F&f paid but sales incentive witheld

You have posted that:

--“our Sales Incentive Payouts the mail mentioned that I need to wait till the end of next quarter for the SIP (June end) “.

The incentive is obviously for the period Jan-Mar.

“Finally I left on 16th April,”

If you have worked for the entire period, of the incentive qualifying period i.e. Jan-Mar then nothing is pending from this period.

“I wrote to my ex supervisor and after 100's of unattended calls and a few emails later he told me that it is being withheld as I did not complete a assignment.”

The assignment being quoted as not done is probably from period after March. Moreover your communication is in writing and reply of your supervisor is probably verbal.

It may be the internal practice of the company to give the discretion to supervisor to block or allow the payment; however the authority to sanction disbursement is the one who has issued the incentive circular and/or who is stated to be final authority in incentive circular. Do you have the copy of incentive circular?

You may decline to be satisfied by verbal responses and demand all replies in writing.

You may claim that you never left any assignment incomplete during the period Jan-Mar.

--“I have written to the HR who said that my immediate supervisor had requested the payment to be held till he authorises the release.”

Once again your communication is in writing and reply of your HR is probably verbal.

Employee should record such transactions {audio/visual} and keep some witness/evidence.

Another option is if deemed fit at your end you can claim to HR that you left nothing pending from Jan-Mar and even later.

If employee has tendered notice of resignation of say……45 days, i.e. last day in office/effective date of resignation is informed by employee and company has received/acknowledged/processed  the notice then company has to coordinate well amongst all dept’s and ensure that all exit formalities including tasks to be obtained from employee are completed. You have tendered reasonably good and long notice period of 45 days.

“post resignation I did get my Full and Final settlement.” FNF settlement is done post completion of all formalities and clearance by all dept’s/HOD/line management etc.

To whom you have handed over the charge and who has cleared the handing over of charge? Ideally your supervisor should have signed the handing over the charge. Did he mention any pendencies? Had he mentioned any pendency your NOC would have not been issued for conducting FNF. Did you receive FNF statement? If yes you can claim that nothing was pending at your end and FNF statement and settlement was issued post all clearances.

To whom you have handed over the company property? Usually the form of submission of company property has scope and column for remarks by authorized supervisor/HOD to record comments of pendencies if any. Has your supervisor or HR communicated any pendency in writing?

Incentives are paid after all returns/collections/payouts are computed and effected and eligibility has been passed.

Bonus {Statutory} is paid within 8 months of ending of previous year bonus period.

Company has to pay all eligible amounts. If company has to deny any payment it has to do so in writing and enclose certified copies of all relevant circulars, clauses.

HR does not report to line management. HR should remain unbiased. If you are not getting any relief you any approach good offices of your appointing authority, MD, Chairman, Company Secretary.

--“ (this is pure harrassment as I had paid for the equipment and dont have to return it)’

Do you have the proof of payment?

You may state by return reply that you have paid for it and hence it is your property and company should issue you a certificate of ownership in your name and if company wants it back company may state so in writing and offer to buy it.

Most probably the payment made by you has not been computed.

If you wish you can ask the company to beg apology in writing for threatening you and/or defaming you.

--You may find the attachments as useful.

“Allowances covered in wages” .As per definition, the sales commission should be paid within 2 months

{ANNUAL COMMISSION}, {INCENTIVE BONUS}

And

Appointment letter Law of negative covenants in employment contract

{Are Increments automatic or linked to performance?  Incentives and Performance linked payments}

--If you feel it is OK you should help the supervisor and company to complete the assignment being shown as pending {from customer’s end}.

In a given situation employee can invoke the Industrial Employment standing orders Act, Payment of Wages Act, SE Act, and ID Act as per explanation of employee under these Enactments or approach civil court.

Dear Mr Kumar Doab,

Thank you for the reply.

Moreover your communication is in writing and reply of your supervisor is probably verbal. --------------- He has replied in writing that I did not complete a rate renewal for a customer in March. I had been following up with the customer since late Feb to complete this, however due to a lack of response from the customer it never got completed. I explained this to the person taking over from me in the presence of my supervisor and also in the presence of the said customer on a different occassion.

Do you have the copy of incentive circular?  ---------------------------------  Unfortunately no. I did not even know that there is supposed to be one till I read your reply.

Once again your communication is in writing and reply of your HR is probably verbal. ------------------- Yes it was verbal. However I wrote to my supervisor marking the HR person who stated this and there was no objection from him to the contrary.

To whom you have handed over the charge and who has cleared the handing over of charge? Ideally your supervisor should have signed the handing over the charge. Did he mention any pendencies? Had he mentioned any pendency your NOC would have not been issued for conducting FNF. Did you receive FNF statement? -------------------------- I handed over the charge to the person taking over from me. He signed the Hand Over Document, so did I and the supervisor too. There was no pendencies mentioned by any party. Yes I have received the FNF statement. No pendencies whatsoever was verbally discussed or given in writing. However I do not have a copy of this Hand Over document.

If you feel it is OK you should help the supervisor and company to complete the assignment being shown as pending. -------------------------------------- I have offered to speak to the customer if required even after I resigned. I had sent all the emails showing my efforts to bring this rate renewal to an end with the customer to the new account manager. I do not have the emails now either as forwarding it to my personal email address would have violated the confidentiality agreements.

Do you have the proof of payment? You may state by return reply that you have paid for it and hence it is your property and company should issue you a certificate of ownership in your name and if company wants it back company may state so in writing and offer to buy it. ----------------------------- Yes I have the proof of payment. However the email is auto-generated and says replies to this email address will not be entertained. There is a phone number mentioned and the guy at the other end is a collection agent.

Thank you for taking the time out and helping me with this. I want to anticipate every hurdle they may throw at me before sending a stern email (thus far I have been very gentle albeit a bit sarcastic at times)

I wanted point out one more thing that just came to my mind. The Sales Incentive Payout is linked to the sales revenue and not any specific cases. So long as I do 70% or more of my target revenue, I would be paid irrelevant of issues pending. I have achived more than 120% every quarter while employed and I did face similar delay in customer responses and delay in revenue realisation. That never prevented them from paying me while I was there. They always computed the revenue realised at the end of 75 days post the 90 day (quarter year) period and did the math to make the payment. Should I not be entitled the same way for the pay now too?

Incentive Circular: It is mandatory for a company to supply the Incentive circular, terms and conditions, interpretations, to all concerned employees. Company has to apply the rules from rules and should not produce some rules all of sudden from air like a magician does an act on stage for audience. Otherwise how would an employee know of the details of incentive scheme/bonus/SIP etc? All rules should be in the knowledge domain of the employee. Gossip and rumor can not be rules.

On the other hand a sale is not complete till payments are received. Usually companies attach clause that payment of bill not received within….days, stocks returned by customer, credit notes issued, additional discounts given shall be reduced from total sales accrued and to be eligible the employee has to achieve ……….say 90% of the target assigned. In your case you have stated that you achieved the target by 20% over and above as your achievement was 120%. Hence even if the rate contract did not mature you should satisfy the conditions of incentive. At the same time if you or your replacement were not able to convince the customer the supervisor or boss or superior should pitch in  and convince the customer and demonstrate his/her value addition. What for superiors are there? It is loss of one customer for the company and why the boss is not able to retain the customer and business.

However first of all company should supply you the work sheet of calculation of incentive /bonus/SIP or whatever it is termed along with copy of incentive circular to enable you to relate.

AS HR person has not raised any objection on receiving your email hence it can be assumed that there is no ambiguity. Therefore the objection of supervisor can be termed arbitrary. HR should not endorse arbitrary decisions.

Employee should find ways and means to collect record. If you were supposed to write you could have written letter by enclosing copies of all emails to good offices and thus you could have retained the copies of all relevant record. Although company is custodian of records how many employees succeed in getting the record from company after separation.

You may produce the proof of payment.

You may highlight your achievements, revenue generated and represent in writing under acknowledgment to good offices and seek relief.

Hi Mr Kumar,

Just one last question. I worked in Chennai with this organisation and now am in Bangalore. The HR of this organisation (who issued the appointment letter) are also based in Bangalore. If I decide to take them to court should I go to the ones in Bangalore or Chennai. Also can you refer me a couple of labor lawyers?

In your appointment letter company might have stated jurisdiction of courts at shall be at Bangalore for all disputes.

Hence you may cite it.

Otherwise last location of employment can also be taken as jurisdiction.

A competent and experienced labor consultant/service lawyer may succeed in getting current/native address as jurisdiction.

If you wish to avail the services of a LCI labor consultant/service lawyer you can conduct lawyer search at:

https://www.lawyersclubindia.com/lawyers_search/

The related labor consultant/service lawyer list is available at the bottom of this web page.

Your near and dear ones can also guide you to competent and experienced labor consultant/service lawyer.

You have posted that "The HR of this organization (who issued the appointment letter) are also based in Bangalore."

In your appointment letter company might have stated jurisdiction of courts at shall be at Bangalore for all disputes.

Hence you may agitate at Banglore.

You may also try to drill sense into company by approaching good offices and citing logic, and highlighting revenues generated by you, and your achievements. You may succeed. Some of the querists do succeed.

Employee should apply rapport, goodwill, negotiating, reasoning, persuasion, persistence skill to the exceptional levels, to drill sense into employer and resolve the matter in his/her favor. Many of the HR, line management, and good office personnel may pose as tough but are wary of lawsuits. Courts are not dumb. If your efforts do not fetch you relief a notice by authority under various enactments may help you. Or your company may yield to legal notice by your lawyer.   

State of Karnataka is contemplating to do away with exemptions granted to some IT companies and probably to your industry no such exemption was granted.

In such a case you may check if Industrial Employment Standing orders act is applicable to your industry and standing orders of the company were extended to your position.

In a given situation employee can invoke the Industrial Employment standing orders Act, Payment of Wages Act, SE Act, and ID Act as per explanation of employee under these Enactments or approach civil court.

Companies burn extra energy to convince employee that he/she is not a workman as many of the enactments favor employee and limit the choice to employer. However designation alone does not decide employee is a workman or not.

Kindly attempt to form a community of like minded employees and help each other. It shall be good if you can form a union, IC, Guild. Employees form a very big vote bank and no politician/government can ignore. Example is state of HP.

Thank you Mr Kumar.