Whilst the media are busy berating executives for creaming bonuses at the expense of their employees, it may surprise you to learn that a 2008 Employee Benefits/YouGov study has found that bonuses and benefits packages rank in 16th and 17th place respectively in a list of factors driving employee engagement. The most important were interesting work, work-life balance and the working environment.

Earlier this year we heard that more than a quarter of chief executives at some of the UK’s largest companies receive bonuses even if profits rise by as little as 1% above inflation and that more than half of City of London professionals said they would look for a new job if their year-end bonus failed to meet their expectations.

City workers appear on the surface to have got what they wanted! The Guardian reported at the end of May that “City workers have been awarded £13.2bn in bonuses so far this year, suggesting that the credit crunch has yet to be felt in the pockets of most bankers.”

But have they, when analysts at JPMorgan predicted back in April that total job losses in London’s City financial district are likely to hit 40,000 due to the global credit crunch?

One has to question the sanity of paying out huge bonuses with one hand and handing out redundancy notices with the other.

Maybe in light of this, it’s just as well that ordinary workers feel that interesting work, a balanced work-life and working environment are more important that hefty end of year bonuses.

How important is the annual bonus to you? Would you rather forego the extra money to ensure your job security?

As always we’d love to hear your comments…