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Bonus Pay Non-Negotiables: Three principles for designing a bonus program
Explore three core principles of bonuses and variable compensation that will help you design — or redesign — your company’s bonus program.
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Mercer Says Promotions Hit a Multi-Year Low. The Bonus Is the Only Progress Signal You Have Left.
Mercer’s 2027 survey shows merit near inflation and promotions at a multi-year low — the two ways companies used to tell people they’re progressing, both rationed at once. That leaves the annual bonus as the only signal of progress you have left, if you design it to carry that weight.
6–8 minutes -
Meridian Says the Strongest Incentive Plans Measure What Matters, Not Everything. Most Bonus Plans Measure Too Much.
Meridian’s Executive Compensation Podcast urged boards to measure what matters, not everything, and never to reward activity in place of value. Employee bonus plans need that discipline even more. Here is how to cut a bloated scorecard down to the few outcomes that actually move your business.
5–8 minutes -
2026 Executive Pay Practices: Caution or Drift?
Pearl Meyer’s 2026 survey finds companies taking a measured approach to incentive design — few changes, restrained discretion. For a board-level plan that’s prudent. For an employee bonus, leaving the plan alone in an uncertain year isn’t caution. It’s drift, and drift is how line of sight quietly dies.
5–8 minutes -
Name What Your Bonus Plan Actually Does. Then Don’t Accept That It Can’t Be an Incentive.
WorldatWork argues the annual bonus isn’t really an incentive, so design for what it actually does. Naming the job is the right first move. Concluding it can’t be an incentive is the wrong second one.
5–8 minutes -
WTW Asks Whether Executive Incentive Plans Stay Credible When Conditions Shift. For an Employee Bonus, That’s the Only Test That Matters.
WTW frames 2026’s design challenge as whether an incentive plan stays credible, explainable, and resilient when conditions shift. For the employee bonus plan, that isn’t a governance nicety — it’s the whole job.
4–7 minutes -
Pay Transparency Is Solving the Salary Range. It’s Leaving Your Bonus a Black Box.
The pay-transparency wave is all about the salary range. But the part of pay employees understand least is the bonus. Astron Solutions maps the 2026 disclosure laws; here’s why real transparency has to reach your variable pay.
5–7 minutes -
A Bonus That Pays People for Showing Up Isn’t an Incentive. It’s a Raise With Paperwork.
A large hourly-workforce bonus program launched this month pays partly on attendance. That choice reveals the most common design flaw in variable pay: mixing payment for the job with payment for performance above the job.
5–7 minutes -
Building an Effective Annual Incentive Plan: ROI Matters
A new report argues that ROI should drive annual incentive plan design. While this may be the right basis for the company’s funding decision — it’s the wrong perspective to use with employees. Let’s talk about it.
5–8 minutes -
Well-Built Short-Term Incentive Plans Aren’t Just for Executives
Funding discipline, line-of-sight, a real payout curve, and honest calibration shouldn’t be an exeutive privilege. These fundamentals are also the baseline every employee under a bonus plan deserves.
5–8 minutes -
Employees Believe What Your Bonus Plan Pays, Not What the Plan Document Says
Employee trust is based on what gets paid over what gets said. So when bonus plans promise “pay-for-performance” and everyone gets paid the same, trust erodes. Here’s how to close that gap.
5–7 minutes -
How to Reconcile the Impact of Tariffs on Bonus Plans
Tariffs broke a lot of bonus plans for 2025 and 2026. For employee bonus plans, discretion is the wrong tool — here is what to do instead.
5–8 minutes -
Benchmarking Tells You What to Pay. Transparency Tests Whether Your Bonus Plan Makes Sense.
Industry benchmarks for compensation are on the rise for both salary ranges and bonus targets. But are they working?
5–7 minutes