There's a ton of research out there on this. To simplify it basically if someone is doing mindless work like putting a cap on a bottle on an assembly line, then bonuses increase performance in the long term. But if they are doing complex work like writing software they decrease performance in the long term.
Bonuses in most situations lead to a decrease in productivity.
https://hbr.org/1993/09/why-incentive-plans-cannot-work https://smallbusiness.chron.com/bonuses-affect-employees-wor... https://hbr.org/2017/03/research-how-incentive-pay-affects-e...
There's a ton of research out there on this. To simplify it basically if someone is doing mindless work like putting a cap on a bottle on an assembly line, then bonuses increase performance in the long term. But if they are doing complex work like writing software they decrease performance in the long term.