Spot Bonuses allow specific employees to have larger amounts of cash available to give to people who have done exceptional work or put in exceptional effort.
(Note, this video is from a time when ONLY managers could give spot bonuses. We have updated the software and those changes are explained in this article)
Questions to Consider:
Who would you like to have a separate bucket of money that will not expire each month?
Do you want to have spot bonuses go through an approval process if above a certain dollar amount? If so, how much should that limit be?
Spot Bonuses vs. Regular Peer to Peer Dollars
There are some important differences to consider when deciding to put dollars towards Spot Bonuses or Peer to Peer dollars.
Who can give Spot Bonus vs Peer to Peer dollars?
Spot Bonus dollars can ONLY be allocated to "Managers" (users with at least one direct report).
Peer to Peer dollars can be allocated to anybody.
When do dollars expire/refresh?
Spot Bonus dollars will expire at 00:00:00 GMT on January 1.
Peer to Peer dollars will expire at midnight on the first of each month depending on the time zone selected on the Setup > Peer to Peer page.
Who can these dollars be awarded to?
Both Spot Bonus and Peer to Peer dollars can be given to ANYONE.
How are these dollars given?
Spot Bonus dollars are given through giving a spot bonus. Click on the three dots next to "Spot Bonus" on the home page.
Peer to Peer dollars are given by clicking Who Do You Appreciate on the home page
Are there restrictions to how many dollars can be given?
Spot Bonuses can have a limit for how many dollars given through a spot bonus without approval. Any dollars over that may require an approval. Click here to learn more. You must give at least $1 with a spot bonus.
For peer to peer giving, user can tie any number of dollars from their "To Give" balance or their "To Spend" balance. Users do not have to give dollars with their appreciations. (So sending $0 is an option).
Allocate Spot Bonus Money within Motivosity
Enable the Spot Bonus Feature
To allocate Spot Bonus money to a Motivosity user to give to other users, you first need Enable the feature. Head to 'Setup' > 'Spot Bonuses' and 'Enable' the feature to start creating allocation rules.
Who should be eligible to hold a Spot Bonus allocation?
Next, you will see an option to select a user group. This is a group of people who can be allocated Spot Bonus money to be given to recognize other users.
A user group has already been created for you (called the Spot Bonus Budget Group). We recommend keeping this group as the selected group under "Membership settings."
By default anyone who is a "manager" (has at least 1 direct report) is a part of that group. If you want to allow other people to be able to give spot bonuses, you can edit the rules of the group. To do this, go to Setup > User Groups and edit the rules that group, to add or remove users from that group.
Allocate the Dollars
You have two options for the way that you can allocate funds for your managers. First, you can create a single spot bonus allocation for a particular user or second, upload an excel spreadsheet with many spot bonus allocations. The allocations created here will expire at the end of the year as shown. You can do uploads for these one-offs or add a single spot bonus by clicking the designated buttons.
Add Allocation
If you select Add Allocation you will be prompted to type in your MFA password or verification code. Then you will see this screen:
User: Which User are you allocating money to?
Amount: How much money would you like to allocate to them?
A positive amount will ADD that amount to their current allocation, even if their current allocation is $0.
A negative amount will SUBTRACT that amount from their current allocation.
Approval Threshold: Add a dollar amount here if you'd like this user to get approved for any spot bonus that is GREATER THAN that amount. If you leave this field blank, they will have the default amount for their Approval Threshold.
Note: Type a note for the allocation so that the reason for this allocation can be tracked.
Import Allocations
The 'Import Allocations' is used for when you'd like to allocate a Spot Bonuses to multiple users. We recommend clicking 'Download Current Template' to get a good look of how the information will be filled. Once downloaded you'll see the example below:
IMPORTANT: The CURRENT allocation is listed under 'Amount' -- but as you will see below, if you upload this sheet the same way it was downloaded, everyone's spot bonus allocations will double because the "Amount" column is read as "how much money should the software add to the current allocation?"
User: Which User are you allocating money to?
Amount: How much money would you like to allocate to them?
A positive amount will ADD that amount to their current allocation, even if their current allocation is $0.
A negative amount will SUBTRACT that amount from their current allocation.
Approval Threshold: Add a dollar amount here if you'd like this user to get approved for any spot bonus that is GREATER THAN that amount. If you leave this field blank, they will have the default amount for their Approval Threshold.
Note: Type a note for the allocation so that the reason for this allocation can be tracked.
After adding the users you'd like to have a 'Spot Bonus' in the spreadsheet you can go ahead and select this file in the 'Import Allocations' modal and finish by clicking 'Save'.
Spot Bonus Approvals
The next step is deciding on your approval process. You can set an amount for any spot bonus to require approval. Any spot bonus given that is under that amount will not need approval. If nothing is specified or if the amount is more than the required approval amount, then the spot bonus will go through the approval process. You then select the Approvers by simply starting to type in their names into the 'Select approvers' box once you have selected 'A specific person' if you don't want the giver's managers to approve them.
You can also include instructions for anyone who will be approving a spot bonus by typing the instructions in this box.
Giving Spot Bonuses
With Spot Bonuses enabled, Managers will now see a 'Give a Spot Bonus' button on their home page.
Giving a Spot Bonus is similar to an appreciation where you will type in the employee's name, type a note, select a company value, determine the giving amount, and mark it as private or leave it as public. After filling out the information, click 'Send It!'
If the Spot Bonus needs to be approved, it will then show up in the Action Items list of the approvers. If no approval is needed, it will get posted to the home feed.
Managers will also be able to request additional funds or transfer funds by clicking the three dots pointed at below
They can click on the "Request/Transfer Funds" button as seen below
They will then be met with this screen where they will submit their request or transfer funds to receive additional money or give direct reports additional money to give.
How to Reverse a Spot Bonus Allocation
1. Click 'Add Allocation'.
2. Select the Manager name that needs to be reversed.
3. Input a negative balance in the 'Amount' field and fill out the 'Note'.
4. Click 'Save' and the spot bonus allocation will be adjusted!
