The Real Deal of Sign-On Bonuses
Tis the season to be giving and with it comes an extra wave of sign-on bonus offers from many of the mega trucking companies. You’ve got to hand it to their marketing teams for waiting until the holiday season – a time when everyone wants to be more generous than their bank accounts will allow, making the promise of easy cash more appealing. It sounds like winning the truck driving lottery, and in a lot of ways, your odds are about the same.
Don’t be fooled.
When a company is offering a sign-on bonus, make sure to scrutinize the pay per mile or base pay. Consider this question — Is the pay per mile or base pay low? When you think of a bonus, you think of more money, right? Well, if the base pay is lower and they are promising a bonus, they might have lowered the pay per mile or base pay to compensate for the bonus. Simply put, the money that has been on the table, has always been on the table.
The wool over your eyes isn’t your stocking cap.
Now we can point fingers at trucking companies for pulling a bait and switch on drivers. When feeling the lure of a large sign-on bonus, be sure to ask about all of the pay details. Some companies have been known to offer a sign-on bonus paid out over a certain amount of time, but during that time, the driver hasn’t been with the company long enough to earn retention pay or some other seemingly small amount. The trouble is, those little amounts add up to big money over time, especially when we’re talking about pennies on the mile. It comes down to you’re making the same amount you would be, but a “bonus” sounds nicer.
Uncle Sam likes bonuses too.
Be sure to ask how this bonus is going to be taxed. Most often, bonuses are taxed at a much higher percentage than income, so whatever you think you’re getting, a bigger chunk won’t be going to the bank with you.
Don’t have a nightmare before Christmas.
Even Old Scrooge had to have a rough night of asking himself some deep questions before he realized money isn’t everything. If you’re looking to make a jump for a sign-on bonus, ask yourself why. What’s pulling you away from your current job? Is it going to be any better at the other company when the bonus has dried up?
Honestly, it comes down to a company’s culture. If those bonus offering companies are a good place to be, why do they have to bribe drivers to join them? That’s not the case with Dynamic Transit. Contact our recruiters for more information today.