Discussion:Bonus plan for office staff

I believe if I carefully crafted a bonus or reward plan for the office staff I could improve their performance, efficiency, and motivate them to work harder.

Does anyone have (or ever had) a bonus or reward plan implemented in their firm for office staff? Did the plan improve performance and motivate staff?

Any feedback would be helpful.....

Thanks, Amy

For instance, if you want to encourage your front to turn cold callers into appointments, pay for each appointment that shows up (including current clients). They will figure out how the dentist does it and the behavior will be reinforced.

Got to love Pavlov's dog.

Pavlov taught not only positive reinforcment, but negative dis-enforcement.

So, I would recommend that you put in place, through the use off-the shelf-technology available on the internet, a system where you can shock these workers into better compliance with...well, read the book below.

Here's a book on it, and there are many others: " Building Social Behavior in Autistic Children by Use of Electric Shock" http://www.neurodiversity.com/library_lovaas_1965.html Journal of Experimental Research in Personality, 1, 99-105 (1965) O. Ivar Lovaas, Benson Schaeffer, James Q. Simmons

So, you can reward them with money for good behavior, and under your new office "Guantanamo Plan" you can give them a "Shock 'a Kahn" if they do bad. Make sure to bury in your hiring manual that all new employees consent to this, and have your lawyer look it over.

You also have to give your front office staff the tools to do the job. A lot of times, they get the old stapler that doesn't work. The chair that's lost it's stuffing. The 1995 Yellow Pages, and the phones that cut out when you move. Without the proper tools, your staff cannot do the job.

Finally, you have to enable your staff to make decisions on the spot, and not wait to hear from the head honcho.

One time, I had a group of Gork tourists walk into my office by mistake while I was at lunch. Gork is a mountain village in Aberbejan. Not one of them had earned a dime in the U.S., nor did they have any legal requirement to file a US return.

However, my fast thinking front office girl encouraged them to believe they had to obtain a return to leave the country, and it was required to be stamped at the airport. So, I started the tax season with 10 $400 returns from a group of Gorks ($4,000.00), and the Gorks had something to brag about, and had them framed when they get home. (one of them even owed something, and I don't know how that happened).

P.S. [The Gorks were responsible for mailing their returns in to the IRS when they got home, but there is no post office in their village].

PS....you can add to all this with some other things & make this a billable engagement for many of your biz clients or the employers of your 1040 clients. Pretty soon, you have a "side biz" of management consulting engagements after April 15th. There's a WHOLE lot more to this whole management consulting gameplan for your slow times.

I currently work full time for one of the world's largest companies and I am on a bonus plan....the name of it isn't important, mainly because I cannot remember what they called it. When my old company was bought out, there was a blurb in the offer letter for my existing job about being on some sort of a bonus plan.

We have never established any performance goals for us personally (for personal development or bonus schedules)....hiding well enough that they can't find me to notify me that my job has been shipped to India would be high on my list of personal accomplishments. That and successfully repelling the attempted abduction of my red stapler was masterful. I jest but we have absolutely no idea what basis the bonus will be paid upon.

We were told we weren't getting a bonus this year yet one ultimately showed up--albeit small. I have zero idea what I can do to make the bonus bigger, short of embezzling money from the company. It also created an air of discontent as everyone looked around wondering which pets got the higher bonuses. Fail all the way around.

I would suggest a split bonus with two schedules. A fixed amount that covers the mundane tasks--let's face it there is only so much gusto someone can employ while filing and answering phones. The second part being a variable schedule based on whatever criteria you find most important--say accurate data entry that helps you avoid bypass surgery during the most stressful part of the year. Reward AND motivation to achieve....best of both worlds.

BrockEA