Perhaps it is time the entire bonus system be declared a failure
What I loathe about bonuses at a middle/upper management level is that they're conditional on cutting costs and increasing 'efficiencies' (which means doing less stuff with fewer people and ageing equipment). The manager who gets his/her bonus has usually done so by scrimping on something, whether it be maintenance, service, equipment purchases or something else that's necessary for the business to function. The system assumes that costs can be cut indefinitely in a sort of exponential decay fashion, and that the business doesn't actually have to deliver anything.
In the short term (ie that manager's tenure
) the 'effiencies' are maintained which makes the bottom line look groovy, but in the long term the business suffers because the bonus system doesn't take into account the fact that sometimes a company needs to spend money on boring things like staff and maintenance.
The business ends up being held together with string, duct tape and a skeleton staff, and the manager collects their bonus and buggers off to their next victim (sorry, 'future challenge'
) before the string and duct tape give out. Then it falters and the management blame everyone but themselves (their horrid bolshy staff, internet sales, foreign competition, lack of government support, aliens). It couldn't be
their fault because after all, they were efficient.