Do they tie in to your bonus at all (if you get one?) or is your bonus completely independent of your rating? I know it is based on last year's allocated amount/the amount the whole pool is cut by/etc. But beyond that- any impact from rating to bonus?
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Former senior manager at BAC and here is my take: Size of overall bonus pool for your business unit is subject to the whims and personal agendas of senior management. For example, a sociopath like Cathy Bessant will always try to s--- up to Brian Moynihan and to increase the size of her bonus by cutting the pool available to the employees in her line of business. Once the size of the pool is established, how it is distributed to individual employees largely depends on how your manager feels about you. As a manager there are plenty of ways to game the HR forms to justify the distribution of funds and make it appear that it is kind of related to performance. Trust me, it is a big game within a large pile of BS. It is why on Employee Satisfaction Surveys that the Bank always gets low marks on Pay for Performance despite an endless array of slide decks from HR that pretend to explain it.
If your current manager likes you even if you have caused a sev 1 you will be fine. Even if you have caused a couple .. If you have never cause a sev 1,2, or 3 and your manager has a distaste for you.. Say hello to mr. layoff.
As a former manager at BAC, I will share that it was not only not as formulaic as I would have liked but it is subject to the discretion of all the managers in a chain. For example, I had an employee who was exceeding expectations but a manager in the chain above me did not like the person and the bonus amount I submitted which was well within range and overall budget was severely slashed despite my objections. In another case, I had another employee who was on a well-documented notice for performance and had a 30/60/90 day plan and the person was not scheduled to receive a bonus or merit but that was also overridden at the last minute (to the point where a manual check was cut for the bonus) since the person qualified for 2 categories of EEOC special handling. Needless to say, managers are not truly able to do their job equitably when managers above them and HR override decisions on a whim or out of fear of repercussions which ultimately impacts morale across the board.
In my experience is not formulaic like if you are a M/M you are up 5% and if an E/E you are up 10% (well, back when bonus pools increased). If you are a hard worler who pits in the effort you will get a better than average raise and that effort may get you an exceeds. The only time i know it has had a more direct link is when pools are down. Then exceeds are held flat and the meets are taken down a bit more.
Yes, it is typically tied to your rating. So, if you were M/M your bonus would be lower than if your rating was M/E or E/M. Hence, pay for performance.