The 'road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Sometimes, delivering a delayed employee payment can actually be a trigger for employees to find a new job.
Check out this great article by the folks at Worklife; the behavioural economics of your annual bonus might not be yielding the results that you want.
The big question: if your company issues perfornance bonuses in December, and you see an uptick of employee departures in January, you might want to read this: https://www.worklife.news/talent/employers-fear-spike-in-post-bonus-resignations-heres-what-they-can-do-about-it/