From Small Businesses to Corporations: Tailoring Incentive Programs for Every Workplace

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios, it’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC-West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Women in Motion. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC-West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we have Karen Kelly, who is the owner and managing partner with K2 Ultimate Incentives. Welcome.

Karen Kelly : Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Lee. I’m really thrilled to be here. I’m looking forward to our conversation. And again, I appreciate this opportunity just to share more about K2 Ultimate Incentives.

Lee Kantor: Well, before we get too far into things. Tell us about K2 Ultimate Incentives. How are you serving folks?

Karen Kelly : Sure. So K2 Ultimate Incentives has really been focused on dedicating and enhancing employee engagement and motivation through incentive programs. They are meticulously crafted and aligned with the company or the customer that we’re in front of, the company goals or their individual aspirations. We offer a diverse range of rewards and recognition strategies so that we can empower organizations to achieve their objectives through innovative and comprehensive incentive solutions.

Lee Kantor: Now, are these kinds of incentive programs only for the larger organizations, or can smaller organizations take advantage of them as well?

Karen Kelly : That’s a great question. Incentives – what I always say to people is to keep in mind the purpose of incentives. And it’s really to stimulate a greater output. It’s incentivized to change behaviors. So incentives are going to be beneficial for organizations of all sizes, not just small or not just large. While larger companies may have more resources to allocate or more complexities, smaller organizations definitely can implement effective incentive strategies that can be tailored to their needs and their budgets as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you mind if we get a little granular in this and maybe explain some best practices for small businesses, if they wanted to kind of dip their toe into this, and also what it would look like for larger enterprise organizations?

Karen Kelly : Yes. Of course. I think the foundation of building an incentive program really remains similar in all, whether you’re a small or large enterprise. Again, the goals are to motivate and change behavior.

Karen Kelly : One of the big things I always say at the beginning is this takes a team, like look at who is involved, maybe your legal team, the accounting team, HR department leads, IT employees, and obviously, anything with compliance because every state, every, you know, may have different compliance or rules on it. But specifically for small businesses, some of the best practices really are to define that clear objective. Like, what is the organizational goal that you’re trying to achieve? Some common goal that I always hear about obviously is increasing productivity. Employee retention is a big one, just boosting morale and building that culture, maybe participating in surveys, increasing referral programs. Again part of that design, obviously, is budget. Knowing what your budget is.

Karen Kelly : What’s really key, too, is understanding your employees. What are their preferences? What motivates them? Because if you put a program together and the end product is not something that’s going to move them or incentivize them, they may not be as involved. So you want to make sure the incentives you offer are meaningful and really will motivate the team.

Karen Kelly : Set clear criteria and communicate. This is so important that everyone understands the specific goals, what they’re earning, what they’re, you know, just to try to help communicate everything with fairness and transparency.

Karen Kelly : I think with a small program and small business I would also encourage with enterprise is really to test pilot, kind of have a pilot program. What I always say is when are you already buying? Is it holiday time? Is it employee recognition? Is it Healthcare Week or Human Resources day?

Karen Kelly : If you want to try a new program out, pilot it with something like this with one in an organization and to put it out to everybody and then get feedback. Because then you can really refine and build a program based on the feedback of the results of what you may have just, you know, achieved in this and this is really more geared towards when choosing, you know, certain platforms and again, communicating, you know, clearly, and just recognizing achievements regularly. That’s another thing that a lot of programs designed today were kind of designed a while ago when different generations were in the market.

Karen Kelly : And there are different generations now. And millennials and Gen Zs, I think I just read that 2025 will be 60% of our workforce. And we really need to be recognizing regularly because they grew up in a world where everything is instant gratification. And long gone are the times of maybe rewarding quarterly or yearly. It really should be more regular acknowledgment and regular, you know, celebrations and then really to just always evaluate and adjust.

Karen Kelly : Another best practice is you can include non-monetary rewards. It doesn’t have to always be something of dollar value. Maybe it’s letting someone go out to work or, you know, our work early, or giving them flexible work arrangements. Public recognition. There’s a lot to be said about social recognition.

Karen Kelly : So I think as far as a small business, those are some best practices.

Karen Kelly : I think when it comes to enterprise, a lot of those are similar approaches. Obviously, there’s probably more of a strategic approach with enterprise because of the complexity of the business. And really where I just see maybe some differences from what I’ve just included is maybe enterprise has more segmented in their program, meaning segmented in their workforce. There’s different departments, so distinct goals and motivations may be different in each department. So you may want to strategize a little there but really think about the different departments.

Karen Kelly : For a larger enterprise, we would probably, you know, suggest maybe doing some type of data analytics if they already have a program, kind of see what’s working, what’s not. Disengaged employees are always one that comes back.

Karen Kelly : Another difference that I would see between small and big enterprises would probably be implementing more tiered awards, really structuring different awards for different levels. Again, obviously communication, transparency, and fairness. Here is another area where they may want to integrate technology. So they may want to be looking for something that they can do, you know, technology integration. With both, you really should be encouraging employee feedback.

Karen Kelly : I’m trying to think. Another one here too, I guess would be definitely to promote – design your program that recognizes a diverse contribution across the organization. And what that means is, you know, you may want to ensure – you have to ensure that all, everyone in this company has an opportunity to reward, regardless of their role, regardless of where they’re located, because enterprises are typically across the nation. So it may be something like commitment to the company values or reward for innovation, problem-solving, leadership, and teamwork.

Karen Kelly : So there are ways we can discuss to kind of be more creative there. It’s probably some of the most differences I would say between the two.

Lee Kantor: Now, I’ve seen people try to do incentive programs, obviously without expert help like you, but on their own try to do a program and then sometimes the highest performer is winning every time, and then everybody else is kind of disincentivized. How do you go about creating a program so that everyone is incentivized throughout the program, not just that first week of the program?

Karen Kelly : Right, right. And that is an excellent question because it’s not even so much just the first week of the program. What I also heard you say is kind of that the top performer that keeps winning over and over again. And the goal of an incentive program is really going to be to incentivize and change behaviors across your organization.

Karen Kelly : Again, a goal there would be to diversify the criteria of it. It may be something like I mentioned before with, you know, culture or maybe it’s an innovation with teamwork or it’s, you know, if somebody embodies the value of one of the cultures, you’re going to reward them. And it’s a continuous thing. You want to focus more on strengths and achievements of the individual instead of just that top, you know, performer. Sometimes, you know, again, what will help here is those tiered recognition programs. So you want to give different tiers, maybe a first place, second place, and a third place, allowing more employees, you know, to be recognized.

Karen Kelly : Another suggestion here would be really a lot of enterprise companies they do point systems and so they develop points based on different goals, various achievements, so that everyone is kind of waiting on their own thing throughout the whole thing. And it’s not always, you know, the same, you know, same person.

Karen Kelly : The other suggestion is rotating the recognition program. It doesn’t have to always be. So many of these enterprise companies have that one set, we’re going to work towards this. So we’re going to work towards a travel. We’re going to – rotate what the recognition program is. Make sure you involve the whole organization because you will – for those that always win or if it’s not achievable, you won’t get them engaged in the program.

Lee Kantor: Now, when someone is starting to work with you, maybe for the first time, or somebody coming to you that has never done this before, can you share a little bit about what it looks like to onboard or to explain, you know, how to get an incentive program in place?

Karen Kelly : Sure. Frequently, we’ll have – someone will come to us the first time. And I want to say that their mindset is always years of service, which I think is very important. And I think it shows value and appreciation with the years of service and acknowledging it. What I do always want everyone to think about is if you are trying to incentivize and motivate, years of service would only motivate someone to stick around or change behavior if they’re trying to hit the next level.

Karen Kelly : So really what I would encourage them to do is, really, again, we would sit down and we would define what it is, maybe plan a program, define objectives, what are the key metrics, and really just design the program from what they’re doing – communication, initial rollout. So there’s a lot more. If it’s their initial time coming, there would be a lot more work in place of really just the planning process. Like I said, with communicating your initial rollout, you want to do feedback, ongoing engagement, and just really monitor and evaluate to make sure what you’re doing is even working.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share a little bit about why it was important for you to become part of the WBEC-West community?

Karen Kelly : Yes. I love this question because it often keeps bringing me – you know, my purpose in this is to always make a difference. And I had a customer come to me. I took over a family business that was for over 20 years my dad had run and I took it over and recreated it to K2 Ultimate Incentives. And when that occurred, I had a customer ask me, “Now that you are running the business, you are a woman, you know, would you get your women’s business certification?” And I did not know anything about it at that time. So I started researching and looking at it. I really saw the value in not only strengthening my business, strengthening and giving credibility, but it was also helping achieve my customers’ goals as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a success story you can share where, you know, maybe you don’t – obviously, don’t name the name of the company, but explain the problem that they had and how you helped them kind of get to a new level?

Karen Kelly : Yeah, absolutely. Along – or I would say in most of the past few years, a lot of it is all an on-the-spot recognition. There are studies that show on the spot, meaning that they want to hand something, whether they’re in the field or in a warehouse or in the office. They want to go up and acknowledge right then and there. And so they want to hand something. And oftentimes it is a physical gift card. Well, the physical gift cards now today are showing some studies that, you know, with the CO2 emissions and all the sustainability goals, it’s not a choice that we should be choosing.

Karen Kelly : So we came up with a creative solution of creating what may look like some type of physical gift card but on something on paper that would be customizable, or an image or a message or something that they could physically handle. But I also added suppliers that can keep everything digitally in technology to where they can actually text something right then and there, send and text something. So that’s still very impactful. But I think it feels good to know that the reward program didn’t stop because they didn’t want, you know, they wanted to do something impactful. And I think it feels good to know they stopped choosing physical gift cards, plastic gift cards that were not great for the environment.

Lee Kantor: And if there – is there a way for someone to get ahold of you and learn more and have more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team? Do you mind sharing your website or socials or best way to connect?

Karen Kelly : Sure, absolutely. You can always reach out by LinkedIn, you know look for me, Karen Kelly or K2 Ultimate Incentives will pop up. You can email me at karen@k2ultimateincentives.com. And that’s K with the number two, ultimateincentives.com. You can definitely visit my website www.k2ultimateincentives.com. And all of my information is on there as well. And really what’s best for them. Call me, text me, email me, LinkedIn. Whatever their preferred method is, I will return and help them.

Lee Kantor: Well, Karen, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Karen Kelly : Thank you so much for having me. It was really a pleasure.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.