Bonuses for Vodafone employees will be reinstated after angry staff secured a management climbdown.
In March Vodafone’s chief executive Guy Laurence announced that the company’s 10,000 staff would not receive a bonus and salaries would be frozen. But just weeks after the phone company revealed pre-tax profits of £4.1bn, Vodafone will now pay its staff bonuses equal to 2% of their salaries.
In a confidential memo Laurence told staff: “Over the past few months I’ve seen some changes in our company which are really good signs. Having discussed this at length with my management team we feel it is important to recognise the work that went into last year. Therefore we have decided to make a one-off bonus payment of 2% of your average basic salary.”
Laurence told staff the decision to continue offering bonuses was made in light of employees’ efforts to try and help push the company forward during the recession.
“We need to implement a lot of change to turn around our company, and because we see people embracing that, we are giving you a reward that says well done and thank you for the work you did last year” he said.
Vodafone staff will receive their payment in June.
In February the phone company announced 500 redundancies – including HR positions – and a month later employees were told their salaries would be frozen, bonuses scrapped and they would have to keep their company cars for longer.
A Vodafone employee told The Independent: “Staff morale plummeted when management said it was scrapping bonuses in March. Common sense has prevailed because although profits were down they still came in at more than £4bn for the year.”
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