The Core

It's not just a muslim custom - as I was saying in the last post, this is often LAW, not custom. As near as I can tell, in India, the Bonus Act of 1965 requires most employers in India to pay a bonus

Under this Act, every employee who is receiving salary or wages upto Rs. 3,500 p.m. and is engaged in any kind of work whether skilled, unskilled, managerial, supervisory etc. is entitled to bonus for every accounting year if he has worked for at least 30 working days in that year. However, employees of L.I.C., Universities and Educational institutions, Hospitals, Chamber of Commerce, R.B.I., IFCI, U.T.I. Social Welfare institutions are not entitled to bonus under this Act.

http://www.tax4india.com/indian-laws/labour-law/payment-of-bonus/payment-of-bonus-2.html

The payment of Bonus Act, 1965, extends to the whole of India. This Act shall be applicable to:

   1. every factory; and
   2. every other establishment in which twenty or more persons are employed on any day during an accounting year.

...

Minimum bonus – Minimum bonus is 8.33 % of the salary or wages of an employee or Rs. 100 in case of employees above 15 years of age and Rs 60 in case of employees below 15 years of age. Maximum Bonus – When the allocable surplus exceeds the minimum bonus, the employer should pay bonus in proportion to the salary or wages earned by the employee subject to a maximum of 20% of such salary or wages.

In some special cases where the salary or wage of an employee exceeds Rs. 1600/- per month, minimum or maximum bonus payable to such employee shall be calculated as if his salary or wage were Rs. 1600/- per month.

http://www.tax4india.com/indian-laws/labour-law/payment-of-bonus/payment-of-bonus-1.html


Firing someone just because he has asked for his year end bonus which is typically mandated by law seems ridiculous.

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BTW, in case you haven't noticed, I'm heavily on the X side of Mcgregor's X-Y Theory when it comes to low-level employees.

We spent a lot of time debating x-y back in C-school. As liberal as college kids and professors tend to be, and as much as everyone wanted y to alway be the answer, it's safe to say we ended up in stalemate.

Reasons:

X (a.k.a. "put it in the paycheck") is well-understood and fairly cheap to manage. Long-term costs are questionable with x BUT managers can also become fairly adept at factoring in turnover in their hiring/firing plan.  It's particularly cheap/effective if the job skills aren't hard to come by in the marketplace OR the job market is tight.

Y implementation requires the manager to be more involved and, IMHO, more gifted -more socially aware- ...this is a fairly rare skill relative to managing by the numbers.  And once you do have a company policy complete with a HR manager who is capable of y-mode, then manager burnout is a problem. Y requires so much 'immersion' in the lives of the staff.

Another trouble is that no organization, even small ones, are homogeneous in need. Your mailroom crackhead may require heavy doses of negative stimulus. Your accounts receivable manager needs y.  You can't swing from one mode to the other very easily and you very well might be charged with some sort of discrimination if you do.

Even the same individual changes. So you have a gifted 20-something, single guy in your art department who will walk in a heartbeat if you put the hammer on him. Saddle him with 2 kids, health care problems, and a mortgage and theory x works amazingly well with him now.

Rupert:
>It really irked me though.

Once Rupert assigns a loss value to that "irked" factor, you and I are in perfect agreement, Jason. 

BTW, though this may be cultural, the fellow needs to know that culture bites both ways.

Not everything that is counted counts, not everything that counts can be counted. --Albert Einstein

What jurisdiction does an Indian court have over me in the UK? Well a fair bit actually, as they are signatories to the Hague convention, but it will mean (in effect) a retrial in the UK.

That's BS.  Move to the country of Texas, not even the U.S. gov't has jurisdiction over them

>A Turkey to India

Nah, steak instead.

I can't believe people seemed to miss this absolutely hysterical comment.  I had a wonderful belly laugh from this and wish to thank you, Drastic. 

I ignored it for a while, and then he came back with (after a bit a chat):

So,now what you gift me?

 

I have explained it is not customary to ask in the UK. I think we will be parting ways.

>apply to the Vikings for a job and not RC

Drastic & I have been trying to toughen up the Vikings for almost 12 years now.  Every time we get them trained barely UP to the "wussie" level, NFFC steps in and ruins them.