Standard Group staff to get annual bonus

Standard Group employees will this year get an annual bonus ahead of the Christmas break after they hit their revenue target by November.

The media house has returned a profit of Ksh 600 million, which is a major leap from last year’s performance when it registered a loss of 
Ksh 282 million for the year ended December 2017 compared to a profit of Ksh 262 million posted in a similar period in 2016.

The media house had issued a profit warning blaming the depressed revenues on heated politics that had a negative impact on the economy both in terms of volumes of businesses transacted and shrinkage of cash in circulation thereby affecting its revenues and cash flows significantly. 

We could not immediately establish how much the employees will get as bonus but it will be a major change of fortunes at a time media houses are restructuring to cut costs due to decreasing ad and sales revenue.

At Nation Media Group, where employees a bonus equivalent to three-months salary, there was disquiet in June when the management opted to only reward staffers from the digital department after they returned an income increase of 42%, registering the highest growth in the group during the year. Senior executive editors were also handsomely rewarded.

Previously, the bonus used to be issued every first quarter of the year but this has not materialised in recent years as the media house has not been performing well due to various factors including reduced ad and print sales revenue as well as the impact of the migration from analogue to digital broadcasting.