I guess it is better than nothing, but $1,200 is like is like gold sticker level for people in those tiers (at least I hope so).
One year we got $300 (or less...) bonuses. It was just how the math of this complicated system worked out.
A lot of feedback was given about that program and it wasn't positive. They came back to a few of us asking us to elaborate. I told them "I once got a $300 bonus working at Little Caesars (American pizza chain) for selling the most crazy bread in a month."
They finally got the hint and canceled the entire thing, it was better not to have it at all IMO, more demoralizing having it around. $300 is better than nothing, except when it sends the wrong message.
In truth, a base pay + bonus structure that is commensurate with the outcomes the company desires is the best solution.
Leaders shouldn't trust folks who go into HR to come up with these.
The times we hit two or three pay checks were great.
There's plenty of firms that run at a loss from time to time but don't immediately cut jobs or pay.
My current position is merit-based - over the year you have several goals you set with your manager like learning something new and presenting it to the team, attending a trade conference, etc. Yearly bonus is x% of around $15k, and that % is based on how many of those goals you accomplished.
Both systems feel tangible, and the rewards feel like they’re worth it. The former being completely without any requirement was really nice, and also I don’t mind having self-improvement and professional learning goals to work towards for a sizable bonus.
Strangely, that somehow seems more valuable.
From a purely logical, objective measure, this is good - these engineers received extra compensation. But I think most people saw it as a huge slap in the face. Probably hundreds of hours of extra work compensated by an "atta-boy" and a gift card worth a few coffees and scones; in exchange, the owners of the company reaped huge monetary rewards.
I worked at a company where HR had too many people coming up with complicated reward schemes, but not enough money to make them worthwhile. Same thing: Reward levels were $100 here, $200 there, and required a relatively large amount of work to get.
The weirdest thing was watching a subset of people pursue these small rewards so aggressively that their primary work started to fall behind. Some people would be grinding away at the next step to win a $100 reward while neglecting real work that others were depending on.
Good lesson in how weird incentives can be for some people.
Her dad taught a business class at a local college and for years thereafter used it as an example of how giving a small amount of money can be worse than doing nothing at all.
I wish more companies realized this.
It's a lot better to just not dangle rewards if you don't make it worth their while.
A day off or a healthy bonuses is a lot cheaper than screwing up the morale of a team or person which results in them leaving or cutting productivity because they know your 'carrots' aren't worth it.
IBM was actually a terrible job. Upper management consistently shits on the workers for “not being agile enough”, but the walls they put up for you to change anything are impossible to climb. It was constant finger pointing and generally bad morale. Do not recommend.
Out of curiosity I once did a small amount of "research" on different car sales payment plans and the commission for selling a car was much lower than I had imagined. In that industry I would imagine that the benefits of base salary level end after onboarding, and begin to have a negative correlation with their performance afterward.