Pave Pulse Survey: The Data on Short-Term Incentive Programs

Short-term incentives (STI) and bonus programs are key tools in a compensation leader’s toolbox to help retain and motivate employees. While STIs have traditionally been leveraged for senior leaders and sales teams, they are increasingly being used to reward employees across levels and functions.

Pave dug into this topic in a recent pulse survey in Pave Data Lab, our community for total rewards and compensation leaders. We asked participants to share their strategies around short-term incentives for teams outside of sales. The dataset for the charts below includes 163 companies participating in Pave's pulse survey in Pave Data Lab as of July 2025.

Ready to see the data on short-term incentives? Let’s dive in.

Offering Short-Term Incentives

Among survey respondents, 84.0% offer short-term incentives to their non-sales employees.

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Outside of formal bonus plans, the most common type of short-term incentive is the spot bonus. This trend appears across job levels, from VPs and managers down to professional and support employees.

Of the companies surveyed, the majority offer short-term incentives to non-sales employees—but rates vary by company size. Only 57.1% of small companies offer these programs, compared with 83.0% of organizations with 5,000+ employees.

Short-Term Incentives by Job Level

While these bonus programs are broadly popular, they are still most common at the top of the org chart. Our findings show the more senior the employee, the more likely they are to be eligible for any type of short-term incentive. 29.4% of survey respondents said support level employees are not eligible for short-term incentives, while only 1.5% said VPs are not eligible.

Average target bonus for early-career (P2) Professional employee - 9.9% of base salary

Implementing a Bonus Program Next Year

These trends around bonus programs are likely to grow. Among survey respondents who do not currently offer short-term incentives, nearly half said they plan to implement a program over the coming year.

These insights are just a small peek into the full short-term incentives survey. To view the full results by industry, company size, revenue growth, and more, sign up for Pave Data Lab. You’ll be able to access this survey, participate in future Pave pulse surveys, and discover additional insights from our data science team.

Join Pave Data Lab today.

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