Special Bonuses Should Be Confidential but Publicly Known

Special bonuses for a small group of highly and valuable skilled individuals are meant to keep the very best people from leaving the company, however, people receiving such bonuses should be kept with utmost confidentiality but availability of such rewards should well be known within the organization.

What kind of special bonuses are we talking about?
Highly valued skill sets differ from one organization to another but typically these skill sets are rare to find and are at the core of the business offerings of the company. Let’s take Lutz Roeder, the super .NET architect of Microsoft who has invented Reflector; he’s skill set is rare and is working on .NET which is at the core of Microsoft’s business.
Does this apply to average companies?
Lutz Roeder as example may be too big of a magnitude but whatever industry or company you belong, people with specialized skills set remain a staple and should be protected at all cost. Special bonuses in any form are essential to making the person valued which increase his loyalty and sense of ownership within the organization.
Should this be kept a secret?
Confidentiality on who are the people receiving this special bonuses is a must because management should not send wrong signal to everyone especially when factors to determine who shall receive these bonuses have subjective flavor in them. A happy pool of 10 people would not do you good in a room of 100 disappointed workers.
On the other hand keeping this bonus a secret is not a sign of integrity for the management. People within the organization should learn about the existence of this bonus and should encouraged managers across divisions to think of ways to become valuable to the business. Keeping everyone well informed shows the good faith top management has in handing out these bonuses as well as opening it for everyone; and ensure that rumor of its existence would not be flying around the business.
A vote goes for these types of incentives
I strongly suggest top management should consider creating special bonuses for highly skilled people within the company. The price of giving special bonuses is nothing compared to losing your best people to your competition; so open your pockets a little more.
[tags]Business[/tags]