Anyone else hate the holiday shakedowns on junior bankers for the staff bonuses?
Why is my bank(which has trillions in assets) asking junior analysts and associates for 100 dollars here and there for admins, janitors, mail room staff etc. So instead of my bank paying them properly and giving them a well deserved Christmas bonus, we need to scrounge up a bonus pool amongst the bullpen for them? It's as annoying as restaurants paying employees 3 dollars an hour and expecting customers to tip them a reasonable wage. Just irks me that's all. (Not being a grinch)
I take your point and I actually agree with the sentiment, but I also have no problem with personally contributing as an expression of gratitude, especially if it is not mandated. In our group, me and the other analyst/associates decided to do our own gift for our particular admin, which was much more impactful. She was so fired up and seeing it was worth every single penny and then some.
The pool is annoying in other cases, like the doormen at my building. I have some doormen that are amazing, super helpful, and fun to catch up with. I also have some that look like they want to murder me every time I walk in the door. Ideally my contribution would go to the lads but it's just not worth the hassle trying to orchestrate that.
Group is requiring $200+ for analysts and assos/Vs/Ds for 500-1K. Feel the same way. Seems more like a bad intentioned way to guilt trip people into doing something management or senior bankers should be doing, especially in a down year. Aside from the fact that it’s fucking weird to be taking $150+ donations from 22 year olds who are on 90K salary.
$200 requirement for analyst?! Fuck that. In this environment I know analysts who live paycheck to paycheck.. $200 isn't just a rounding error at that level
Houston banks make their guys all pay $200/month for parking which is straight robbery. Most of the banks last I heard.
Yep, the stated goal when everyone participates is $3K per admin. So assuming senior MDs drop a few grand personally to their admins, they could be in for $5-10K+. Which I know is not the point, the admin teams are great. But just reiterating this is an actual year end bonus paid for by 22-26 year olds. In the future, I hope people just man up and say no.
The HR woman who collects the cash for our admins records your name + amount contributed into an excel right in front of you which is quite weird
“suggested contribution amounts”
a1 - 150
a2 - 200
a3 - 250
aso1 - 350
aso2 - 400
aso3 - 450
VP / MD scales from there. Analysts don’t even have admins assigned to manage their calendars or expenses.
I hate when any type of tip/gratuity or donation does this. It’s supposed to be what the individual wants to give not a force fed number.
Could not agree more
Wait is this real?? wtf. Same type of people guilt tripping people for this crap and then turn around and say hypocritical garbage like you should pay every cent of your student loans off not the gov, should be grateful for even a small bonus, etc. Not to mention markets were awful this year.
Ridiculous
Goddamn is this real? Insanity if there are groups mandating hundreds of dollars
When I was at GS they had a strongly suggested guideline. Haven’t seen at my current shop (yet)
100%real.
Analysts expected to pay 100.
Associates 150 to 200
Vps 300....
Just madness
Damn that sucks. It's just egregious that firms are mandating this and shifting the burden onto employees, instead of paying these holiday bonuses on their own. Cheap AF.
Americans tip for everything no?
I dont see how it is different.
Even as an AN1 you're an overpaid (for your age, level of experience) investment banker so it makes sense to act like one.
Needless to say, this wouldnt happen in France lol. But we are taxed more than 50% on our bonus so...
I would argue the overpaid part, but even so just handing out money because we don't "deserve it" isn't a great point either. They deserve a bonus but I have more of an issue with the principle of it being expected and mandated.
Americans tip at restaurants, and I guess in NYC it's practice to tip your doorman during the holidays... but honestly the janitor and mail room guys should be paid by the firm with a small bonus for their work, same as anyone else
Also just not a good year to ask for such high amounts as the cost of living in NYC has come up wildly and bonuses are expected to be significantly down. You can barely get a 1 bedroom for under $4k... people are just quite tight on budgets right now
Not sure what it is in France but in NYC taxes (for base and bonus) are nearly 40% once you include all the different taxes
In France, for 150 paid by the employer, the gross salary for the employee will be 100. Then you deduct 22 roughly in social charges and on the 78 you are taxed at your marginal tax rate which is 45%.
So out of 150 paid by employer, you see 100 in gross income on your payslip and you get c43 in cash.
Gross maths but that gives an idea
It’s a nice gesture, regardless of their pay. Also, have some perspective.
Capitalism at its finest, diverting the conflict between employers and employees to employees and employees
This is crazy. The bank should be covering their holiday bonuses and not expecting employees to cover it out of their salary.
Personally have no issue dropping a couple bills to make admin staff happy.
Have some perspective…we’re making good money here and we most likely spend that amount on a night out.
Getting out of hand seriously.. required to tip $200 as an associate and I barely know my EA name since she doesn’t do anything for me (doesn’t manage my calendar or file my expenses)
Who does your calendar and expenses then?
At my firm juniors (really anyone under director) manages their own calendar, and you can only order meals through the Seamless profile so receipts are auto-submitted and we have to turn in our Ubers ourselves as well. No more firm credit cards for juniors so I guess the EA would do the one-off travel booking but I haven't used my EA more than once a year
Wait you get a personal EA as a VP?
This is another one of those silly traditions that’s lingering.
nice in concept
PJT only asks partners and MDS and the recommendation is $150/$100. Granted we have much less people but I’m shocked to hear BB firms asking analysts for $100+.
We used to do this but purely optional and was organized by the junior bankers in the office. Others also prefer to just get the admins something on their own. I don’t think firms (or even senior bankers) should be asking junior bankers to do such things.
Same here, I've never been required (or "strongly encouraged") to contribute to an admin holiday gift pool but have always done so as part of a self organized group. Usually the analysts/associates would contribute something on the order of $50-100 each for something nice (e.g., gift card to a nice restaurant, nice bottle of wine, etc.) while the senior team would just give them somewhere between $500-5k from their own pockets.
What are the chances the employees even get 100% of the donation?
.
Some of the banks don’t even match actual charitable 501c3 donations anymore or at a normal level
some banks cap donation matches at an embarrassing level of $2k
This isn’t new at all. They’ve been doing this forever.
Can’t tip admins. Want to be called (junior) bankers. All the glory, none of the pain.
Wants to virtue signal as ESG compliant firm that loves diversity initiatives and charitable endeavors, won't pay their staff livable wages or holiday bonuses(passing it off to employees to handle at their discretion).
All the glory none of the pain.
I just came from the MD tipping troll post, so not sure if this is a real thing in the US
This one is unfortunately real
My group is analysts $10, $200 from analysts is crazy
Agreed - you’re not being a grinch, more of a Scrooge
I am the scrooge? Why isn't my wealthy bank paying it to them?
The holiday bonus should be paid out by recent college grads?
wtf. never heard of that.
If it's being done in a big pool with prescribed amounts, it makes no sense.
The way it used to be (I wasn't aware it's become so mercenary/formulaic these days) is that it was an individual show of gratitude. One banker giving a gift to his admin. At most, the 3-5 bankers who share an admin might get together and buy a group gift for the admin. I've never understood it to be something where 50 people chip in to one pool. Doing it that way is dumb because there's no individual expression of gratitude and it just becomes a tax.
That said, the fact that the banks make X amount of dollars is totally irrelevant. If we're going to base things on what the bank can pay, then pay all the janitors 100k. Of course that doesn't happen, because it's not management's money to spend. It belongs to the shareholders, who justifiably feel entitled to pay only what they have to, because they're on the hook when things go south.
My guess is, like most things these days, this began as a nice little thing that people did to express appreciation for those that help them every day, and it got bastardized by people who de-humanize everything they come across.
Geez, do such people really exist? They just go around de-humanizing everything they touch? What if they touch their own pecker while using the urinal? Touch their own mother to give her a hug? Attend a charity ball as a keynote speaker? That's a whole lot of dehumanization going on. We've got to stop these despicable souls who are dehumanizing our world one charitable donation at a time. FUCK!
Two things can be true here: banks should pay support staff a living wage rather than making giving compulsory AND junior bankers are ridiculous for complaining about spending $150-200 that can literally make a huge difference in those people’s lives. That $150-200 might determine whether their kids get Christmas presents this year but ~God Forbid~ your $150k take home is a couple hundred dollars less.
You guys...
So you're only doing it to grease the wheels in office politics? That's even worse.
I agree with others it’s nice to give admins something especially if they help you (at my bank they’d always help with printing which was great), but the way they collected gifts sucked.
I was at a regional office and group wasn’t huge so the group head would literally walk around the floor collecting money. You can imagine his reaction when someone either didn’t give or gave less than others, and not really fair for a senior to judge people’s donations IMO
You should want to tip the support staff. I don't have an issue with this at all and its just a friendly reminder to juniors of what levels they should be doing bc they likely aren't aware. Its not the same as a corporate bonus in the sense that you're saying thanks for helping me throughout the and making my life easier (ideally). So be grateful and share the wealth. The post and some responses wreak of out of touch immaturity.
Thanks very much Senior VP in AM - FI for reminding first year analysts that they are out of touch for not wanting to tip assistants who they barely work with $200 out of their own pay check.
I agree that 200 might not be the right number, no doubt that is high...but the concept itself of giving a year end bonus/tip to staffers is a good one if for nothing else selfish reasons of getting in good with the staff that could help in the future.
isnt this the job of admin people? so they are simply doing their job.
makes the MD tipping thread now seem not so sarcastic. why not tip them for bringing success to the firm and doing their job?
anyway, can you guys request that it gets deducted from your salary rather than paying it out net in cash?
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excuse me, are junior bankers now in control of firm PnL and can allocate budgets?
its the principle thats phucked up. bank doesnt pay low level staff enough so front office bankers need to pool money together to pay them?
you realize a lot of junior bankers are in the red with student loans right?
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I would gladly tip if they actually helped me with something but I really don’t interact with them except when checking for my MD’s availability. I would rather give that $200 to homeless ppl. Just annoying that the COO sends out an email saying it’s a customary with recommended $ starting with $100 for AN and $200 for AS.
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