Construction employees expect larger holiday bonuses despite economic uncertainty

Abstract

"This has been a funny year in terms of compensation planning, and the importance of the bonus this year is greater than it has been in years past," said Tony Guadagni, senior principal for the Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner HR practice. "The last year has really been dominated in the news by talks about inflation and about what has been happening to employees' purchasing power based on their real wages going down as a result of that inflation." Consequently, employees across industries have a "Heightened expectation this year for bonuses than in years past," Guadagni said. Gartner data from Q3 shows that construction employees expect their year-end bonuses to be 4.2% higher than last year. Typically, base pay and bonus decisions are made earlier in the year, but that shifted in 2022. It's too early to determine if that will continue, or even accelerate, next year. "One of the things that we've seen this year is that these decisions are being made and then revisited much later in the year due to the very, very dynamic compensation environment at the moment," Guadagni said. "It's very hard to predict a year further than that." Hawkins noted that basing the short-term incentive structure on past performance means the bonus pool can fluctuate.