Obviously, there are limits to how many pay bonuses you can give out and if it’s direct money or store credits.
Directly asking for a peer bonus’ is not very “googly” (and yes, this is a term they use- in case you needed evidence of Google being a bit cultish).
There are companies who help do this “as a service”; https://bonusly.com/
It never ceases to amaze me how (early) big tech embraced and even promoted things that would have been considered "career limiting" in traditional big corporations.
Since that process is invisible to those being measured you never know details (and shouldn't as long as management is sane, and if isn't this the least of your concerns), but its not ignored and in this way it helps keeping people motivated to generally do good work.
How so?
To prevent obvious abuse, you need to provide a rationale, the receiver's manager must approve and there's a limit to how many you can dish out per quarter.
It is a social engineering technique to exploit more work without increasing wages. Just like "Employee of the Month" or a "Pizza Party."
Company I work for does this with gift cards as rewards. I was reprimanded because I sent an email to HR that this " gift" is as useful as a wet rage in the rain. I don't eat at restaurants that are franchises or have a ticker on Wall Street. Prefer local brick and mortar over Walmart and will never financial support Amazon.
If you want to truly honor my accomplishments, give me a raise or more PTO. Anything else is futile. That gift card to Walmart has 0 value towards a quality purchase like a RADAR or LiDAR development kit to learn more or such.
It technically requires manager approval but it's kind of a faux pas for a manager to deny one unless it's a duplicate.
Obviously there are other professions that share some of these characteristics, like sales. Or if you narrow down a goal or task to "save us money".
Funny way to spell "unpaid extra work".
