What is the difference between salary and salary? What are the pros and cons of working without salary, for only a percentage of sales? Working without salary: pros and cons

Income from 50 thousand rubles is interesting. A flexible schedule is tempting. Company-sponsored training is even better! Is salary a percentage of the deal? Add to cart! Let's find out whether it is actually possible to work and earn a decent salary without a fixed salary?

There are many vacancies, few requirements, almost no applicants

According to Maria Silina, head of the Department of Personnel Recruitment for the FMCG Market, the scheme in which wages are paid in the form of bonuses is primarily characteristic of the consulting and sales sector.

“The bonus scheme is usually used where it is easy to calculate the bonus payment, where it is clearly visible and understandable what kind of money an employee brings to the company, and taking this indicator into account, his bonus is formed,” the expert comments.

Irina Kulikova, director of the Adecco Group Russia branch in St. Petersburg, believes that most often direct sales agents, insurance agents, sales managers in FMCG companies, sales managers of financial products in retail and cellular networks, and also to agents selling Internet services.

The eternal dispute between salary and interest

Employees perceive salary as an obligation of the employer to provide the employee with at least a minimum income. Every person strives for stability and wants to be sure that, regardless of the season, market downturn or sales volume, he can “pay his bills.”

At the same time, employers mean by salary the employee’s obligation to repay the investments made in him. Companies do not want to risk money and keep ineffective employees on staff. Who needs salespeople who sell their time in the office for a salary? “A manager who cannot provide himself with a living wage with his sales is a bad manager,” employers are confident.

And although the debate continues, there has long been a stereotype in the labor market that an employee who knows his worth will never come to work for “bare” interest. Meanwhile, working without salary has its advantages...

Heavy salary burden

But even with all the ease of employment and tempting conditions, there are almost no people willing to work for a “pure” percentage. Not everyone knows that piecework wages have a number of undeniable advantages compared to a fixed salary.

Almost your own business. Working without fixes can be considered your own business, which many people dream of. You no longer need to obey anyone or report to anyone - you draw up a work plan yourself and control its implementation yourself. No reprimands or demands from management. In fact, you are your own entrepreneur, but you don’t have to think about how to pay rent or how to submit tax reports in time.

Free schedule. Very often, work without a fix implies a free schedule, the very opportunity to belong to yourself and manage time at your own discretion. Is it convenient to start the working day at 11:00 and end at 17:00? Please!

Unlimited income. With a fixed salary, you always receive the same amount, regardless of your performance. When working for interest, income is usually limited only by your skills and ability to work.

“With this remuneration scheme, wages directly depend on the employee’s performance. If he is effective, then he is given the opportunity to receive much more than the fixed rate. At the same time, as a rule, the bonus system does not limit the size of the bonus that an employee can receive,” comments Maria Silina.

A small salary in hand is better than large percentages in words

- Lack of permanent income that would cover mandatory expenses for housing, food, clothing.

“The bonus payment system is not very convenient for those employees who have a loan or other personal circumstances that require a guaranteed stable income, since you can earn a lot in one month and be left with nothing the next,” notes Marina Silina.

- Lack of cash savings that would allow you to exist “painlessly” during the not very fruitful initial stage. Typically, this period lasts from six months to a year.

— Fraud in interest payments. Unfortunately, there are often cases when only numbers are announced at an interview, and if the plan is significantly exceeded, the owner begins to be greedy and arbitrarily cut interest.

“A bonus salary is not a fixed salary, and there is always some possibility that the employer may not pay it (even if the employee completes the work). Therefore, the fears that a job seeker has regarding a new employer offering such working conditions are completely justified,” comments Marina Silina.

Who benefits from interest?

“For professional specialists and working personnel - those who work in a 100% employment mode - such a system is less interesting,” says Natalya Belashova, head of the permanent staff recruitment and personnel consulting department of AVANTA Personnel, a branch of Adecco Group Russia in St. Petersburg. “Since the workload of such specialists is fixed and their work schedule is predetermined, they value the stability of a fixed salary, which is guaranteed and not tied to performance.”

Of course, as many people as there are, so many opinions, and the attitude towards the saying about the tit and the crane has always been and will remain twofold. Some people find it easier to work and know that at the end of the month a guaranteed (albeit not incredibly large) amount will be credited to their card. And some are ready to give up stability for the sake of tempting prospects and mountains of gold, even at the risk of sometimes ending up broke. Is there any point in trying? It's up to you to decide.

I recently got a job. The employer promised that the salary was clear and came immediately to the card. But my employment contract states that my salary is much lower than what they promised to pay.

The accounting department explained that their salaries for all employees are divided into salary and bonuses, but still all this is legal and is considered a white salary. I understand that in case of any problems with the employer, I can only receive a salary. But what other risks are there when paying for labor in this way? What does the employer gain from such calculations and how does this affect the employee? How to check whether the employer pays all required payments and how much is this done?

Maria, if the bonus is paid to you officially, then the employer does not gain anything from it: he is still obliged to pay all taxes and mandatory contributions for you. You, as an employee, also do not lose anything and do not bear any additional risks.

Svetlana Golitsina

If the bonus is paid “in an envelope,” then you risk at some point receiving only a salary. There are additional risks associated

How to understand that the award is official

The bonus is considered official if the employer transfers the bonus amount to the card by bank transfer and reflects this amount on the payslip as part of the salary. To make sure you are receiving an official bonus, look at your payslip.

The employer is required to issue this document to the employee every time he pays wages. A payslip can be sent to an employee by email if this is stated in the employment contract or in the salary regulations. If they do not give you a payslip, ask the accounting department to prepare it for you personally.

How to understand that the award is gray

If you receive some money from your employer “in an envelope,” this is an unofficial part of your salary. If you are given a bonus at work in this way, it means that it is paid unofficially. Unscrupulous employers use this scheme to avoid paying taxes and contributions.

These are risks for you. You will not be able to recover such a gray bonus through the court in case of disagreement with the employer. We wrote more about why you shouldn’t agree to work for a mediocre salary in the article

Why even divide wages into salary and bonus?

This scheme allows you to pay an employee only a salary if the employer for some reason is not satisfied with the result of the subordinate’s work in a particular month.

Salary is the amount that the employee will receive in any case. A bonus is a variable part of the salary; it is paid for achieving certain results.

If you have to go to court

Bonus rules are usually spelled out in the company’s internal documents: in a collective agreement, regulations on bonuses or wages. Look at these documents to find out what the company usually pays bonuses for, in what amount and within what time frame.

If a conflict suddenly arises, the employer will only pay you your salary, and you go to court for your bonus, then the judge will evaluate all these documents: the collective agreement, the regulations on bonuses and wages, as well as your employment contract.

In order for the plaintiff to be able to recover the bonus through the court, the bonus clause must contain a line stating that the bonus in your company is a mandatory salary supplement.

Another situation is also possible: the bonus regulations do not stipulate anything about the mandatory payment of bonuses, but the employer still pays the same amount of bonus every month. This means that the bonus does not depend on your performance and is actually a salary. Therefore, if the employer suddenly stops paying such a bonus, you can recover it through the court. To do this, ask your employer for pay slips every month for the entire period of work, so that you can then prove the systematic nature of bonus payments.

I recommend that you familiarize yourself with the company’s internal documents: the collective agreement, regulations on bonuses or wages. If these documents are not available or the procedure for calculating the premium is not defined in them, then you most likely will not be able to obtain the amount of the premium even through the court.

How to check if an employer pays taxes

The taxes paid are reflected in your 2-NDFL certificate, in section 5 - “Total amounts of income and tax.” You can order this certificate from the accounting department or the tax office through your personal account on the website nalog.ru.

The employer is obliged, upon a written request from the employee, to issue him a 2-NDFL certificate within three working days. The certificate indicates the amount on which the employer pays tax. In your case, the amount of salary + bonus and the amount of tax transferred should be indicated there.

For example: if an employee has a salary of 10,000 rubles and a bonus of 25,000 rubles, then the employer is obliged to transfer personal income tax on the entire amount - 13% of 35,000 rubles, a total of 4,550 rubles. Insurance premiums are calculated on the same 35,000 rubles.

Information can also be obtained via the Internet.

Register on the tax website. To do this, you need to go to any inspection office with your passport and get a login with a password. You can log in through government services.

Go to your personal account, open the “Income tax and insurance premiums” section, select “Information about certificates” according to form 2-NDFL.”

Certificates can be viewed or uploaded with an electronic signature.

Insurance premiums can be checked there

Go to your personal account, open the “Personal income tax and insurance premiums” section, select “Information on the amounts of insurance premiums for compulsory pension insurance accrued by the employer”, after which information on insurance premiums for the last two years will appear on the website.

Information about the status of the insured person’s individual personal account can also be obtained electronically through the policyholder’s personal account on the pension fund website es.pfrf.ru. Go to your personal account, in the “Citizens” section, subsection “Individual personal account”, select “Order a certificate on the status of an individual personal account”.

If you have a question about personal finance, luxury purchases or family budgeting, write to: [email protected]. We will answer the most interesting questions in the magazine.

Is it possible to leave employees without a fixed salary, forming their income only from a percentage of sales?

Each employer stimulates employee productivity in its own way. One of the most effective methods today is to increase your salary with a percentage of sales. Such methods are used mainly by those whose activities are directly related to the sale of goods or services. That is, in this case, any employee has the right to count on an increase in income proportional to his contribution to the total revenue of the enterprise. But is it possible to leave employees without a fixed part of their salary at all? What does the current legislation provide for in this regard?

To correctly maintain personnel records, payroll calculations, sick leave, vacation pay, generate time sheets and other procedures related to employee salaries, you can use the convenient and functional program "Bukhsoft: Salaries and Personnel".

Pay systems

Today, the Labor Code completely relies on the employers themselves and the remuneration systems operating in organizations to set wages. All existing options can be divided into three groups:

• time-based, that is, fixed payment for a certain period worked;
• piecework, that is, payment for a certain output;
• commission, which is a fixed percentage of sales.

In fact, nothing prevents the employer from leaving employees without salary, on “bare” percentages. However, there are several significant “buts”.

Arguments against

It must be said that the Labor Code does not necessarily prohibit employers from transferring teams of their enterprises or individual employees to commission wages. Existing circumstances will do this for him. So, why is it unprofitable to leave the team without a salary portion of their monthly earnings?

Requirement for monthly salary: it must not be lower than the established minimum wage. This, by the way, is also stated in the Labor Code.

True, it stipulates that the minimum required by law should be received by employees who have worked the full working hours in a month and fulfilled their job duties.

For those who work on percentages, it’s their job responsibilities or labor standards that need to be discussed separately. All such norms are of two types:

• production standards relevant for calculating piecework payments;
• service standards that determine the amount of commission.

If your earnings are less than the minimum wage?

If an employee, working for interest and fulfilling his job duties, managed to earn an amount less than one minimum wage, which this year is 5,965 rubles, the employer is obliged to pay extra.

Let us explain: in the Labor Code this rule is spelled out in Article 133, which clearly states that before the minimum wage, the employer is obliged to pay extra from his own funds to an employee who has honestly worked his limit.

Payment of compensation

It is also the employer's responsibility to pay compensation to its employees. Usually in such cases, all amounts are calculated from the average salary of the employee, or, more simply, from his salary. In order to calculate the arithmetic average of non-fixed payments, it will take many times more time and effort. And each time the compensation amounts may differ significantly from the previous ones.

The crisis in the country is forcing many employers to tighten their belts. A serious decline in profits forces employees to cut staff or reduce wages. And the last option is the most preferable for managers. Let's consider when you can legally and without consequences go for it.

Salary components

To deal with this, and thereby reduce wages, you need to understand what it consists of. Which parts are fixed and which can change.

The Labor Code states that wages can have the following components:

• payment for the performance of official duties (the size of this part depends on the level of qualifications and working conditions: its severity, volume of work and its quality);
• compensation;
• incentive part (this also includes bonuses).

Labor legislation not only defines the concept of salary and tariff rates, but also emphasizes that their size must be fixed. But incentive payments are necessary to stimulate employees. This means they are not permanent.

Ultimately, to answer the question, can an employer reduce salary, we will start from the fact that the salary consists of a fixed and variable part:

Salary information

The Labor Code (Article 57) obliges the employer, when hiring a person, to indicate salary information in the employment agreement. It contains data on salary, possible additional payments, incentives and allowances.

Information on the procedure for certain payments at the organization level can also be secured through special internal documents. They may have a bonus provision.

It depends on what rules are enshrined in these two documents. Does an employer have the right to reduce an employee’s salary?.

Reducing the amount of variable payments

Undoubtedly, the employer is obliged to pay employees their official salaries. Can he deprive his employee of all or part of his bonus? It all depends on what is written in the employment contract (see table).

Change of bonus regulations

The employer may not have a local bonus document. In this case, you can change or cancel the internal rules at your discretion. This right also applies to the provisions on bonuses. It is enough for the head of the organization to draw up an appropriate order. Employees must be familiarized with all changes made: ask them to mark this.

Please note: in an organization that has a trade union cell, such changes, including salary reduction at the initiative of the employer, will be previously agreed upon with its members.

How to reduce the fixed part of your salary

An even more difficult situation arises when an organization wants to reduce the fixed component of the salary.

An important nuance: the employer cannot unilaterally change the terms of the employment contract. He needs to get the employee's consent, and most of them will not do this.

There is only one reason when it is not necessary to obtain consent from the employee. It is spelled out in Article 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation. This basis is that working conditions have changed due to technological or organizational innovations. B to figure it out how to reduce an employee's salary legally in this case, one must first understand when such grounds operate.

Read also Vacation for a fixed-term employment contract

Technological and organizational innovations

There is no clear list of changes of this kind in the Labor Code. Article 74 names only a number of situations when the employer has the right to unilaterally change the employment contract. The most common situations include the following:

• the technologies used in production have changed or new ones have been introduced;
• there was a change in technology;
• there was a change in the structure of the enterprise (including management);
• workplaces are improved through their special assessment;
• use of other forms of work organization;
• change in workload between departments.

Please note: Only those changes that imply the impossibility of leaving the employee’s working conditions the same can be used as a basis for making amendments to the employment contract. If necessary, the employer will have to defend his point of view in court.

EXAMPLE 1
A drop in sales is not a compelling argument for reducing salaries, since it is not related to technological or organizational changes.

What situations allow you to do salary reduction at the initiative of the employer legally?

EXAMPLE 2
The manager relieves some of the responsibilities from his employees. This situation occurs when one of the areas of the enterprise is curtailed. As a result, some of the responsibilities will become irrelevant. Consequently, the terms of previously concluded employment contracts cannot be left unchanged.
All this becomes the basis for making adjustments, due to which it may occur downward change in wages for a number of employees.

Keep in mind: If an employer, when making changes to an employment contract, refers to Article 74 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, then he does not have the right to change the labor function of his employees. This means that the head of the organization cannot unilaterally assign a different position!

How to make changes to an employment contract

If the head of an organization considers it necessary to make changes to employment contracts with employees on the basis of legislation, then he must act in the following order:

1. It is necessary to indicate any changes in working conditions in the appropriate document. If there is a cessation of work in any direction, then an order to close it is issued.
2. Next, you should draw up and issue an order containing information about salary reduction at the initiative of the employer indicating the effective date of these changes.
3. At least two months before the order comes into force, the employer must notify in writing about changes in wages downwards all those employees who will be affected by this change.
4. If employees agree to work for a new reduced salary, an additional agreement is drawn up, which reflects the changes that have arisen.

Salary is the amount of monetary remuneration that is initially offered to the employee upon hiring and is necessary to calculate the final amount. The salary is fixed in the employment contract of the new employee, as well as in the order upon hiring. This indicator is the basis for further calculation of other indicators.

Salary is the amount of monetary remuneration that is given to the employee “in hand” after taking into account all allowances and deductions. When calculating salaries, the salary amount is used. Various bonuses and premiums are added to it, for example, for good fruitful work (these payments are variable, since they may or may not be, depending on the results achieved, established by the organization itself); various additional payments for work in the evening, at night, on holidays and weekends; compensation, for example, “for harmfulness” at work. Also, the employer himself, at his discretion, can pay extra for length of service, combining several positions, and frequent business trips. In addition, there are northern and regional coefficients for those workers who work in the Far North and similar areas. On the other hand, personal income tax, various deductions for property damage, and more are deducted from the salary amount.

Differences between salary and salary

What is the difference between salary and salary? The most important difference between them is the calculation of one indicator based on the other. That is, there is a basic salary for each specific position according to the staffing table, and the salary is calculated based on this indicator and all allowances, as well as deductions that are regulated by law in Russia.

The salary amount is immediately recorded in the documents as soon as a person gets a job, the salary is calculated after a month of work in the organization (or another previously agreed period), or upon dismissal.

The salary amount is fixed and is reflected in the organization’s staffing table. Salary is calculated based on the salary amount. On the other hand, wages do not affect the size of the salary in any way.

Thus, salary is a reward for work. But, salary is a constant and fixed value, and salary is variable and depends on many factors: qualifications, work experience, working conditions, quality of work, and so on. Sometimes the amount of the salary and the amount of the salary are the same, but in most cases the salary is only part of the salary (sometimes ½ of the salary or even less).