As the title suggests, I wanted peoples' opinion on whether I should be arguing for a bigger bonus assuming a worst case scenario and get screwed... Obviously the answer depends on the situation so, here's a quick overview...
I'm a "analyst" by title at what was previous a niche MM private equity firm that ran very lean. Due to how lean the firm was, I was able to get significant amounts of responsibility that would mirror what a market "PE associate" would be doing, if not more. As a function of a variety of things, the private equity firm I sat in divested all of its fund assets and became the "M&A group" for the parent company that sponsored many of the fund acquisitions.
In becoming the new "M&A group", we also absorbed the parent company's existing "corp dev" team. Through this re-organization, it was clear that the staff from the PE shop was significantly more talented than the corp dev guys. There were a few lay offs, mostly from the corp dev team side but there is still a fair amount of "fat" around the middle/top of the new organization.
Through the re-org, I remained an "analyst" by title but continued to do "associate" work and actually be the lead deal guy right below the deal originator on some deals. I also had to teach many mid-level and director-level guys from the corp dev team on how to "properly" execute and think about deals; I essentially carried other people's weight on some deals since they were clueless. While getting more responsibilities seems great at face value, there is now an excessive amount of office politics/BS since the guys who are mid/senior level guys know that they don't really add value to the new M&A team.
These people really only got absorbed because either 1) senior management didn't fully understand their actual value and 2) some of these guys have been at the parent company for 5-10+ years. Long story short: I do a lot more than my title suggests, due to my title, I am on the receiving end of a lot of the office BS, and I'm literally carrying people on my shoulders as these people try to take credit for my work.
Luckily, I have a great reputation with the senior guys who came over from the original PE shop. This senior MD that essentially runs the group knows my struggle and has made it explicitly clear that he didn't want to lose me and told me to be patient as the amount of BS fades over time. While this is great sentiment, the bonus decision is made across several senior guys and I can totally see the company screwing me over financially speaking.
So IF worst comes to worst, should I argue for a higher bonus? IF so, do I bring it up during the review/bonus discussion with the guy in charge of staff management or do I take it up to the senior MD? Should I just keep my mouth shut and if I don't like what I got, just move elsewhere?
You should sit down with the senior MD before any bonus numbers come out and describe all the things you did this year that were above and beyond the normal line of duty. If you have any guidance on what a bonus might be you should argue why you should get that based on colleagues etc.
Once the bonus number is announced you need to take it for what it is. There is nothing good that will come from you arguing for X amount more.
Regardless of the bonus number, if the timing makes sense (i.e. you are around 2 years in) you should ask for a promotion. Again, if you have been there for a year you are not getting promoted no matter how much "associate" work you are doing. But if the baseline was for you to get promoted in 6months to a year you could argue for an accelerated promotion based on the associate work you are doing.
If it were me, I wouldn't worry about the bonus and argue for a promotion.
Thanks for all the responses. I spent some time thinking about what everyone wrote and I think I will probably stand down when it comes to actual comp. If anything the bonus number this year will be a reflection of how senior management truly values my contributions to date and their view on keeping me long term. If what my seniors have told me thus far are genuine, there should be no surprises.
Not long ago, I got fed up with the BS I had to deal with when working with some of these dev guys (people literally asking me what they needed to talk about in meetings, what's important in the deals we were on, taking credit for my work that they had zero input on, and teaching these people how to be an "associate" when I myself am an analyst by title). So I asked the sr MD to lunch to catch up and chat. Instead of scheduling the lunch, he could tell something was wrong and he dropped everything he was doing and went out to lunch and talked that day.
Over lunch, we talked about the BS I had to deal with. surprisingly, he already knew about some of the BS. His advice was to remain patient and don't let the frustration derail my own performance. To let the BS fade over time (suggesting that people will either naturally leave, get fired, etc) and have the performance rise to the top. He also noted that his fear is for me to leave the firm to fully commit to a startup that I casually started. In essence I came out of that lunch feeling like the sr. MD knew what was going on and not misguided by the enormous amount of BS going on currently.
So yeah, that chat gave me comfort but I suppose the final bonus numbers will reflect whether this MD was BS-ing me or not. Also, while I'd personally love a promotion than a bigger bonus, it's unlikely given that there is already an enormous amount of middle-level fat. The Sr. MD actually made that clear that sometimes, people are awarded comp beyond their title simply because they can't give out higher titles when the organization is already top/mid level heavy.