Implement an effective bonus plan that will keep your team engaged and kick sales up a notch, with tips from the Inc.com article “How to Motivate With Bonuses.” A bonus plan done the right way can make your team excel, but done the wrong way, it can actually lead to employees becoming discouraged and dissatisfied. Follow these rules to ensure that you get the results you’re aiming for:

1. Keep the plan simple. If the plan is too complicated, employees won’t be sure of the precise objective they’re trying to meet or the best way to proceed in doing so. You should be able to express the plan in a single, short sentence like: “You’ll get an extra $100 if you beat quota by 5 percent this month.”
2. Make the goals realistic. The goal must be directly connected to each employee’s individual contributions, and it must be attainable. You certainly want to make the goal a challenge, and don’t want to reward employees for mediocre performance, but setting a goal out of reach will only lead to discouragement, completely defeating the purpose. A good solution is to keep goals attainable, but always have a higher level of reward so there’s always something to shoot for.
3. Don’t change the rules midstream. Even if there’s good reason for an adjustment, if you changing the rules right before employees receive a reward, they’ll assume you’re being cheap. If you make such an error, your bonus plan will never regain its credibility.
4. Pay the bonus promptly. Paying the bonus months, or even weeks, down the road weakens the emotional impact. Paying the bonus promptly, and perhaps in cold hard cash, establishes an emotional connection between behavior and reward and will help inspire employees to imitate the actions that led to the reward.

Click here to read the article from Inc.com.