Employee benefits magazine reports that BT is planning to offer its top 400 top-level employees (in some businesses) the chance of gambling a minimum of 10% and a maximum of 50% of their contractual rewards in return for the chance of additional bonus. If they meet targets they get their ‘stake’ back. Beyond that they can get up to 200% of the amount gambled on a sliding scale. Obviously, for this to work, BT has to be confident of its target-setting processes and the staff be confident of their abilities (or believe that the targets are somewhat soft).
We do not know how many will take this offer up or how many will risk the full 50%. Many fewer, I suspect, than might have been the case when the scheme was being devised (ie, before the financial world imploded). But it is interesting to think how this might be applied in other areas. MP’s invited to gamble part of their salary, or gold-plated pension, on increasing their majority? Newspaper editors gambling theirs against reducing the number of retractions they have to publish? Bloggers gambling on increasing the number of hits? Maybe we should forget that last one.
