Vanderbilt University, for instance, gave an end-of-year bonus to nearly all staffers campus-wide for the first time. And also for the first time, Nashville-based NovaCopy didn't hand out holiday checks.
"Instead of giving out bonuses, we focused on not cutting jobs," said Jason Levkulich, director of marketing at NovaCopy Inc., a copier and document solutions company that usually gives bonuses to its 112 employees in Nashville and two other locations.
At the West End campus, though, after a year of budget cuts and no pay raises, Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos ordered bonuses to thank the Vanderbilt staff.
"The senior management team decided that it had been an extremely challenging year, and the chancellor very much wanted to give a thank-you to those who helped pull together to help weather the storm," said Beth Fortune, vice chancellor for public affairs.
Even national surveys have had trouble deciding if bonuses are staging a comeback or becoming extinct in a year in which various economic indicators, from jobless claims to consumer confidence, also have sent out mixed signals.
Two recent business surveys show that most companies will behave like Scrooge this year.
Just one-fourth of employers are offering holiday bonuses, a record low and a significant drop from 42 percent in 2008, according to Hewitt Associates, a human resources consulting firm.
Among small business owners, a separate American Express survey found that 31 percent are giving holiday bonuses, compared with 44 percent last year.
But a third survey suggests that holiday bonuses are returning, despite companies keeping a close watch on overall costs. That poll found 64 percent of employers will give bonuses, compared with 54 percent last year, said Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a global outplacement firm that did the report.
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