Bonuses
Bonuses are one off payments that you can earn in addition to your salary. Usually they are linked to the performance/profits of the company. Some companies offer 'guaranteed bonuses' annually whilst others may award them depending on your performance. Christmas time is when it has become common for bonuses to be paid.

Share Options
After you have been with a company for a while you may be offered the chance to buy shares at a preferential rate. By owning a share in the company employers hope that you will take a more personal interest in its performance. If the company is profitable and doing well then your shares will be worth more should you choose to sell them. Shares in large firms also yield an annual dividend, the sum of which depends upon how many shares you hold and the net profit of the company.

Sometimes there are restrictions placed upon when you can sell the shares. For example you might be given 100 shares a year, but can only sell 20 of these per year over a five-year period.

Some new internet startup firms offer new employers to have a chunk of their salary paid in the form of shares, for example a job may pay a salary of £20,000 but you may be offered £17,000 and £3000 pounds worth of shares at the current value. Employers should be wary of this arrangement, because as quickly as share values can increase…they can also go down.

Commission
If you are working in sales, you may be paid commission on top of your basic salary. Basically this means that for every sale you make you take a percentage of the profit. For example you may be expected to sell "£5,000 pounds worth of advertising space a month but for every £500 you sell over that target you will receive 10% back as commission.

Companies obviously use this as an incentive for sales people to sell more…but naturally, as your commission takings go up then so will your targets!