Rewarding results over entitlement is the cornerstone of a high-performance team.

I made an excuse not to adopt a performance bonus pay plan for years. There was no good reason for this thinking. I assumed bonuses were clunky to execute and typically rewarded the wrong behaviors.

It's a poor assumption since I've been in sales my whole career and see the impact of the right and wrong incentives.

That's until I tried everything to get an operational KPI to improve, but it never did.

For years, one of my teams understood the KPI and acknowledged its criticality, but the KPI rarely improved as time passed. People were doing their job, but nothing extraordinary happened until a bonus was attached to their core KPI.

Then, and only then, were people concerned about better results.

Does this make it right? No, it should have been improved regardless, but it's also human behavior, and sometimes, we need an incentive to push us in the right direction.

Once I discovered that bonuses can reward superior results, not just doing the "job," my belief system changed.

Performance bonus pay is not an employee entitlement program.

You wouldn't give a pilot a bonus for just starting the aircraft, would you?

Well, the same goes for your team. Bonuses are to drive performance above and beyond the job description. Salary is what you hire people to do; the bonus is an incentive to go over and beyond the status quo.

Switch the narrative.

Bonuses develop a culture of meritocracy and performance.

Make bonuses the reward for superior results.

It's not to pay people more for just doing their job, which I hope you pay fairly and have a good benefits package. A sound bonus system develops a culture of meritocracy, encouraging everyone to soar to their highest potential.

It's not about titles or hierarchy. It's about results!

In the book Less Is More, Jason Jennings writes about group-based compensation's power.

He believed the most productive companies use this form of compensation to enforce a particular culture—or in our case, a core Standard. It also serves as a screening mechanism for who does and does not belong on a team.

"Yet at highly productive companies, everyone clearly understands the connection between working harder, doing it smarter, producing more and their next paycheck."

Bonuses enhance employee motivation and engagement through results-based rewards.

By tying performance bonus pay, you spark an energy of motivation in your team that is a powerful incentive to focus on the right things.

There's no shortage of distraction in the world, and your meaningful KPIs often get neglected unless there's a good reminder of what's most important—a bonus.

Bonuses strengthen organizational performance by aligning team efforts with critical business objectives.

Bonuses also serve as a reward for employees who go above and beyond in their work.

This type of recognition is a great motivator and serves as an incentive for employees to stay with the company and remain focused on what matters the most.

If you think a bonus system will help you improve your results, I have the systems, procedures, and scorecards we can build into your organization.

First, join The Optimized Report and reply to one of the emails once you're ready to schedule a 20-minute build a better business exploratory call.