day 358: Quarterly Bonuses

I am working with a company that wants my help in building out a performance bonus plan for their executives. They have never had a bonus plan before and now that they are making money as a company and hitting regular revenue targets they believe that if they put in a more formal bonus payment plan that they could even exceed what they are doing now. When diving in further as to what they would like designed they expressed the interest in a quarterly plan versus an annual payout. This makes sense for a lot of companies and for certain jobs that have quarterly revenue targets, etc. it definitely fits. However, as I continued to dig what I heard was that the real reason behind the quarterly targets comes down to a matter of trust. There is a lack of trust by some that if the plan is built annually that by the end of the year management might change the targets or explain the results in a way that would not benefit the employee who had earned the bonus. Much of our troubles at work are built off of mistrust about what is going to happen to us versus what we deserve. We see lots of examples where the mistrust is justified but we have to avoid becoming one of the mistrustful people. My Father said never to put your faith in people for they will let you down. He was right, but that does not mean that we can't live with an attitude of healthy trust instead of being one of the people who always think the glass is out to kill us. God tells us to be trustful because if we have placed our trust and faith in the right place then we can take whatever comes our way as part of His plan. We read in Psalm 31:19; "Your goodness is so great! You have stored up great blessings for those who honor you." There it is. We don't have to worry about what we can trust or not. We can make our way today and tomorrow knowing that if we honor God with our hands, our mind and our heart that we can expect more blessings than we can fathom. And we can be an example to others that it is okay to to trust and now worry about the short-run, like this quarter, but stay focused on the great things that will happen in the end.

Reference: Psalm 31:9 (New Living Testament)