Fire him. Even if he is good, he's altered your working relationship.

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

QuoteUnder 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

QuoteThe 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.

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

?Why so, IF...

- I find he's made my working environment less enjoyable and
- I'm cognizant that it'll cost me to make a change and
- I'm still willing to pay that cost, directly or indirectly, to find another to replace him

Seems perfectly logical to nuke him if all of the above.  Then again, I'm not noted for being warm & fuzzy.

<added>

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.

The short term employees (college students) I have worked with that have an attitude of entitlement have been nothing but trouble.  All of them I wish I had fired sooner than I did.

Asking for a gift is ridiculous IMO. 

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.

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

correct me if i am wrong but we are talking about running a business are we not, not shall we give in at this time of year and go all soft in the head approach....if you give one a gift you give to all, if you don't start in the first place then what they never had they don't miss

someone i know took all the staff to a European city a couple of weeks ago, thats different in my opinion as it boost moral for weeks before hand with the buzz of knowing they are having a weekend away

another company I know 20 years ago bought the top sales guys rolex watches and gave them out at the Christmas party, half of them fucked off to another company in the new year

so what ever you give is never enough so its better if you don't start in the first place....

I still stand by my first post and he needs to be taken out side and shot.....dogboy its 40 yards and wind speed 25 miles an hour he has black hair, tanned skin, smells and is called Abdul, go for it if you take one out the rest will panic

QuoteWhat 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

I think asking for a gift is very different than asking for the 13th month or any expected (culturally or legally) bonus of any sort. The way it was written, if it came from one of my elves, I would be sure it was a joke, laugh it off and move on.

If they were dead serious, I'd have a hard time keeping them. If they were good enough to keep after this, they would have already been compensated well enough and shouldn't ever ask for squat.

Keep him long enough to train his replacement.

Quote>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. 

And, if it is an Indian Law, the guy might have been asking an innocent question...Cut him a break and ask him what he meant.  If he doesn't know, he doesn't know.

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

QuoteSo,now what you gift me?

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

>I think we will be parting ways.

Hahaha, amazing.

We believe in keeping guys happy and working and if it needs to be the case of giving them an xmas present, we're all there. I'd rather throw $100 their way and keep them ever grateful than ignore them and decrease the value of the relationship.

Case in point, yesterday one of our Ukrainian guys suddenly was away for the day. The other guy told me his wife was delivering a baby. Well, cool. We immediately asked the HR guys to run out and buy him $100 gift.

....but we're still letting him go before Xmas as we don't have enough work. Different situation, but being a nice employer works a lot better imo.

>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.

I don't really understand the problem - its a simple equation for me.

'Cost of Ownership v. Benefit of Ownership'



If they are earning me enough money, they can call me an 'ugly fat capitalist bastard' and demand a new car as a gift - won't bother me (Mivox, no! ... OK .. just, no!)

It will, of course, be their problem to decide how to handle my 'f**k off' reply.


OTOH, if they are earning me very little then simply 'not replying' for 15mins when they are supposed to be at their desk can get them fired.



When you only have 4 or 5 staff who are located half way around the world you have more flexibility to match management to the employee without fear of legal action for discrimination.