Bonus for Being Bad

In April, we heard the some IRS employees, who had "tax issues" themselves, still got incentive bonuses paid to employees who do well at their job.  [http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/04/23/irs-employees-with-tax-and-conduct-issues-still-got-awards-watchdog-report/ ]

I suppose we could say that this is a small mistake that could happen to any organization.  This week, we find the same thing in hospitals rewarded for doing a good job moving vets through their doors, and presumably, through treatment too.  That would be the Veterans Administration, where waiting lists were made for dying vets.  Those who were in charge got bonuses.

During my government career, I saw hundreds of people get bonuses, even when they had  not been behaving.  In contractor land, the same kind of thing happened, and employees even complained when they didn't get one.  They had the mistaken belief that they got a bonus if they showed up for work, and didn't screw up too badly.

I started a new trend in my section at EDS.  I gave bonuses to the people who performed best and made the group the most money.  Most of them were surprised by getting a bigger check than they were used to.  There was little whining from the ones who got nothing.  Even they knew it was fair.  This should tell you a little about bonuses.  People who should not get them, are surprised when they don't, and people who worked their butts off all year were surprised to be rewarded for it.  Something is wrong with our business culture when those are the expectations.

Have we become so "correct" in our thinking that bonuses are an egalitarian right?  No.  Managers have no backbone in business or government let these kinds of things happen.  It isn't management;  it is abandoning management in the mistaken belief that it is important to be popular with the team, even where that means taking money away from the best and most productive in our workforce, and giving it to people who don't deserve it.  That isn't management, justice, or equality.  People in charge of these organizations need to be retired or demoted.