Restructure delays Laing O'Rourke employee bonus

Angry Laing O'Rourke employees won't receive their discretionary 2007/08 bonus for up to three months as the company digests a large-scale shake-up of its UK and European operations, CJ has learned.

Chief operating officer Tony Douglas told staff in an internal email in December 2007 that the bonus would be paid in June 2008.

But when staff went online last week to check their payslips in advance of payment no bonus had appeared. "There was a furore when people went online last week and realised no bonus was in their wage slips," a source said.

A Laing O'Rourke spokesman blamed a restructure of the business and changes in accounting procedures for the delay, while the registered office of the Laing O'Rourke corporation will now be in Cyprus.

The bonus is now expected in September, once company accounts are signed off in "late summer".

A company spokesman said: "This does slip a couple of months from the commitment made by Tony Douglas, but we have been focused on getting the report and accounts finished. People have been briefed about this by their line managers, and they are aware that there is some slippage."

But a source claimed that many staff were still unaware of the latest hold-up in payment.

The latest delay came after Laing O'Rourke pushed back its incentive plan, originally expected in October 2007, to 2008.

Douglas decided that the incentive scheme came too late in the year to launch it in 2007.

"It's inappropriate to apply the scheme to a year that we are nearly three-quarters of the way through. The details of the new plan will now be communicated in 2008," his email said.