Ford Motor Co.’s salaried workforce will see their biggest bonuses in years when the company pays them out next month.
Ford’s white-collar workers will see bigger checks because the Dearborn-based company made substantial strides in meeting key metrics in 2025, especially on improving vehicle initial quality, meaning how good the car performs in the first 90 days of ownership.
This news comes a day after Ford reported its fourth-quarter and full-year adjusted earnings before interest and taxes plunged compared with the year-ago period, largely due to a fire at its key supplier of aluminum in New York, which disrupted Ford production of profitable pickups and SUVs. Also, Ford paid $2 billion added costs due to President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
On Feb. 11, during a global town hall, CEO Jim Farley told the salaried workforce that the company surpassed key goals in 2025. Therefore, bonuses for last year, which will be paid at the end of March, will be based on a multiplier of 130%, Ford spokesman David Tovar told the Detroit Free Press.
It’s a substantial bump from recent years. For 2024, for example, the multiplier was just 69% and for 2023 it was 84%, Tovar said.
Ford has a global salaried workforce of about 75,000 people. Its salaried bonuses are based on a set of specific metrics in key areas it must meet each year. Tovar listed a few as: adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, quality improvement, global electric vehicle sales and connected services sales.
If the company meets the metrics, the multiplier is 100%, if it exceeds them it is above 100% and if it falls short it is below 100%.
“This year is above target,” Tovar said. “The quality metric was one of the biggest factors in achieving it because it’s initial quality. We’ve been saying our initial quality scores have been improving.”
Ford’s push to improve quality
Ford has struggled with recalls and set an industry record last year with 153 recalls, but those are for older vehicles already on the road and as Farley told the Detroit Free Press last October, initial quality is a better indicator that quality is improving.
In June, the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Initial Quality Study, which looks at customers in their first 90 days of ownership, named Ford F-150, F-Series Super Duty, Mustang and Escape best in their segments for initial quality.
Ford CFO Sherry House told reporters on Feb. 10 last year the automaker had zero production losses during its vehicle launches due to defects.
The improvement will likely yield handsome rewards to Farley, too. His compensation is largely based on how well Ford performs and he hits company metrics set by the board of directors. For 2024, he saw his overall compensation drop to $25 million compared with $27 million in 2023, largely due to failing to meet quality improvement goals. Ford will reveal Farley’s 2025 compensation in a government filing due out next month.
How the formula works
The payments will vary based on job level and employee performance. But basically, the way the formula works is if a salaried employee meets their performance goals, their job level has a set bonus target — say it is 10% of their base salary. So if a person has an annual base salary of $100,000, they would multiply 10% of that salary by 130%, for a potential bonus check of $13,000.
The amounts could surpass what eligible UAW hourly workers will receive in profit-sharing checks to be paid on March 12. Ford said on Feb. 10 that 56,300 active hourly employees and another 1,490 employees who retired in 2025 may be eligible for checks up to $6,780, a steep decline compared with $10,208 for 2024 results.
Profit-sharing checks are not bonuses. They are a negotiated formula between Detroit automakers and the UAW in the union’s national agreement. The formula states that qualified employees get $1,000 per every $1 billion in annual earnings before interest and taxes, or pretax profits for North America. For 2025, Ford reported its North America pretax profit was $6.78 billion compared with $10.2 billion in 2024.
Crosstown rival General Motors released its fourth-quarter and 2025 financial results last month. Its eligible UAW workers could receive profit-sharing checks up to $10,500, the lowest in years.
GM’s salaried workforce could see dramatic cuts to their bonus checks paid out next month, too, due to the impact of tariffs and other factors that affected the company’s 2025 financial performance. The bonus percentage in GM’s formula that determines employees’ bonuses will be a multiplier of 114% ― a significant drop when compared with last year’s 144%.
Jamie L. LaReau is the senior autos writer who covers Ford Motor Co. for the Detroit Free Press. Contact Jamie at jlareau@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @jlareauan. To sign up for our autos newsletter. Become a subscriber.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ford CEO reveals salaried workforce bonus metric, highest in years
Reporting by Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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