Found an issue on this page? Let us know and we will look into it as soon as possible.
How do efficiency based bonuses work?
Anonymous6 views3 answers
My husband works in the automotive collision repair industry as a painter. His current employer pays an hourly rate plus a monthly bonus based on efficiency. He must beat the times on his repair orders by %120 in order to qualify for his bonus. Yesterday he was given a repair order for a job and worked 3.6 hours on it and then had to stop because they hadn't gotten approval from the insurance company and the car was not going to be repaired. He asked his manager about the 3.6 hours he had worked and how he was going to be paid for them since the job and repair order no longer exist. He was told by his manager that he'd take care of it. Today he clocked into a 6 hour repair order only to find the 3.6 hours from the other job already on it. So, that left him with only 2.4 hours to complete the job to break even, and no chance of beating the time for a bonus. Can they do this? It doesn't seem like he should lose time on a job because of their error.
This is not really a legal issue, as bonuses are a contractual matter. His employer gets to make the rules on the bonuses, which includes even they even want to give bonuses. It is possible the employer breached their contract with your husband, but quite doubtful they have a completely written out policy on this sort of situation. What is more, is if he complains much, he might just get fired and there would likely be no recourse after that as this would not be a whistle blower situation since he would not be reporting something illegal.
What has me more concerned about your question is that the employer appears to be paying on FLAG time. There have been recent decisions which all but ban this practice. He needs to be paid for all hours worked, including his break time. There should be no "down time" in which he is not paid. My guess is that his employer is not up to speed on current laws. He should be seeing a rest and recovery line on his pay check. In addition, his overtime should include his bonus and rest and recovery pay.
