Here is the basic premise; 

Increase wages and lower labor costs?  I know that may seem impossible, but let me show you how it is possible.

If you have ten employees and you need twelve, and are planning to pay for twelve employees. So instead of hiring the extra two people, you take the wages you would have paid those two people, and you split it among the ten people and yourself.
Part of how it works is you pay the extra money to the remaining ten as a bonus that comes as a percentage of revenue, so if the revenue is not there and you really didn’t need the extra people, you are not having to pay for those extra people.
So as an example: 
You are paying the ten people at  $12.00 an hour and will two extra people at $12.00 an hour.  You take $18.00 of the $24 and split it among the ten.  However, you only give them $0.90 an hour bonus each pay period, and you show them there is another $.90 per hour that goes into a bonus pool that is paid quarterly and they only get that part of the bonus if they continue to work for your company. 
And you get to keep the $6.00 per hour that you were going to pay those extra people.

I want you to understand that those numbers are just an example. The analysis will need to be done to maximize the profit effect for your company.

I have examples of companies setting the rates incorrectly and the company ends up losing money. 

Let’s work out an example:

 We made up these numbers, but they will serve well enough to show the extra profit you will make by implementing a bonus program.

If you have three locations for your fast-food restaurant, And you have ten people per location at $12 an hour for 12 hours a day, the labor costs are roughly $1500 a day for labor, times your three locations = $4,500 per day in labor costs for all locations. If you have twelve people per location at $12 an hour for 12 hours a day, the labor costs are roughly $1700 times three locations = $5100 per day in labor costs for your company.

I know this is obvious, however, I would like you to humor me. Because I want to show you our thought process. I also realize there are other costs involved, like workers comp, overtime, and possibly health care.  A regular employee @  $12 per hour x 12 hours is $144 a day times 2 for the two extra people 288 a day times the 3 locations = $864 a day
So, for a rough estimate, we have $900 a day; we are ready to spend to get more help.
With an effective bonus program, you can keep at least $200 a day of that $900 for profit.

Like I said in the beginning;

Make the impossible possible by increasing wages and lowering labor costs. 

I will work up some numbers from a real-world example where I designed and implemented a bonus program. for the next article