Verizon Wireless workers get bonuses

About 130 Spokane and North Idaho Verizon Wireless workers whistled their way home from work Friday. Nearly all scored sizeable bonuses as part of the company’s annual effort to boost morale and reward performance.

On average, those workers earned a bonus that averaged 10 percent of their annual salary, the company announced.

Roughly 100 of the workers work in Spokane; 30 work in North Idaho.

During a down economy, Verizon Wireless was not shy in calling attention to the annual “short term incentive,” as it labels the bonus.

“Not all companies are going through the same (hard times). There are bright spots out there,” company spokesman Scott Charlston said. “It’s not all doom and gloom.”

The company’s wireless workers in Spokane and North Idaho include sales staff, retail location workers, managers and technicians.

The bonuses are part of an annual incentive plan started in 2001. Verizon Wireless has offered bonuses every year since.

“The size of bonus depends on overall corporate performance for the year, plus individual evaluation by supervisors,” Charlston said.

Criteria used in evaluations vary with the individual jobs. But Charlston noted this is the first time the bonus was extended to sales workers. Until now sales people only earned salary and commission, he said.

Wireless companies are one sliver of light in an otherwise dim economic climate due to their ongoing sales growth, Charlston noted. Verizon Wireless has the most customers – 80 million, about 6 million more than closest rival AT&T.

And its revenue keeps growing as more phones send photos, videos and text messages, and run Web applications. Its customers continue to pay not just for voice plans but additional data plans to handle all the media they’re sharing or viewing on those phones.

Verizon Wireless grew even bigger in 2008, acquiring Midwest-based carrier Alltel Corp. Verizon Wireless paid $28.1 billion for Alltel and gained 2.1 million wireless subscribers in 22 states. To get government approval for that purchase, Verizon Wireless agreed to sell about $3 billion worth of spectrum licenses and other assets to its competitors.

One use Charlston has in mind for his bonus was education. One of his children will attend Washington State University this fall. He said, “So some of it will go into the WSU tuition fund.”