A lawyer pointed out the peculiarities of annual bonus formation in commercial companies

Payment of the annual bonus, or the 13th salary, has its own peculiarities: for budgetary organizations, its size is determined by regulations in the relevant area, while in the case of commercial organizations, the system of payments is determined in the company's internal documents. This was told to "Izvestia" on December 14 by Alexander Yuzhalin, head of legal practice at SuperJob.

If the bonus is provided for by regulations in the relevant sphere, it should be paid to the employee of the budgetary organization in the prescribed amount, he noted. According to the expert, in the commercial sphere, the situation with payments is a little more confusing.

"The fact is that labor law does not define bonuses as a guaranteed part of wages. The law allows the employer to independently establish a system of remuneration in his organization. In particular, independently determine what bonuses to pay, for what successes and in what amount. In this case, much depends on the financial capabilities of the employer," Yuzhalin said.

In this regard, the employer defines its remuneration system in the internal documents of the organization - in local regulations, in labor or collective agreements, the expert explained. According to him, in this case, the company has the right not to pay the employee the 13th salary, if the corresponding obligation is not contained in the listed documents.

"As a rule, the size of the annual bonus is equal to a salary or several (two or three salaries). Another option - the employer can set a fixed amount of such a bonus, which will not depend on the salary at all," - said the head of legal practice at SuperJob, adding that the employer can set a fixed amount of the bonus, which will not depend on the salary.

The expert drew attention to the fact that the time of payment is also determined by the contract or local act. Sometimes it can come on New Year's Eve together with the salary for December, however, if it is stipulated that the amount of the bonus depends on a number of indicators of the employee, the manager may need time to analyze them based on the results of the year.

"Summarizing the results can take some time, so sometimes the annual bonus is paid in February or even later," Yuzhalin said.

Earlier, on December 12, independent HR specialist and career consultant Zilina Sultanova told Izvestia under what conditions employees can expect to be paid the 13th salary. According to her, an employee may not receive a bonus at the end of the year if, for example, the employer has not achieved the planned goals in the past year or if the company has financial problems. According to her, this often happens when the contract does not specify the terms of payment of such a bonus. The expert noted that the employer does this to protect itself.