For several years, employees of ATI Physical Therapy hovered at an 80% completion rate for their compliance training, but this year, 97% completed their training within two weeks. What lit a fire under them? For the first time, employees and other workforce members who didn’t meet the deadline aren’t eligible for merit pay increases and bonuses. The kicker: pay increases for supervisors and executives also are on the line both for their own attendance and the attendance of the people they supervise. There’s an exception, however, for circumstances beyond their control.

“We put our foot down,” says Lynn McGivern, chief compliance officer at the Bolingbrook, Illinois, company, which has 850 physical therapy clinics and 8,000 employees. “There was never any disciplinary action as far as withholding anything for years with the exception of this year.”