Somerfield is rolling out a strategy to deliver a "direct and significant link" between managers' salaries and staff engagement levels.
The supermarket will reward managers for improvements in employee engagement following surveys conducted in retail stores earlier this year and at its head office last month.
The aim is to use the survey results to identify issues, such as staff commitment to their role, and then task line managers to deal with them.
If the issues are resolved and engagement improves, line managers will receive more pay.
Tim Jones, head of organisation performance at Somerfield, said: "[Now], our managers will be [financially] encouraged to engage their staff." The issues that staff raise in the survey are within the power of line managers to address.
The move comes at a time when other employers are also registering the value of financial incentives for managers in driving up staff engagement. B&Q's HR director, Martyn Phillips, recently said that line managers should be denied pay increases where they fail to hit employee engagement targets.