Many years ago I managed a small company that gave out bonuses. It was miserable for the most part. People did come to rely on those bonuses as if they were actual pay.

I worked with the owner to develop a system where if the quarterly bonus was over a specific amount 6 quarters in a row we translated that into a pay raise for everyone and that would effectively remove/lower the bonus but give the employees more stability. It has been a lot of years since I have been there, but the last I heard the bonuses were very small but the avg. pay was nearly 2x over any other company in the same industry. Turnover is near zero and the number of people waiting to get a job there was significant.