Thanks… for nothing! Does your company have the rare “co-worker bonus,“ a way of rewarding employees? Maybe it also needs the “co-worker curse” to punish them!

Aug 21, 2023

bonus, co-worker bonus, coworker bonus, curse, no thanks, peer bonus, reward

Background:

Some companies provide a type of bonus called a “co-worker bonus” or “peer bonus,” where an employee can nominate a coworker for a small monetary reward in recognition for some sort of helpful action.

For example, in 2023 at the company Zappos: “once per month, each employee may offer an extra $50 to a coworker.“

This style of bonus exists at a small number other companies as well: https://www.google.com/search?q=coworker+reward+bonus+%22peer+to+peer%22.

Crucially, the “co-worker bonus” is paid out by the company to an employee (i.e. no money is exchanged between employees).

Proposal:

Although competence in coworkers is always appreciated, people are far more intensely affected by instances of incompetence in their coworkers.

Thus, we propose a second type of financial transfer mechanism: the “co-worker curse,” which expresses the sentiment “thanks for nothing!”

This operates as follows: a fine is levied against the offending co-worker, which is then is paid to the coworker who reported the curse (Figure 1).

Fig. 1: Top: if the employee in red (left) is awarded a “co-worker bonus,” the money is paid out by the company (top right). Bottom: on the other hand, if the employee at left casts a “co-worker curse” on the employee at bottom right, the money is paid out by the offending coworker instead of by the company.

Conclusion:

Previously, some employees in large institutions (corporate, administrative, academic, military, etc…) have felt frustrated and powerless in the face of bureaucratic inefficiency. With this new curse-levying method, these employees can now express their displeasure in a way that should increase the overall health of the institution in question!

PROS: Should improve collaboration and foster a culture of accountability.

CONS: None: there are no downsides to this plan, which was suggested to me by coworker I.H.