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I am working in France as a consultant.

When recruited one year ago, my company could not afford to pay me the yearly salary I requested, but my boss offered to double the bonus I would get for bringing in new clients instead, as I was bringing one, which made my income close from what I was asking. Nothing about it was written.

I e-mailed my manager about this bonus 7 months later, as I had no information on when I would get it, specifying that the amount should be doubled as negociated with our boss. He confused it with another bonus and then played dead on this subject. Last week, after another e-mail, specifying once again the amount negotiated, he answered me by text message, saying that the bonus would finally be paid to me and that the amount would be X, X being the regular amount.

What should I do to get the amount I negotiated, should I get my boss involved now and what should I do if I don't get the amount negotiated ?

My boss, with whom I negotiated the bonus, is also my manager's boss, but for structural reasons I have almost no contact with him.

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    A verbal agreement it about as valuable as the paper it was not written on. Learn from this. Stay or leave…
    – Solar Mike
    Oct 4, 2021 at 9:07
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    While that is certainly true and this should be a lesson, the manager in between could have simply not been informed. Would never hurt to try as Benjamin describes in his answer.
    – Blub
    Oct 4, 2021 at 9:25

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Write an email to your boss, not your manager. Remind him of your agreement when you joined, and ask him to please clarifiy the misunderstanding. It could be he simply forgot to inform your manager.

But be prepared that he may have forgotten your verbal agreement. Either genuinely forgotten, or forgotten on purpose to save money.

In that case: Find another job, and get any such agreements in writing.

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  • Companies will rarely put bonus amounts in writing - putting it in writing might create a legal obligation (I am not a lawyer) - where as a bonus is almost always discretionary and dependent on the financial health of the firm, even when "guaranteed" (at least in the USA)
    – dan.m was user2321368
    Oct 5, 2021 at 18:16
  • I have a written bonus in my contract, with a clause that translates to: "depending on discretion of my Company". So yeah, they have a backdoor. But if they backpetal for no good reason, they know people will take consequence -> ie leave.
    – Benjamin
    Oct 5, 2021 at 18:22

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