Our workplace tends to use retention bonuses as part of the total salary package for most employees.
I've just received my bonus offer for this year, and it is substantially lower than in previous years. It translates to approximately 4% of my base salary. Having done a bit of research, it seems retention bonuses are typically much higher than this.
This also means that even with the standard base salary increase for the year, my actual total remuneration will be lower than in previous years.
So I'm essentially being asked to take a pay cut. However there has been no mention about disastisfaction with my work, or about company financial issues etc. Also my workload, responsibilities, and stress levels are as high as ever.
I'm wondering how I should interpret this. My immediate thought is that if they're prepared to offer so little as a retention bonus, they're possibly not too concerned about actually retaining me.
If that's the case, I'm wondering if it's even worth trying to negotiate a better bonus, or whether I should simply look elsewhere.
So I'm hoping people could offer some insights into what this might mean. I've never been in a situation before where I've been expected to take a pay cut.