I would be interested in finding out what your employer does for staff in the way of long service awards / recognition (if any).
Anyone care to reply with employer name or industry, what awards you get for what years, and also do you get it once you pass that threshold or is there a cut off point annually?
All replies are appreciated.
We get a "badge" at 5, 10, 15 years and at 5 years an additional 2 days holiday and at 10 years a further 3 days holiday. However these are not given until the 1 April after you pass your threshold.
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After five years, £50 in John Lewis vouchers, award ceremony with rather nice buffet and speeches, expensive chocs or wine as you prefer, one day extra hol. All very civilised.
Every year afterwards, you get the ceremony, chocs/wine.
At ten years, you also get another day of holiday, £75 vouchers, and so on, so at fifteen, one more day and £100 vouchers, etc. Maxes out at five days after 25 years though, so not that brilliant.
So something every year (just had my 16 years last week).
Our longest serving person clocked up a rather astonishing 48 years at the last ceremony, and we have a fair few 30 years and more.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Mon 12 May 14 at 18:51
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You get to keep your job if you met last year's targets. Down the road if you didn't.
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>> You get to keep your job if you met last year's targets. Down the road
>> if you didn't.
>>
Same here, perform to a minimum level or get out.
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Crankcase, what industry is that you are in?
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>> Crankcase, what industry is that you are in?
University Bobby. Having read the other responses, I'm not going to list the full range of very attractive and almost unheard of elsewhere benefits, which is extensive, for fear of a lynching!
Perhaps I'll slope away from this forum quietly in the night just in case.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 13 May 14 at 06:05
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Talking of universities, when my daughter is only there for what 30 weeks a year or whatever it is as a student, what do the "lecturers" do for the rest of the time when there are no students there?
Are they sessional staff?
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When I was there, their job was primarily research work and lecturing was mostly a sideline. Hence quite a few of them weren't very good at it.
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"what do the "lecturers" do for the rest of the time when there are no students there?"
Typically, the workload split for a univeristy lecturer is 40% teaching, 40% research and 20% administration.
Depending on their level, and whether their university is research led or more focussed on undergraduate teaching, research can take the form of published academic journal articles and books, applied research projects or consultancy(e.g. with industry, the NHS, government agencies...) Administration includes reporting to funding agencies, the Teaching and Research Assessment Exercises, and taking on roles such as course leader, Head of department, Dean etc.
So, teaching and teaching related admin becomes the focus during term time. The research, new teaching preparation, new course design, and other administration tends to get parcelled into what the public thinks of as "holidays".
Teaching Assistants and some Tutors are (increasingly) hired on short-term contracts to cover term time only.
FWIW, annual leave entitlements in universities run from 21 to 31 days depending on grade - but to be honest the biggest problem many university HR departments have is getting staff to actually take their leave.
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>>
>> University Bobby. Having read the other responses, I'm not going to list the full range
>> of very attractive and almost unheard of elsewhere benefits, which is extensive, for fear of
>> a lynching!
>>
>> Perhaps I'll slope away from this forum quietly in the night just in case.
>>
>>
Pop them up, I'd be interested in reading them.
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Is that extra holiday a one off Bobby? In my last job I had 25 days holiday, got an extra one annually after 10 years, and IIRC I got an extra 2 to take in my 11th year.
25 years you get a present (choose from a catalogue, watches, canteens of cutlery and things like that) but I didn't survive that long.
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Manatee no its ongoing.
Normal service holidays is 25 days, after 5 years service increases to 27 days and then up to 30 days after 10 years.
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25 years, bonus of 10% of salary, or 5 weeks paid leave, or combination of both. I took the money.
There is another at 40 years which gets you a tax free gift of value £800. Can't say I've ever met anyone who qualified though as until very recently, 60 was compulsory retirement so you'd have had to started at 20 or less.
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My old company decided to issue a pair of tumblers after 25 years service, retrospectively in many cases.
The sound of glasses smashing into the nearest skip was heard all over the country.
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Nothing until 10 years when you get an extra days holiday, then another at 15, then a third at 20.
Also at 20 you get a gift of your choice (think value is around £300), celebratory event for you and partner (meal, free bar, presentation type thing)
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>> 60 was compulsory retirement so you'd have had to started at 20 or less.
Some people did I seem to remember, working as apprentices at 15 or 16 or 17 and in the union until retirement. It really was like that sometimes in the industrial Midlands and North in the forties and fifties. A combination of any old crap and quite advanced stuff, clumsily handled and thrown away. Post-war Britain enjoyed a head start but rested shamefully on its laurels. Workers and bosses share the blame.
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I worked with a few people in the past who had been with the company man and boy up until retirement. Not something I'd ever have fancied myself and very rare today in any case.
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After 10 years my current (accountant) employers gave me quite a nice watch - a stainless steel Seiko, nothing flashy. Nobody has made it to a second decade yet, so I don't know if further gifts will be forthcoming.
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In the Civil Service leave gradually increased from 20 to 30 days. When I started you'd need 15yrs+ depending on grade to get 30 days but the criteria eased over time.
Sometime in the nineties a long service award was introduced to mark 25yrs. At the time 'next steps' agencies were at their peak and what you got depended on where you worked. I seem to remember some people getting £500 AND a paid for buffet where the high up made a presentation.
By time I got there it was either a Caithness Glass ornament, £200 or 5 days Special Leave. The latter was a no brainer for me. I think I got some sort of certificate too and a 'mention in dispatches' from the Chairman at the monthly meeting of Quango's members.
The personal appreciation messages afterwards from individual Members or senior colleagues were probably more touching than the footnote in the minutes.
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>> After 10 years my current (accountant) employers gave me quite a nice watch - a
>> stainless steel Seiko, nothing flashy. Nobody has made it to a second decade yet, so
>> I don't know if further gifts will be forthcoming.
>>
Time will tell....
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>>...a few people in the past who had been with the company man and boy up until retirement...
If I'd done that I'd be retired by now on a final salary pension. As it is...
Ah well, never mind eh...
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>> Workers and bosses share the blame.
For the demise, I mean, of mechanical industry in general and the car industry in particular, trashed by idiot unions and idiot managers. Outclassed even in the thirties by French, German and Italian design to name but three, and idly churning out any old crap for shrinking captive markets, makes even a business moron like me shudder, damn posturing onanists (thought the Americans, Japanese, Koreans and so on and quite rightly too).
We still make cars thanks to Indian and Japanese investors willing to risk exploiting our cheap grumbling curmudgeonly labour...
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After 18 years all I got was sick and an extended invite to enjoy our NHS.
OTOH the holiday situation has improved out of all recognition, although I no longer get to drive a nice VW transporter 7 days a week
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I don't think length of service made any difference to our lot. Special birthdays and retirement were occasions for a company funded bash in the conference room.
Always a superb buffet lunch with wine and beer. When I retired sick, They secretly organised an oil painting of the Jowett and presented it to me with a massive bunch of flowers for SWM.
They sent a car across the Pennines for us but I didn't want to trouble the manager who came for me so we got the train back. We all got on very well...like a family really. It's a bit different now !
Recently went for lunch with two of the girls......one is still there and the other left and now lives on St Helena where hubby is building an airport ! Nice to be remembered !
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>>now lives on St Helena where hubby is building an airport...
Public sector pensions eh, sheesh...
;-)
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A software company I worked for in the late nineties / early noughties gave long service awards after 3 years!!
Mind you, earlier than that Xerox use to increment holidays with length of service until, it was rumoured, HR got nervous that it might be discriminatory and bumped everyone up to the max. Suited me, I joined on 25 days holiday which was promptly increased to 28 after 3 months - the maximum it had been possible to achieve under the old system, but only after 15 years service from memory :-)
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I imagine when they announced that they had to put everyone in copy?
;-)
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I've cancelled a few! Long service awards encourage and reward the wrong behaviour.
Performance should be recognised and rewarded, under-performance should be dealt with and longevity should be ignored.
A stumbling block in improving or significantly changing the style, achievement or performance of a company is frequently the longer serving employees. These are normally modelled as a negative in a business valuation.
Typically they are also first against the wall.
Measure and reward behaviours you and your company want and/or need.
My immediate thoughts when someone says.. "I've been here 10 years" usually consist of no ambition, nobody else offering him a job, expensive to get rid of, probably an adequate performer at best.
Its a generalisation. But as with all generalisations, whilst its NOT always true it usually is.
I do not attach an ongoing financial value to what an employee has done, I attach a value to what they will/might do in the future.
Typically a high-performer is paid more, promoted or treated better than his colleagues. Where he is not, he typically leaves for a better package. If that hasn't happened, one does need to wonder why not.
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Interesting post Mark.
First of all, on the rewarding behaviours point, I don't know anybody who has stayed for a long service award who would otherwise have gone. In the Civil Service it was recognition rather than reward.
In my experience you need a mix of people. Those with new ideas ans drive/ambition but also those who'll make it work and those who are the corporate memory. Roger Ford, an engineer who writes on railway matters, has a theory the seven of the most powerful words are 'Why Will It Be Different This Time'. Most new ideas have been tried before.
Now it might be that some change whether technical, legislative, customer culture/acceptance or whatever means it IS different this time. But somebody needs to ask the question and explain why. If everybody has drive and ambition and moves up or out every three years then you risk a corporate set up built on sand.
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>> First of all, on the rewarding behaviours point, I don't know anybody who has stayed
>> for a long service award who would otherwise have gone
Long service awards generate an atmosphere where long service is regarded as desirable. This encourages people to stay longer. Believe me, they work. That's why they are so bad.
>>In the Civil Service it was recognition rather than reward.
Still the same thing. Perhaps less on unfair on those who are not recognised, rather than those who are not rewarded, but it engenders the same group behaviour.
You are looking specifically for the behaviour of an individual. I am talking about the tendencies in a group.
>> In my experience you need a mix of people.
Of course you do. But all those people need to be driven to be as good as possible at their jobs. A different range of skills and characters, not a different range of ineffectual lethargies.
>> but also those who'll make it work and those who are the corporate memory
Absolutely not. Who needs experts on the past and what for?
>> Most new ideas have been tried before.
Of course they have. There is little value in an idea. It is all about implementation and execution. Two tasks which need to be excellent and are best not left to time-servers.
In my experience, which is considerable, those people who perpetuate the myth that you need long time servers are in fact, long time servers, and they think they are doing a good thing.
> If everybody has drive and ambition and moves up or out every three years then
>> you risk a corporate set up built on sand.
Sorry, stuff and nonsense.
In any case, the difference between 3 yrs & 5yrs is only a nod. 10yrs, 15yrs or more on the other hand......
Where is the value in a company being an expert on the past other than in the mind of those who live there?
I understand why people think there is, but there isn't.
e.g.
Oh, old Jo is the only bloke who knows that maintenance project.
Really? So if Old Jo pops his clogs we're stuffed? Kill the maintenance project now. Re-negotiate it . I know it'll be a pain, but if we do it now we see the problems coming at a time we have chosen rather than getting surprised and having an unknown risk.
Oh, old Jo is the only bloke who knows the problems with that project.
Really, an unmanaged risk? Trash it now.
Oh. Old Jo is the only bloke who knows that process.
Really, an unmanaged risk? Trash it now.
Oh, Old Jo was the one who delivered that project x.
Is it finished? So who cares? What is old Jo going to do for us tomorrow?
I'm not in the mood for a long discussion, I'm still hacked off, so I'll leave it there.
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We give people a cake (which we eat) and a card full of not very funny leaving messages.
My father got a crappy gold-plated quartz watch after 30 years service with the railways.
( And an indexed 2/3 final salary pension and free 1st class rail travel for life)
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How long is "long"?
In these uncertain times, I consider anyone working over 5 years in same organization should be eligible for super long service awards.
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>> I'm not in the mood for a long discussion, I'm still hacked off, so I'll
>> leave it there.
Hopefully not hacked off just 'cos I challenged you. I'll return when you're in better humour!
In meantime I'll point out that view you set out above would have removed Terry Leahy from Tesco and Alex Ferguson from MUFC
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>>Hopefully not hacked off just 'cos I challenged you
Certainly not.
Leahy and Ferguson were kept for what they were expected to do, not what they had done. Neither received a long service reward.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Tue 13 May 14 at 12:00
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In my neck of the woods, we get 20 extra days leave when completing more than 10 years, with 3 years to use them and £15k as a bonus. No extra leave beyond that, but we get more than can use anyway. PLus we get leave for days away from where you would normally work.
You do get more gardening leave the more time you've done though, I've known some people do it right and get 3+ months when they leave.
Quite a bit of preferencial treatment is for those with more seniority as well.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Tue 13 May 14 at 12:17
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For 25 years loyal service I got a month's pay, a rather nice Mappin & Webb carriage clock (still working) and lunch with the boss (bearable). I left soon after that and no other employer cared so it's all I have to show for a whole career in 'the media'.
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Yeah we get a bit of tin and a do at 18 years, food few drinks etc.
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>> Leahy and Ferguson were kept for what they were expected to do, not what they
>> had done.
Part off the reason Leahy could deliver what was expected was his background in the company and accompanying knowledge of it's culture and history. But that of course illustrates another point, in a large organisation people can move and develop within. Twenty years service spent in seven different roles is very different to twenty years at same desk.
>>Neither received a long service reward.
Are you sure about that?
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>> accompanying knowledge of it's culture and history. But that of course illustrates another point, in a large organisation people can move and develop within. Twenty years service spent in seven different roles is very different to twenty years at same desk.
I agree fully, but it doesn't need to be a large organisation - one can start as an apprentice and end up being upper management.
The bit I have marked it bold, I feel is important.
Without remembering its culture and history, a company soon becomes just another faceless organisation.
Whilst I see what Mark is saying, I don't believe a high turnover of staff is something to celebrate.
I think that customers like a bit of consistency, seeing new staff everytime they enter a business does not instil confidence in that business...
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>> Whilst I see what Mark is saying, I don't believe a high turnover of staff is something to celebrate.
There was this crazed, pointlessly predatory side to corporate behaviour even back in the sixties. I simply didn't get it, working out your market value and poised to take flight for a better package at a moment's notice... and being expected to fire people for nothing to show you had teeth.
What about the actual work, I used to wonder. Sheer insanity all that I thought. Nasty too.
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>>I don't believe a high turnover of staff is something to celebrate.
Indeed ST, you are correct. However, neither is a long-lived staff simply because of its longevity.
Its difficult to put your finger on a time period, because it depends on the role, the market, the industry, the company, need to change, performance etc. etc.
However, broad brush would be;
- 2yrs = unproven and too soon to promote or move
2yrs - 3yrs = an ambitious person will be looking, and I will be looking to promote.
3yrs - 5yrs = a less ambitious, perhaps less capable, person or someone whose personal circumstances make the current role suitable.
5yrs - 10yrs = Not ambitious, not a high performer, and the cost/difficulty to remove is increasing.
10yrs+ = Worrying. Almost certainly resistant to change and probably unable to change. Horribly expensive and difficult to remove.
You need to remember that I am always involved in companies that need to change, otherwise they wouldn't need me.
However, with the way industry is today a company that does not need to change is a rare beast.
Equally, longer service can be quite acceptable if the role has been changing. Frequently obvious places to look are HR, Procurement, H&S, IT Support, Project Admin and stores.
My point is that whilst high turnover is not good, then neither is low turnover something to celebrate. A company that is not losing 5% - 10% of its staff per annum is frequently a concerning thing.
However, it is rare that any fault lies on the employee. Of course, there are some idiots or lazy gits, but the vast majority are in the wrong place because of incompetent management.
Show me someone who measures time, and I'll show you someone who doesn't understand the roles of his reports, nor how to manage their performance.
Performance management and people managements are skills sadly lacking to a quite depressing extent.
An added difficulty is that someone who has been mis-managed for an extended period may be a lost cause, or at the least very difficult to turn. And usually very ungrateful and very unwilling in the beginning.
To add though, do not confuse my dislike of long servers with any relationship to the employees age. Give me a 50yr old before you give me a 20yr old any day of the week.
I could rattle on, this is my job, I love it, and I hate how bad management is - throughout the world. Especially since its actually very, very easy to do, just so long as you have an open mind and actually care.
As I said earlier, insofar as running a company as concerned, there are NO new ideas. Its all in the execution and implementation.
A couple of other thoughts of things which people seem not to understand ...
If an employee cannot do their normal role in their normal hours, then there is an idiot involved. We just need to work out whether it is them or their manager.
I don't care if you come in late, I am not impressed if you stay late. I may be impressed by how you perform.
Your time should be split between doing your job, learning your next job, and teaching someone else your current job.
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Long Service Awards - Crankcase
