Episode 69: Do Employee Incentives Work? Maybe it Depends on your Team…
Should you pay your team a bonus for bigger sales? Hand out gift cards? Skip incentives altogether? In this episode, Vonda and Lori dig into what actually motivates flower shop employees — drawing on real conversations Lori had with Flower Clique member shops about what worked, what backfired, and what turned their teams into well-oiled machines. The short answer, as the title hints: it depends on your team.
Start with what actually motivates people
When Vonda asks Lori point-blank what incentivizes her, the answer is telling: it isn't money. Lori is driven by coming together with a team and winning something — completing a project, being asked into a leadership conversation, earning trust. Money matters, but it isn't the fuel. That's exactly why the hosts say the first step is to ask each employee, individually, what motivates them. If your employees don't know and you don't know, you've got to figure that out before any incentive will land.
Just as important: know your shop's culture. If you can't describe it, take a day and observe. Watch the team dynamic, write down the first words that come to mind, and notice who the influencers are — positive or negative. Is your crew "we win together, we lose together," or more siloed, where everyone wants their own bonus? Both can be highly functional, but they call for different incentive structures.
Skill problem or will problem?
Before you incentivize anything, diagnose why productivity is lagging. If an employee tells a caller "peonies aren't in season for six months" and hangs up, that's a skill gap — a training fix, and that one's on you as the owner. A will problem — flat-out lack of desire — usually can't be fixed, though the hosts note those hires rarely survive the first weeks anyway.
But there's a third category that isn't a bad employee at all. Lori shares a real example: a shop owner desperate to send a talented, creative employee through design training so she could help with weekend weddings. She declined — time and a half and all. She wanted to work her hours and go home to her kids. That's not laziness; it's a boundary. The owner's job is to decide whether he can live with it — and, as Vonda points out, you can still incentivize that person to work faster and more efficiently within the hours she gives you.
Incentivize the whole shop, not just the sales counter
If only salespeople earn bonuses, your designers and drivers will notice — and resentment follows. Vonda suggests designers can be incentivized on what matters most to the bottom line: keeping cost of goods sold in line instead of stuffing arrangements with extra flowers. There's a simple formula for tracking it, and Vonda offers to send it to anyone who emails her at flowerclique.com.
What real shops are doing (and not doing)
Lori's member research turned up three camps. Some shops skip incentives entirely — they're family businesses, they believe upselling is simply the job, or they tried incentives and watched them create dissension. Others make individual incentives work beautifully: one owner teaches every employee to pull their own average sale from the POS, posts the numbers on a dry-erase board in the design room, and awards a monthly cash bonus for the highest — alongside a whole-shop average so the team wins together too. Her secret ingredient is transparency: employees who are trusted with real business numbers start taking pride and ownership in them.
That same owner practices what Lori dubs "caught being good" — the classroom trick of rewarding above-and-beyond behavior on the spot. Mop the design room without being asked, and she hands over cash in front of everyone with a thank-you for saving her two hours. It can't be for ordinary tasks, and it can't be predictable — that's what makes it work.
Team-minded shops get creative too. One does seasonal incentives only — smart, since monthly programs lose their luster — with thoughtful gift bags before every busy holiday (good chocolate, a piece of jewelry, Flower Clique aprons) so the team starts looking forward to the rush instead of dreading it, capped with an elegant dinner afterward. And at Vonda's own shop, the Monday after Valentine's Day and Mother's Day meant paid manicures and pedicures, two by two — a luxurious "you deserve it" her staff would never have booked for themselves.
Key takeaways
- Be transparent. Share the why behind any incentive — employees who understand the numbers take ownership of them.
- Find out what moves your people first: some are driven by cash, others by treats, recognition, or team wins.
- Separate skill problems (fix with training) from will problems (can't be fixed) — and respect healthy boundaries that are neither.
- Include every role — designers, drivers, and sales — or incentives will breed tension instead of motivation.
- Just start: pilot an incentive during one busy holiday, keep it positive, and see how it goes.
Mentioned in this episode: the Teleflora Magical Mother's Day webinar with Jerome Raska AIFD, AAF, PFCI and Vonda LaFever AIFD, CFD, PFCI.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist