[roenxi]

Peer recognition is more effective than bonuses for running a company. The problem companies have with knowledge workers is how to organise them. That requires a certain culture and social environment, and I assume the great cultures have clear internal lines of communication to work out which peers are the exemplars of the sort of work that happens. And workers like working for successful companies.

But that is all secondary to what gets employees in the door each day. The technical term for the thing that does that is "compensation".