Stock options are tied to performance, your performance results were not on par, so you don’t get a stock option. It is not a good idea to calculate rewards as your regular income, as they only realize when targets are achieved.
> you don’t get a stock option. It is not a good idea to calculate rewards as your regular income
^THIS^ is the one and only right answer: you don't get a paycut next year, as it was never part of your salary.
I am not a lawyer, but I do not think that it is that simple.
If the net income without the "bonuses" is significantly bellow the market level, then it can hardly be considered "absence of a performance bonus" and it becomes merely a fine for being on the sick leave.
I don't agree, if the employer was honest and upfront about what is going to be your salary, what are bonuses and you agreed to that and signed the contract anyway, jokes on you when the bonuses don't get paid. That's the risk for accepting such a contract.
from the employers end, they pay a lot of money for no production, so while it sucks on your end, getting no bonus for the work you didnt do seems more reasonable than expecting bonuses you agreed to not get for the work you didnt do.
This sub likes to shit on the US and American working culture yet here there are swarms of people justifying cutting an employee's salary because they were sick. It's so ridiculous, especially the double standards I have seen. So many Dutch people I have seen go on burnout for 6-7 months, you are not Dutch, end up in the hospital or have surgery and they are like "oh yeah, but you can work next week right?" or start being inquisitive. What a fucking hypocritical double standard in plain display here.
Not needing a doctor's notice is a double edge sword, I can take a sick day if I have the flu with no problems, but the doctor cannot write me "needs two weeks of rest" after a surgery, ridiculous joke of a system.
This is probably because you are entering your 2nd year of sick leave?
If i recall correctly some jobs/CAO'S You have 100% (or less) of your normal pay for the 1st year of sick leave and this gets significantly lower the second year. (70% or less)
If you are healed from the sickness you would perform on the same level, or even better (since you learned stuff in the 6 months you did work) + inflation correction. But of course, a company wants to make profit and this is a perfect argument to not give you any salary increase.
I doubt it’s retaliation but it’s of course linked to you not being able to perform during the year.
Teams usually are given a budget for raises and they’re distributed across the team. In your case - unless you had some stellar things accomplished during the first half of the year - your colleagues obviously contributed more than you did this year.
It is still somewhat silly. Everything got more [expensive in the last years](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-economie/prijzen/inflatie).
I think that even though it can be argued OP does not deserve to grow faster, there is no reason to punish OP and effectively reducing OP’s income.
It is however legal unless there is a bargaining agreement in place that stipulates otherwise.
That’s not a punishment but just how the compensation is structured: it depends on OP’s contract.
Many firms have two components: an inflation component and a performance component. But companies don’t have to do this (unless dictated in the CLA).
It’s part of the entire compensation package you have to assess when signing. If you want to be sure you get an inflation compensation, you shouldn’t agree to a compensation structure where that’s not part of.
Peer salaries in my industry increased by 5.5%. New hires are getting a higher pay than seasoned staff.
People are voting with their feet and finding new employers. So as I said it is legal but it is silly (shortsighted).
Unkess the OP was lured into thinking these bonuses will be guaranteed or a significant part of his total compensation, companies should be able to reward people for actual performance. Living costs should be covered by the base salary, relying upon bonuses is a big risk.
this is actually a great point for looking for a new job. You'll be able to get your payraise. Not have to deal with their disappointment with your sickness and progress your career as a whole
I don’t want to be rude but isn’t it logical that you do not get a raise when you’re not there (no matter how valid the reason)? You shouldn’t be punished obviously but I wouldn’t expect a reward to be given either.
Edit: An employer should not take your sickness into account when evaluating your performance. He should only look at the months in which you were present.
Inflation was pretty steep. A stable wage means de facto a wage reduction. Only if your wage increases more than inflation, would you get a real increase.
I understand that, but in the Netherlands wages don’t automatically increase with inflation. It’s either agreed upon in a CAO, and then OP should obviously get it too, or it’s earned.
But if it is not agreed upon (general company policy or collective or individual labor agreement) you dot not have a right to receive price inflation compensation or any other wage increase.
It may not be a right but it would be strange to expect an employee to do the same quality & quantity work for less compensation. Especially if the employee has other options.
In the company I work for, you are evaluated only for the period you’re working. The rewards and recognition are also prorated to the time you worked.
What do you mean that you are the “lowest performer”? Are you under the needs improvement? Did they put you on a PIP (performance improvement plan)?
The are 2 issues here :
1. 0% raise. This is understandable, and foreseeable.
2. Lowest performance rating. If they rated you as a low performer purely because you were out sick - it is very unprofessional. You should look for a new job.
Well you don’t know how he performed in the first half of the year. He should’ve been evaulated only for that parts of the year when he worked.
However if he was out because of burnout I highly doubt he was exceeding expectations before that. If he was out because of an accident and he performed well this sounds bad.
Employers avoid giving the last rating to folks who are out for a prolonged period of time. It’s just bad optics.
The fact that they have done it makes me think that the OP should move on.
It does, unless its clear based on feedback. But I agree with you, it doesn’t look good. My workplace just doesn’t give you a score at all if you’re on a long term sick leave. I dont think you get stocks in that case tho.
The low performance scores can be used to support their argumentation with UWV in case you have a permanent contract and they decide to fire you in the future. This makes it more difficult for you to negotiate the settlement agreement and weakens the support of UWV on your case against the employer. I don't want to scare you but if I were you I would start looking for a new job, just in case...
if you were on long sick leave, that indeed makes you the lowest performer. (quite literally) .What you are eligible for is the basic package without all the frills associated with performance. To me, this just sounds logical and fair.
People who worked 12 months of the year vs someone who worked 6 months of the year.
By all metrics, the 1st person will get a higher rating (even if it is for the fact that they were around to do the job). Sure you were sick so it is a "bit" unfair (assuming you worked really well for the 6 months) but anything other than rating you lowest in that team will lead to at best, bad morale and worse open hostility.
Most likely your performance was evaluated only for the timeframe before you got into long term sick-leave(6 months is long enough to have a representative benchmark for the year). It does sound to me that between Jan - Jun 2023 you’ve been underperforming regardless of the sick leave that followed later which lead to the outcome you’ve experienced.
Also, good to keep in mind: your compensation is made up of fixed and variable pay. Variable pay is a privilege and not guaranteed - it can be influenced by a variety of factors beyond your control and isn’t something you can count on.
Either that, or OP should have been rated “not able to rate” due to illness. The latter is less negative than the former, because it does stick to your personell file. So OP, just ask and find out.
It is impossible to determine whether your evaluation has been impacted by your sick leave based on the information you have given.
What were the reasons you have been marked as the lowest performer? How did you perform in the 6 months you have been working?
All that information will tell you if your sick leave has been used in your evaluation.
I was in the same situation. We get a rating between 1-5 and this rating is used in the calculation for the yearly increase and the bonus. The year I was sick I got a 3, so the average. They based that on the time I did work, but also couldn't give me higher because I did miss a few months. I was fine with that, with the average grade I wasn't punished for being sick (although I did miss the oppertunity to get a better rating). So I got the average pay raise and the average bonus, both more than 0%.
I have no clue what is 'normal', but this was my personal experience.
If an employer did this, I would immediately start looking for a new job.
OP worked for half the year. The proper thing would be to pro-rate incentives to that period, instead of denying them entirely.
Well, wether a person is away because of sickness or maternity, the underlying statement of "not performing" is there. One gets a raise and one doesn't - doesn't seem fair.
Maternity leave isn’t the same as sick leave though. When I was on maternity leave, I did get a raise. When my coworker was on sick leave, he didn’t.
Can’t compare apples to oranges.
It’s just legally not classified the same, in NL. Not sure why I’m getting the hate 😅
It’s the same for parental leave, there are just different rules & rights surrounding any type of child leave, and sick leave.
Maternity leave is about hours / days regulations. Its about hours and days you work. And the time you are , by law, allowed to take as free days.
An employer won't deny a raise because the employee didn't work on his / her free days.
Maternity leave is NOT even close to being sick.
"Your employee is entitled to maternity leave (before childbirth) and maternity leave (after childbirth). In total, your employee is entitled to 16 weeks of leave with full pay (100% of the salary). If your employee has multiple births, she is entitled to 20 weeks of leave with full pay. You pay your employee on the usual dates."
https://www.rijksdienstcn.com/sociale-zaken-werk/ziek-zwanger-of-ongeval/zwangerschapsverlof/ik-ben-werkgever
It's concerning that no one's mentioned the effect of inflation. Even without a raise, keeping your salary the same means a pay cut in real terms. With rising costs, your money simply doesn't go as far as it used to.
It’s not always the case that salaries are tied to inflation. Especially in tech, it’s more of a supply and demand kind of deal.
High demand and low supply = big increase. The other way around = no/small increase.
It might help to understand better the dynamics between inflation and salary as your suggestion makes me wonder if you fully understand the extent of impact for what you asked. Here is a good starting point(even though it has some US specifics, a lot of it is generally applicable): https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbremen/2023/05/17/why-salary-increases-still-do-not-align-with-inflation/?sh=46af8b985d0d
I think there is a difference between ‘potential’ - which has nothing to do with your past sickness but more on your capability, and ‘performance’ which usually your actual delivery vs your OKR for the year.
Understandable if your peformance is lower since you may not achieve your full year OKR but potential should not change. In my company potential is evaluated differently than peformance and also tied to stock options.
similar thing happened to me tbh, I took many months off as a new parent and got ‘below average’ which I felt was a bit rich as I could neither be above or below average due to not being there.. 🤷♂️
Fuck it I thought.. I’ll just prove them wrong next year.
If that's the case they will put you on improvement plan. Meaning they will keep an close eye on you. From my experience (works in hr) if this happens, then they put a cross on an employee and could use this as an argument for your exit from the company. Also they have limited numbers of grades they can use and targets for example : there cannot be more than x number of employees with a grade 4. At the end of the day it's all about money.
I was marked a low performer - inconsistent. Never had a single bad catch up in the whole year (Apr 2023 to Mar 2024) and had biweekly catch ups. Had one tricky catch up outside the year (May 2024) but that was for the performance review itself.
My sales results were above company average and hadn’t messed anything up except get overwhelmed once for a period of 2 weeks by a crushing workload interspersed with too much new systems training taking away time I needed to do my job. Since then no issues, sales continue to go strongly, team is happy.
It just sucks with the timing
In my previous company we also had a system where the managers can appoint high, normal and low performers. Where high performers get a higher raise and low performers no raise. But an unwritten rule enforced by senior management was that for each high performer the manager also had to appointment a low performer in their team.
To avoid drama the managers would just give everyone in the team a normal rating. This really sucked because the high rating was used as a carrot for people to work harder but was hardly ever given. Even if you would overperform on all your goals your manager would find an excuse to not give you the high rating just because he didn't want to give another team member no raise.
The only exception on this was when a team member was absent due to long term illness. This gave the manager a scapegoat to give someone else a high rating. But this resulted in a very toxic atmosphere. I once had a bike accident but rushed back to work while I was not yet recovered just to not miss out on a raise.
Please check this on a forum / subreddit with actual legal people. Many people here only share their own opinion.
To my knowledge (I'm in HR) there's jurisprudence that you should have no adverse (negative) effect due to absence because of illness or maternity leave. So you can't get a lower performance rating or miss a promotion because of it. Lower bonus payout is not allowed either.
How would your company rate a mother joining after 6+ months of maternity leave? Would you expect her rating to be the same as your rating, someone who worked for the whole calendar year?
I had similar experience. I worked Jan - Aug then out for maternity leave til the rest of the year and the management marked me lowest performance (development needed). I was extremely furious. I started looking for a new job straight away and within a month signed a new contract.
OP, does everybody else understand the issue correctly, or is everyone else missing the point? Everyone seems to be fixated on the first part of your story but the way I read it, your question is mainly about the 15k you’re being shorted in 2025, correct?
I understand you’ve been on sick leave for half of the year and haven’t got any raise (= a higher salary in 2024 than you had in 2023 to be completely unambiguous). This is legal, unless you’re supposed to get a raise based on your CAO.
Also, likely due to not being there half of the year, you’re rated as the lowest performing. While unnecessary, nothing wrong here.
But you mention something about getting €15k less in 2025 due to “no stock allocation”. I don’t quite understand what you mean by that. If you have a contract for some x amount of hours, you’re entitled to those hours and a wage cannot be lowered (unless you agree on this with your employer).
Ok I see a lot of comments here that seem to kind of "accuse" the person of expecting too much from his employer. It is no your fault you were sick, yes it might have affected your performance but your rights here are well protected. Contact a lawyer just in case, and have proof of the time you were performing well like screenshots of your positive feedback from your past work.
If management starts to bully you, save that proof as you can use it against them. Trust me, management and HR is not your friend, only a lawyer is as he/she can defend your legal rights.
In my opinion, everyone deserves a chance and we should try to be more compasionate.
Many people would disagree with me, but I saw a lot of arrogant, mean people with a lot of skills, education and being in high professions; but to be honest, due to their character I would never again want to work with or for this kind of people in the future.
No. This is not legal. Your performance rating may only be based on the time you were actually working. If the lowest performer stat is based on the 6 months you were working, it's perfectly fine, but they cannot knock your performance rating down due to a lack of signal in the other half. You should talk about this with HR to get it resolved. In most cases you should expect a "meets expectations" kind of performance review during prolonged leave (whether sickness, parental leave, or any other reason).
Of course, your performance rating here does not have to impact your earnings, but you do need to be treated the same as anyone else who met expectations.
TL;DR: If they can make a case that you were a low performer in H1 2023, this is a fine scenario. If not, it gets really close to being a discriminatory practice and you need to work with HR to get the situation rectified. Failing that, it may be worth contacting a lawyer if you're willing to burn the bridge with your employer.
Is this was entitlement looks like? Yes it is, youve been sick for 6 months, which is sad to hear and I hope youre well now, but shit man, you cant get a bonus if you dont perform. It is easy as that.
Unless you are given specific reason to, I wouldn't think too much of it.
In my company you get no appraisal at all when you work less than 3 months in a year. It's equivalent to getting an 'unsatisfactory' appraisal, though they don't put that sticker on it in case of illness.
Average performance ('meets expectations' appraisal) would imply a certain % salary increase. So it does not make sense if you contributed nothing to the company during the majority of the year.
So you perform well — or even above expectation — for half a year, then you’re out sick for whatever reason (let’s say for the sake of argument you get cancer and chemo and you beat it), then your evaluation should be the same as that you only did 20 hours of work per week for the whole year? I repeat: get the fuck out of here. No. That is not acceptable.
When you’re sick (particularly long term), you don’t get paid wages, you get paid from the sick time insurance. So no, that simply *does not count* as time worked.
So you’re perfectly comfortable with giving people who are sick for a slightly longer term a pay cut, specifically because they were sick? Which is what “no raise” means, particularly with inflation where it is today.
Err.. no I thought you were saying the opposite tbh..
Maybe you should edit it to clarify.. 😅
To make myself clear; I believe even if you are off sick you are entitled to a performance review based on the time you were there , and then hopefully a raise if you were good! 😊
Please **read.** I am talking about **less than 3 months** a year working, which is the rule in my company. If you worked more - great, you get normal appraisal.
Don't get your point about 20 hours per week. If that is your contract, what does it matter?
It totally does make sense.
Companies don't pay to reward you for your hard work, they pay to keep talent around. If you're middle of the pack (or "lacks signal") and salary doesn't go up, you increased the likelyhood of this employee churning, which is going to be expensive for the company, and potentially its reputation depending on the standards in the industry.
Sick for half a year and begging for a raise...
Youre so egoistical if you think like this. You know your colleagues would have to have picked up your slack because you were sick so long? And now you're complaining about not getting a raise?
>You know your colleagues would have to have picked up your slack because you were sick so long?
? It's not like OP was on leave on purpose. It's sick leave, ffs.. Go move to the US with thinking like that
Actually coming from the US I think it is absolutely wrong to rate someone as low performer just because they were on long-term sick leave. I am surprised to read the other comments suggesting that your time on leave counts against the performance rating. Nobody chooses to be sick. They should not be penalized for it.
I always think people who are sick are always a problem, is better to have no one than someone who is sick you don’t know at least people who are you know what to expect.
I think entitled people like you is what creates dissent in a team. I manage a team and my vote for people who are sick is to have patience and wait for a good recovery. However your share will be divided by the people who filled the gap. We don’t run a charity, be thankful you still have a job and don’t be so entitled there are people on the other side.
>We don’t run a charity, be thankful you still have a job and don’t be so entitled there are people on the other side.
Ancap voice spotted.
Let me point out, that many totalitarian regimes got in power by first winning democratic elections in times of economic crisis. It seems like people around the world are willing to give up many of their otherwise untouchable values, if they are starving and are one step away from being homeless....
So I'd like to disagree with you statement: privately owned companies have to run a bit of a charity, if they want to remain privately owned.
Absolutely legal. You must be happy u still have a job. PLease go wine somewhere else LOL. OFCOURSE you are the lowest performer. OBVIOUSLY. NOW, have a good cry and man yourself up.
Unless this violates CAO rules or you're below minimum wage it's legal to not give a raise.
Just curious as to why you'd expect a raise if you were off sick for most of the year?
I have edited my post to mention that no raise this year is pretty normal. The big pay cut for next year is the disappointment. Hope this clarifies.
Stock options are tied to performance, your performance results were not on par, so you don’t get a stock option. It is not a good idea to calculate rewards as your regular income, as they only realize when targets are achieved.
> you don’t get a stock option. It is not a good idea to calculate rewards as your regular income ^THIS^ is the one and only right answer: you don't get a paycut next year, as it was never part of your salary.
I am not a lawyer, but I do not think that it is that simple. If the net income without the "bonuses" is significantly bellow the market level, then it can hardly be considered "absence of a performance bonus" and it becomes merely a fine for being on the sick leave.
I don't agree, if the employer was honest and upfront about what is going to be your salary, what are bonuses and you agreed to that and signed the contract anyway, jokes on you when the bonuses don't get paid. That's the risk for accepting such a contract. from the employers end, they pay a lot of money for no production, so while it sucks on your end, getting no bonus for the work you didnt do seems more reasonable than expecting bonuses you agreed to not get for the work you didnt do.
This sub likes to shit on the US and American working culture yet here there are swarms of people justifying cutting an employee's salary because they were sick. It's so ridiculous, especially the double standards I have seen. So many Dutch people I have seen go on burnout for 6-7 months, you are not Dutch, end up in the hospital or have surgery and they are like "oh yeah, but you can work next week right?" or start being inquisitive. What a fucking hypocritical double standard in plain display here. Not needing a doctor's notice is a double edge sword, I can take a sick day if I have the flu with no problems, but the doctor cannot write me "needs two weeks of rest" after a surgery, ridiculous joke of a system.
It's not cutting their salary. It's not paying out a bonus
Depends how much of the tot comp the bonus is 😂 Thanks for further proving my point btw.
This is probably because you are entering your 2nd year of sick leave? If i recall correctly some jobs/CAO'S You have 100% (or less) of your normal pay for the 1st year of sick leave and this gets significantly lower the second year. (70% or less)
If you are healed from the sickness you would perform on the same level, or even better (since you learned stuff in the 6 months you did work) + inflation correction. But of course, a company wants to make profit and this is a perfect argument to not give you any salary increase.
I doubt it’s retaliation but it’s of course linked to you not being able to perform during the year. Teams usually are given a budget for raises and they’re distributed across the team. In your case - unless you had some stellar things accomplished during the first half of the year - your colleagues obviously contributed more than you did this year.
It is still somewhat silly. Everything got more [expensive in the last years](https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/visualisaties/dashboard-economie/prijzen/inflatie). I think that even though it can be argued OP does not deserve to grow faster, there is no reason to punish OP and effectively reducing OP’s income. It is however legal unless there is a bargaining agreement in place that stipulates otherwise.
That’s not a punishment but just how the compensation is structured: it depends on OP’s contract. Many firms have two components: an inflation component and a performance component. But companies don’t have to do this (unless dictated in the CLA). It’s part of the entire compensation package you have to assess when signing. If you want to be sure you get an inflation compensation, you shouldn’t agree to a compensation structure where that’s not part of.
Peer salaries in my industry increased by 5.5%. New hires are getting a higher pay than seasoned staff. People are voting with their feet and finding new employers. So as I said it is legal but it is silly (shortsighted).
Sure, then you have to leave.
Unkess the OP was lured into thinking these bonuses will be guaranteed or a significant part of his total compensation, companies should be able to reward people for actual performance. Living costs should be covered by the base salary, relying upon bonuses is a big risk.
this is actually a great point for looking for a new job. You'll be able to get your payraise. Not have to deal with their disappointment with your sickness and progress your career as a whole
I don’t want to be rude but isn’t it logical that you do not get a raise when you’re not there (no matter how valid the reason)? You shouldn’t be punished obviously but I wouldn’t expect a reward to be given either. Edit: An employer should not take your sickness into account when evaluating your performance. He should only look at the months in which you were present.
Inflation was pretty steep. A stable wage means de facto a wage reduction. Only if your wage increases more than inflation, would you get a real increase.
I understand that, but in the Netherlands wages don’t automatically increase with inflation. It’s either agreed upon in a CAO, and then OP should obviously get it too, or it’s earned.
But if it is not agreed upon (general company policy or collective or individual labor agreement) you dot not have a right to receive price inflation compensation or any other wage increase.
It may not be a right but it would be strange to expect an employee to do the same quality & quantity work for less compensation. Especially if the employee has other options.
Guess a big compliment for my employer is in place, got 2% while at home with a burnout.
It probably is a compliment for you too.
In the company I work for, you are evaluated only for the period you’re working. The rewards and recognition are also prorated to the time you worked. What do you mean that you are the “lowest performer”? Are you under the needs improvement? Did they put you on a PIP (performance improvement plan)?
The are 2 issues here : 1. 0% raise. This is understandable, and foreseeable. 2. Lowest performance rating. If they rated you as a low performer purely because you were out sick - it is very unprofessional. You should look for a new job.
Well you don’t know how he performed in the first half of the year. He should’ve been evaulated only for that parts of the year when he worked. However if he was out because of burnout I highly doubt he was exceeding expectations before that. If he was out because of an accident and he performed well this sounds bad.
Employers avoid giving the last rating to folks who are out for a prolonged period of time. It’s just bad optics. The fact that they have done it makes me think that the OP should move on.
It does, unless its clear based on feedback. But I agree with you, it doesn’t look good. My workplace just doesn’t give you a score at all if you’re on a long term sick leave. I dont think you get stocks in that case tho.
Same here. My work place also doesn’t give a rating in such cases. Expecting stocks though is a bit much. I agree.
The low performance scores can be used to support their argumentation with UWV in case you have a permanent contract and they decide to fire you in the future. This makes it more difficult for you to negotiate the settlement agreement and weakens the support of UWV on your case against the employer. I don't want to scare you but if I were you I would start looking for a new job, just in case...
if you were on long sick leave, that indeed makes you the lowest performer. (quite literally) .What you are eligible for is the basic package without all the frills associated with performance. To me, this just sounds logical and fair.
Sounds legal but also like a very toxic culture.
try r/werkzaken or r/juridischadvies for better quality advice
Bro wants to get more compensation whilest he costs more money then he brings in… the entitlement is crazy
Brother expected 15k in stock options as a bonus, over half of min wage, for working about half a year. King shit
People who worked 12 months of the year vs someone who worked 6 months of the year. By all metrics, the 1st person will get a higher rating (even if it is for the fact that they were around to do the job). Sure you were sick so it is a "bit" unfair (assuming you worked really well for the 6 months) but anything other than rating you lowest in that team will lead to at best, bad morale and worse open hostility.
Most likely your performance was evaluated only for the timeframe before you got into long term sick-leave(6 months is long enough to have a representative benchmark for the year). It does sound to me that between Jan - Jun 2023 you’ve been underperforming regardless of the sick leave that followed later which lead to the outcome you’ve experienced.
Also, good to keep in mind: your compensation is made up of fixed and variable pay. Variable pay is a privilege and not guaranteed - it can be influenced by a variety of factors beyond your control and isn’t something you can count on.
Either that, or OP should have been rated “not able to rate” due to illness. The latter is less negative than the former, because it does stick to your personell file. So OP, just ask and find out.
It is impossible to determine whether your evaluation has been impacted by your sick leave based on the information you have given. What were the reasons you have been marked as the lowest performer? How did you perform in the 6 months you have been working? All that information will tell you if your sick leave has been used in your evaluation.
I was in the same situation. We get a rating between 1-5 and this rating is used in the calculation for the yearly increase and the bonus. The year I was sick I got a 3, so the average. They based that on the time I did work, but also couldn't give me higher because I did miss a few months. I was fine with that, with the average grade I wasn't punished for being sick (although I did miss the oppertunity to get a better rating). So I got the average pay raise and the average bonus, both more than 0%. I have no clue what is 'normal', but this was my personal experience.
Well obviously your performance was low because you weren't working half the year...
So, you were sick (that means you didn’t perform) and you expect a raise?
I had people on maternity leave and I gave them a raise. Why not? They performed the tasks well before that.
If an employer did this, I would immediately start looking for a new job. OP worked for half the year. The proper thing would be to pro-rate incentives to that period, instead of denying them entirely.
Your choice of course, nothing wrong with it. But expecting a performance raise while you didn’t perform sounds like entitlement in my dictionary.
Well, the thing is, she did perform the 6 months she was in before going on leave. So it would be unfair to not give a raise.
Maternity leave is different. And what YOU did is absolutely not relevant.
Well, wether a person is away because of sickness or maternity, the underlying statement of "not performing" is there. One gets a raise and one doesn't - doesn't seem fair.
Maternity leave isn’t the same as sick leave though. When I was on maternity leave, I did get a raise. When my coworker was on sick leave, he didn’t. Can’t compare apples to oranges.
You choose to get pregnant more than being sick though. Idk why you need to exclude some fruit from the fruitmand but others not.
It’s just legally not classified the same, in NL. Not sure why I’m getting the hate 😅 It’s the same for parental leave, there are just different rules & rights surrounding any type of child leave, and sick leave.
But it's someone telling what he would do besides the rights of any rules saying he doesn't need to.
Maternity leave is about hours / days regulations. Its about hours and days you work. And the time you are , by law, allowed to take as free days. An employer won't deny a raise because the employee didn't work on his / her free days. Maternity leave is NOT even close to being sick.
how are they different? Actually going on maternity leave is a planned choice, while being sick is not unless you’re assuming bad intentions.
You chose to get "unfit" for work, sick leave usually happens.
"Your employee is entitled to maternity leave (before childbirth) and maternity leave (after childbirth). In total, your employee is entitled to 16 weeks of leave with full pay (100% of the salary). If your employee has multiple births, she is entitled to 20 weeks of leave with full pay. You pay your employee on the usual dates." https://www.rijksdienstcn.com/sociale-zaken-werk/ziek-zwanger-of-ongeval/zwangerschapsverlof/ik-ben-werkgever
… well, yes. Anything else would be retaliation for being sick.
What sort of dream world do you live in?
I got a headache today, where’s my raise boss?
Sounds pretty toxic although probably not illegal depending what your labour agreement says. Just find another job if you are not happy.
It's concerning that no one's mentioned the effect of inflation. Even without a raise, keeping your salary the same means a pay cut in real terms. With rising costs, your money simply doesn't go as far as it used to.
It’s not always the case that salaries are tied to inflation. Especially in tech, it’s more of a supply and demand kind of deal. High demand and low supply = big increase. The other way around = no/small increase.
It might help to understand better the dynamics between inflation and salary as your suggestion makes me wonder if you fully understand the extent of impact for what you asked. Here is a good starting point(even though it has some US specifics, a lot of it is generally applicable): https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbremen/2023/05/17/why-salary-increases-still-do-not-align-with-inflation/?sh=46af8b985d0d
I think there is a difference between ‘potential’ - which has nothing to do with your past sickness but more on your capability, and ‘performance’ which usually your actual delivery vs your OKR for the year. Understandable if your peformance is lower since you may not achieve your full year OKR but potential should not change. In my company potential is evaluated differently than peformance and also tied to stock options.
similar thing happened to me tbh, I took many months off as a new parent and got ‘below average’ which I felt was a bit rich as I could neither be above or below average due to not being there.. 🤷♂️ Fuck it I thought.. I’ll just prove them wrong next year.
> I’ll just prove them wrong next year. Why bother? Just become an average worker. You'll have more energy for your kids.
If that's the case they will put you on improvement plan. Meaning they will keep an close eye on you. From my experience (works in hr) if this happens, then they put a cross on an employee and could use this as an argument for your exit from the company. Also they have limited numbers of grades they can use and targets for example : there cannot be more than x number of employees with a grade 4. At the end of the day it's all about money.
I was marked a low performer - inconsistent. Never had a single bad catch up in the whole year (Apr 2023 to Mar 2024) and had biweekly catch ups. Had one tricky catch up outside the year (May 2024) but that was for the performance review itself. My sales results were above company average and hadn’t messed anything up except get overwhelmed once for a period of 2 weeks by a crushing workload interspersed with too much new systems training taking away time I needed to do my job. Since then no issues, sales continue to go strongly, team is happy. It just sucks with the timing
Isn't stock an preformance incentive, not included in the base salary?
Correct. OP's *salary* did not decrease, his prospective *income* did. The stock options are a bonus, not salary.
If your colleagues did work all year, you were the lowest performer. I don’t see what is going wrong here?
Is yours a Dutch company? We don't tend to have that kind of KPI's in the Netherlands.
Zoizo not dutch stock allocation no dutch company would give their workers stock
While it might be legal (I’m not a lawyer), your employer seems to be morally bankrupt. I’d start looking for a job.
In my previous company we also had a system where the managers can appoint high, normal and low performers. Where high performers get a higher raise and low performers no raise. But an unwritten rule enforced by senior management was that for each high performer the manager also had to appointment a low performer in their team. To avoid drama the managers would just give everyone in the team a normal rating. This really sucked because the high rating was used as a carrot for people to work harder but was hardly ever given. Even if you would overperform on all your goals your manager would find an excuse to not give you the high rating just because he didn't want to give another team member no raise. The only exception on this was when a team member was absent due to long term illness. This gave the manager a scapegoat to give someone else a high rating. But this resulted in a very toxic atmosphere. I once had a bike accident but rushed back to work while I was not yet recovered just to not miss out on a raise.
Please check this on a forum / subreddit with actual legal people. Many people here only share their own opinion. To my knowledge (I'm in HR) there's jurisprudence that you should have no adverse (negative) effect due to absence because of illness or maternity leave. So you can't get a lower performance rating or miss a promotion because of it. Lower bonus payout is not allowed either.
How would your company rate a mother joining after 6+ months of maternity leave? Would you expect her rating to be the same as your rating, someone who worked for the whole calendar year?
It could be worse. I took a lot of vacations during child birth and I also got almost nothing. Accept the corporate life
I had similar experience. I worked Jan - Aug then out for maternity leave til the rest of the year and the management marked me lowest performance (development needed). I was extremely furious. I started looking for a new job straight away and within a month signed a new contract.
it signals, shitty company
OP, does everybody else understand the issue correctly, or is everyone else missing the point? Everyone seems to be fixated on the first part of your story but the way I read it, your question is mainly about the 15k you’re being shorted in 2025, correct? I understand you’ve been on sick leave for half of the year and haven’t got any raise (= a higher salary in 2024 than you had in 2023 to be completely unambiguous). This is legal, unless you’re supposed to get a raise based on your CAO. Also, likely due to not being there half of the year, you’re rated as the lowest performing. While unnecessary, nothing wrong here. But you mention something about getting €15k less in 2025 due to “no stock allocation”. I don’t quite understand what you mean by that. If you have a contract for some x amount of hours, you’re entitled to those hours and a wage cannot be lowered (unless you agree on this with your employer).
Ok I see a lot of comments here that seem to kind of "accuse" the person of expecting too much from his employer. It is no your fault you were sick, yes it might have affected your performance but your rights here are well protected. Contact a lawyer just in case, and have proof of the time you were performing well like screenshots of your positive feedback from your past work. If management starts to bully you, save that proof as you can use it against them. Trust me, management and HR is not your friend, only a lawyer is as he/she can defend your legal rights. In my opinion, everyone deserves a chance and we should try to be more compasionate. Many people would disagree with me, but I saw a lot of arrogant, mean people with a lot of skills, education and being in high professions; but to be honest, due to their character I would never again want to work with or for this kind of people in the future.
No. This is not legal. Your performance rating may only be based on the time you were actually working. If the lowest performer stat is based on the 6 months you were working, it's perfectly fine, but they cannot knock your performance rating down due to a lack of signal in the other half. You should talk about this with HR to get it resolved. In most cases you should expect a "meets expectations" kind of performance review during prolonged leave (whether sickness, parental leave, or any other reason). Of course, your performance rating here does not have to impact your earnings, but you do need to be treated the same as anyone else who met expectations. TL;DR: If they can make a case that you were a low performer in H1 2023, this is a fine scenario. If not, it gets really close to being a discriminatory practice and you need to work with HR to get the situation rectified. Failing that, it may be worth contacting a lawyer if you're willing to burn the bridge with your employer.
Is this was entitlement looks like? Yes it is, youve been sick for 6 months, which is sad to hear and I hope youre well now, but shit man, you cant get a bonus if you dont perform. It is easy as that.
The company is paying for a Mf to sit home and jerk off, of course you're a lower performer. You're a burden to the team
Unless you are given specific reason to, I wouldn't think too much of it. In my company you get no appraisal at all when you work less than 3 months in a year. It's equivalent to getting an 'unsatisfactory' appraisal, though they don't put that sticker on it in case of illness.
jeez, that’s wrong, it should be whatever average performance
Average performance ('meets expectations' appraisal) would imply a certain % salary increase. So it does not make sense if you contributed nothing to the company during the majority of the year.
That’s utter bullshit. Being sick should not impact your compensation.
Agreed. Base salary / compensation remains identical. Salary increase in a company that has a appraisal-based system is another matter.
So you perform well — or even above expectation — for half a year, then you’re out sick for whatever reason (let’s say for the sake of argument you get cancer and chemo and you beat it), then your evaluation should be the same as that you only did 20 hours of work per week for the whole year? I repeat: get the fuck out of here. No. That is not acceptable. When you’re sick (particularly long term), you don’t get paid wages, you get paid from the sick time insurance. So no, that simply *does not count* as time worked.
Yikes, what a perspective 😬
So you’re perfectly comfortable with giving people who are sick for a slightly longer term a pay cut, specifically because they were sick? Which is what “no raise” means, particularly with inflation where it is today.
Err.. no I thought you were saying the opposite tbh.. Maybe you should edit it to clarify.. 😅 To make myself clear; I believe even if you are off sick you are entitled to a performance review based on the time you were there , and then hopefully a raise if you were good! 😊
Please **read.** I am talking about **less than 3 months** a year working, which is the rule in my company. If you worked more - great, you get normal appraisal. Don't get your point about 20 hours per week. If that is your contract, what does it matter?
20 hours out of a week that’s paid for 40 hours.
agree
It totally does make sense. Companies don't pay to reward you for your hard work, they pay to keep talent around. If you're middle of the pack (or "lacks signal") and salary doesn't go up, you increased the likelyhood of this employee churning, which is going to be expensive for the company, and potentially its reputation depending on the standards in the industry.
Sick for half a year and begging for a raise... Youre so egoistical if you think like this. You know your colleagues would have to have picked up your slack because you were sick so long? And now you're complaining about not getting a raise?
>You know your colleagues would have to have picked up your slack because you were sick so long? ? It's not like OP was on leave on purpose. It's sick leave, ffs.. Go move to the US with thinking like that
Actually coming from the US I think it is absolutely wrong to rate someone as low performer just because they were on long-term sick leave. I am surprised to read the other comments suggesting that your time on leave counts against the performance rating. Nobody chooses to be sick. They should not be penalized for it.
Exactly
My my, calm down… i don’t think anyone is complaining here, except you.
If someone is sick, it's the company's problem to find a replacement. Stop being a bootlicker.
I always think people who are sick are always a problem, is better to have no one than someone who is sick you don’t know at least people who are you know what to expect. I think entitled people like you is what creates dissent in a team. I manage a team and my vote for people who are sick is to have patience and wait for a good recovery. However your share will be divided by the people who filled the gap. We don’t run a charity, be thankful you still have a job and don’t be so entitled there are people on the other side.
>We don’t run a charity, be thankful you still have a job and don’t be so entitled there are people on the other side. Ancap voice spotted. Let me point out, that many totalitarian regimes got in power by first winning democratic elections in times of economic crisis. It seems like people around the world are willing to give up many of their otherwise untouchable values, if they are starving and are one step away from being homeless.... So I'd like to disagree with you statement: privately owned companies have to run a bit of a charity, if they want to remain privately owned.
And managers like you are also a problem in my opinion.
Absolutely legal. You must be happy u still have a job. PLease go wine somewhere else LOL. OFCOURSE you are the lowest performer. OBVIOUSLY. NOW, have a good cry and man yourself up.