How Philly-area businesses use employee bonuses to reward performance

As we enter the last quarter of this calendar year, many businesses are budgeting for pay raises in 2027. Most of my clients — and many other small businesses — also offer bonuses, which can provide extra financial incentives to employees.

According to HR consulting firm Korn Ferry, the average pay raise is expected to be about 3.3% next year. Professional services firm Marsh says raises should be about 3.5%.

Given the current rate of inflation, this may barely seem enough to cover the cost of living. But base pay isn’t everything, and bonuses can be a great motivator.

Here is how several area businesses use this tool.

At The Pest Rangers, a pest control company based in Hanover township, CEO Jeff King utilizes several bonus and incentive plans, all with the aim of rewarding workers for reliability, customer service, and sales.

“Our technicians receive baseline bonuses for punctuality, weekly truck inspections and avoiding customer complaints,” he said. “Employees who sell recurring pest-control plans share a monthly bonus pool based on their portion of total sales.”

The company also offers sales commissions and production bonuses with no cap on earnings, he said.

The company’s “raving customers” program rewards employees who receive exceptional customer feedback, King added. The company paid more than $18,000 in these bonuses in 2025, including more than $6,000 to its top technician.

“This method we’ve formulated allows the employee to write their own ticket. If you want to go above and beyond, you’re being recognized for that behavior,” he said. “We put money directly into the employees’ pockets, rather than spending on traditional marketing.”

Chickie’s & Pete’s, the popular Philadelphia-based restaurant chain, offers several bonus programs, but focuses its rewards primarily on managers and supervisors.

“We award managers for things like developing hourly employees into supervisors and managers, training incoming managers at designated training locations and keeping labor and food costs within quarterly budget targets without hurting customer service,” said vice president of operations Peter “Pete” Ciarrocchi III.

“Our plans were designed to help retain the staff that we have and also providing consistent quality services to our families,” he added.

Bonus plans have helped to reduce the company’s labor costs, Ciarrocchi said, but managers make 20% more on average since the restaurants started giving bonuses.

Werner Bus Lines in Phoenixville uses targeted bonus programs that are tied directly to the results or behaviors the company wants from each department.

For example, sales employees get paid based on bookings and mechanics get a bonus for punctuality.

“I tried to think about the systems I could design where my employees and the company are happy,” Werner’s President Heath Ochroch said. ”I asked what was the actual behavior that I wanted to see more of in each of these departments and that would be the common thread.”

Jamie Turner, founder and president of Acclaim Autism, focuses bonus programs on the people providing services.

Acclaim Autism’s “frontline workers,” who help provide behavior analysis and therapy, among other services, can earn up to $300 in bonuses per month, Turner said.

“Their bonuses are primarily based on consistently completing scheduled patient-facing hours, maintaining continuity and routine for patients and meeting quality and compliance standards,” he said.

Turner said it’s critical for their employees to be incentivized to provide consistency in their patient-facing hours, “which our patients need on a regular routine basis.”

Many firms I know like to pay once-a-year bonuses based on management’s discretion.

Employees at PayUSA, a King of Prussia based payroll processing firm, receive an annual year-end bonus based primarily on their individual performance. President and CEO Christian Hoyt said most established employees receive a bonus equal to at least one week’s salary, with a larger multiple for stronger performers. The largest bonuses are up to 2.5-times the employee’s weekly pay.

“The basic idea is to recognize a full year of hard work with an additional week or more of compensation,” he said. “If an employee worked really hard for 50 weeks, let’s pay them for 53.”

At Newtown-based JS Benefits Group, an employee benefits consulting firm, all 26 employees are eligible for discretionary bonuses, which can be as much as 5% of their salary, or about 2.5 weeks’ pay. Founder and CEO Jennifer Schaefer said there is no fixed formula.

“We generally consider three principal factors: the company’s overall performance, the employee’s individual contribution and the employee’s years of service,” she said.

Schaefer deliberately keeps the bonuses discretionary because conventional productivity measures do not capture every valuable contribution. She considers how employees serve clients, support colleagues, solve problems, and strengthen the company’s culture.

“A formula can measure revenue, but it can’t always measure the employee who quietly solves problems, earns a client’s trust, or makes the entire team better,” she said.