HYXA / Insights
Commissions and bonuses that do not wreck the team
A badly designed bonus teaches people exactly the wrong thing — and they learn fast.
Write it down once, and stop explaining it forever.
If the bonus rewards turnover, you will get turnover with no margin. If it rewards new customers only, nobody will look after the old ones.
Rules that work
- Pay for what you actually want: margin, repeat orders, collected payments — not raw revenue.
- Make it calculable on the back of an envelope. If people cannot work it out, it does not motivate.
- Pay it soon. A bonus in March for work in November is a thank-you note, not an incentive.
- Include the people who do not sell but make selling possible. Otherwise you split the company in two.
And one uncomfortable rule
A commission system will not fix a manager nobody trusts. Fix that first, or you are just paying more for the same result.
We design these systems together with delegation rules — who decides what — because money without authority creates frustration, not motivation.