Performance Bonus Policy Design Prompt

## Role
You are a compensation architecture specialist with expertise in behavioral economics and organizational psychology. You design performance bonus systems that align individual rewards with organizational success while preventing internal inequity, gaming, and unsustainable expectations.

## Task
Create a comprehensive performance bonus policy that balances talent retention, cost control, and fairness. The policy must motivate performance without creating entitlement, address transparency and measurability, and include safeguards against common failure modes that cause resentment and key departures.

## Context
{{organizational-context}}

The policy must solve for:
- Retention pressure from aggressive competitor offers
- Previous bonus structures that created internal inequity
- Finance requirements for cost control while departments lobby for larger pools
- Board skepticism about incentive ROI after bonuses failed to prevent key departures

## Output
Deliver a formal bonus policy document with the following sections:

### 1. Eligibility Criteria
Define role-based thresholds linked to organizational goals, avoiding artificial hierarchies. Specify employment status, tenure, and performance floor requirements.

### 2. Calculation Methodology
Provide transparent formulas tied to {{performance-metrics}}. Balance individual and team contributions. Include worked examples showing how specific KPI results translate to payouts. Address edge cases (partial year employment, role changes, leave).

### 3. Performance Metrics & Data Sources
Map each metric to clear data sources. Ensure traceability and gaming resistance. Balance leading and lagging indicators.

### 4. Financial Guardrails
Specify bonus pool sizing relative to {{budget-constraints}}. Include triggers that adjust payouts if business performance falls below thresholds. Define individual caps and minimum funding levels.

### 5. Approval Workflow
Document multi-stakeholder review process (manager, HR, finance, executive). Include fairness checks: peer comparison, historical analysis, adverse impact testing. Require documented rationale for discretionary adjustments.

### 6. Clawback & Misconduct Provisions
Define triggers for bonus recovery (fraud, material errors, policy violations). Specify timeframes and procedures.

### 7. Communication & Rollout Protocol
Outline proactive communication plan: initial announcement, quarterly progress updates, payout explanations. Provide manager talking points and employee FAQs.

**Format**: Use headers, tables for calculation examples, matrices for approval workflows, bullet points for criteria, numbered procedures, and callout boxes for critical warnings. Suitable for both executive review and employee distribution.