What tips do you have for making employee incentive programs successful?

Landscape Professionals

Paul Fraynd
Sun Valley Landscaping
Omaha, Neb.

“Successful employee incentive programs start with the ‘why’ goals are important to the team and bring to life the ‘how’ each person plays a role in the team’s success. They are team focused, create an all-for-one approach and are simple for all employees to understand. To bring the ideas to life, leaders should be consistent in communicating progress and show how each employees’ daily work affects the greater good.”

Luke Henry
ProScape Lawn & Landscaping Services
Marion, Ohio

“To be successful, programs have to be simple, relatively easy to measure and the metric has to be controllable by the level of team member you are incentivizing. Think through possible scenarios to assure that what you are focusing on doesn’t cause unintended consequences by causing a negative effect in another area.”

Chris Joyce
Joyce Landscaping
Cape Cod, Mass.

“Successful employee incentive programs need to be consistent, transparent and manageable.”

Bryan Stolz
Winterberry Landscape & Garden Center
Southington, Conn.

“First of all, a successful employee incentive program needs to be aligned with the goals of the company.  For example, if you are in a slower growth year where you are focusing on margins, your employee incentives should be based on efficiencies and margin, not sales. Second, the incentive needs to be easy to understand, with a cause and effect that can be clearly communicated to all participants.  And third, it needs to be followed through on. Arguing about the payout or being late can take a positive culture builder and performance driver for your organization and turn it into a major trust-buster.”

Industry Consultants

Marty Grunder
The Grow Group
Dayton, Ohio

“Make sure it is a total win-win in the long run, not just the short run: The team member wins and the team wins. If one of them wins more or less than the other, we are out of balance and someone is going to get frustrated.  Make it easy to implement and track: There is no sense in creating an incentive program that is hard to track or manage. Incentive plans that are aligned with company goals ultimately drive profitability to the company. Don’t undo that profitability by having team members take time to track and manage the program. Make it clear. People need to know how they can affect progress toward the goal, and there can’t be any ambiguity around the goal.”

Phil Harwood
Grow the Bench
Grand Rapids, Mich.

“Be generous, consistent and diligent.”

Kevin Kehoe
3PG Consulting
Laguna, Calif.

“Keep them simple (based on a simple understandable goal). Review and pay out more frequently (not once at the end of a year — nobody pays attention that long). Make sure it is fair — not impossible to achieve. It has to be based on something they control …  nobody controls net profit for example, but they control the number of new accounts they bring in.”