MTN South Africa has scotched any hopes employees had of receiving additional performance bonuses for 2014. Some of the operator’s staff picketed outside its Roodepoort head office last week to protest over the issue.
The company’s leadership team met with aggrieved employees on Monday and emphasised that no additional performance bonus payments in respect of the 2014 financial year — which coincides with the calendar year — would be considered.
“This decision follows a request by general and supervisory level employees for the company to consider granting them an ex gratia payment or higher bonus payment, as they deem the payment of 4% of their annual pensionable salary insufficient,” MTN said in a statement.
“As with any company, MTN South Africa is expected to deliver a certain level of growth in order to declare a performance bonus. In the previous financial year, MTN South Africa did not deliver the required growth and thus was unable to declare a performance bonus,” it said.
It added that although MTN is one group, the underlying operating companies, including the South African business, are independent of each other and each has its own board, expectations and responsibilities to shareholders.
“Notwithstanding the independence of each operating company, the performance bonus policy, business principles and bonus calculations methodology is consistent across all operations,” it said.
“During 2014, MTN Group continued to work hard to deliver on its vision. The 2014 financial year however, proved to be one of the most difficult for the group. As a result, across the 22 operating companies evaluated for performance bonuses, only 15 entities qualified for payments and seven, including MTN South Africa, did not qualify for any performance bonus payment.”
In the statement, MTN South Africa chief human resources officer Themba Nyati said, however, that even if an operational subsidiary of the group does not qualify for a bonus payment, this does not prejudice general and supervisory staff.
“In a year when a bonus is declared, the first 4% of the calculated bonus percentage is the guaranteed 4%. In the absence of a performance bonus being declared, which is the case for MTN South Africa, employees at these levels are guaranteed a 4% payment. This is a group-wide policy, and applies across all MTN operations.” — © 2015 NewsCentral Media