Most private construction law contracts require a withholding of 5 to 10 percent of the payment. Therefore, if the contractor does not maintain the end of the bargain, a reasonable amount of money will be lost. SHRM states that retention bonuses are usually refunded to the organization when a person terminates under the agreement. This agreement must be robust and easy to understand. So be sure to talk to your legal team before offering it, and even tell your employee that their lawyer needs to look at them too. The last thing you want, right after an important business event like a merger or acquisition, is to be judged. You need to make sure that the amount you are willing to spend on the retention bonus agreement is enough to entice the person to accept the offer without affecting your end result, which can already feel the heat of all the turnover that can occur during an M&A. After making this part crystal clear, you also need to add a few other legal parts to your agreement to make sure they hold. In addition, engagement bonuses may be offered to employees who have acquired new skills or who have completed training essential to the operation of a business, to ensure that they do not take their skills elsewhere. In this case, the first step towards writing a retention bonus agreement is to actually start writing a document in the form of a letter.