps (as you suggest) the bonus structure isn't intended as an incentive to work harder/better.
But it does seem like a poor method to retain people... I feel like my bonus growing over time wouldn't be much of a motivator to stay if the work wasn't keeping me super interested, and my base salary wasn't growing enough to remain competitive. Maybe that's just a bias of mine, though, not to consider the bonus as a top criterion? Dunno.
Bonuses are incentives, and they only work if they make you work differently that you would if there wasn't any. That's not what happens with seniority.
Maybe the incentive is not to work better but just to retain the seniors in the company. But retention is a completely different problem altogether. Bonuses tied to profits may not be the best way to retain people if you have a bad year (no profits). I think competitive salaries are a much better incentive for keeping people in the company (better pass the message that you want them to work with you, regardless of how well the company's done on that year).
And sure, performance reviews can be unfair but that's not a reason for dismissing them - just keep improving the way you conduct performance reviews. At a certain point, you'll have to have some kind of peer review, better start now. There are many companies where these reviews actually work well.
The problem is that almost everyone who had bad experiences with performance reviews in previous companies (which seems to be the case of peldi) tend to dismiss them instead of improving them.