Member-only story
FINANCE
Do You Deserve a Raise or Bonus?
Points to ponder and bonus tax information
It’s that time of year when discussions about bonuses and/or raises start happening. I always dreaded those self-assessments the boss would place in front of me. Usually there would be a scale from 1 to 5 with one being the lowest on up to 5. It was always a struggle about giving myself too high a score for fear of sounding arrogant. If they asked me for a written explanation of why I put the score, I would use the opportunity of justifying my scoring.
Self-assessments are wonderful tools, not just for a raise, but also for evaluating how you are doing with meeting work goals plus looking at ways to enhance or add to the work environment. Once reviewed, I always found ways to improve or add to my position.
Most of the time, my scoring was lower than my supervisor’s evaluations. There was one boss, who was my favorite boss ever, who would not score anybody a 5. He just had an issue that any employee was that perfect. I am sure I gave myself some 5s, and I was nervous, yet confident because I had put my all into the work. Nervously, I sat in the chair in my boss’s office and went over his final evaluation of me. He gave me 4+ on all the evaluated points. The best, and likely most important, part of it all was that he gave me a…
