Bonuses and retention schemes are a staple of employment packages. But are they actually doing what you think they’re doing?
That was the question Andrew Magowan and Zoë Blakemore put to a room of Fractional HR Directors at People Puzzles, TLD’s HR consultancy partners, in a session exploring why so many incentive schemes fail and what to do instead.
Their central argument: incentives are behavioural mechanisms, not reward mechanisms. Understanding that distinction changes how you design them.
The session covered the most common ways incentives backfire (from disengaged “hostages” to gaming the system), the risks embedded in schemes focused on sales, retention, productivity, culture and alignment, and six design principles to build schemes that hold up in the real world.
The headline takeaway – and the one worth remembering above all others – is this: if you can’t easily explain it, don’t do it.
Download the one-pager below, or get in touch with Andrew or Zoë to talk through what it means for your business.
