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Incentive Interview: Fay Beauchine
November 18, 2008
In a pair of interviews as the stock market went into crisis, Carlson Marketing's head of global engagement and events sounded remarkably unworried
By Leo Jakobson
Fay Beauchine is calm. That is noteworthy because the pair of interviews that made up this article took place on Sept. 22 and Oct. 10—bracketing two-and-one-half very un-calm weeks, as the more than 3,000-point drop in the stock market's benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average will attest.
In the course of a few weeks, at least two financial industry clients of Minneapolis-based Carlson Marketing, of which Beauchine is executive vice president of global engagement and events, have been acquired. And there is ample anecdotal evidence that companies are reducing their incentive spending generally. So why is she calm?
The Long View
For one thing, over the course of Carlson Marketing's 70-plus years in business, the firm has learned, "good companies run incentive programs, they recognize and reward employees," Beauchine says. "They may stop for six months to a year to figure out what they want to do, but that's when we are involved—figuring out what to do."
"Eventually the dust settles and companies still have the same issue: 'How do I move product?'" says Beauchine. "Keeping employees engaged and happy is a good investment for the company and good for the economy. I have a friend who welcomes a recession every few years, [saying] a lot of nonsense falls off. Companies that focus on aligning incentives with business objectives will succeed." She is concerned about the public outrage generated by AIG, which held a lavish incentive program at a California resort just days after accepting an $85 billion government bailout, but notes "the right to reward employees for a job well done is different than executive compensation packages for failed strategies." [see story, p. 8]
Besides, she says, there is always opportunity. "If companies reduce their budgets for incentives, they usually increase them elsewhere," she adds, pointing to engagement programs. These are particularly common after mergers and acquisitions, she notes. "If two companies are combining, we are very good at engagement—helping those employees connect with the new company."
Further, companies are generally cutting incentive programs around the edges, according to "Effects of a Down Economy on the Incentive Industry," a survey the Incentive Research Federation released a day after that first interview at The Motivation Show in Chicago. Among the findings, travel planners are seeing shorter programs, more interest in domestic destinations or less spending on room gifts and spa treatments.
There are smart ways to spend less without damaging incentive programs, Beauchine adds. As president of the NBTA Foundation, the research and educational arm of the National Business Travel Association, she points to a study the organization released this summer comparing the tax rates of the 50 top U.S. travel destination cities. The study, which looks at both the overall tax burden and the discriminatory travel tax burden imposed on hotel rooms, rental cars and restaurant meals, is significant, she says.
If the difference between two destinations is $100 to $200 per person over the course of a program, the taxes on a 1,000-participant program could be $200,000. "That is a significant impact on the budget," Beauchine says, who instructed her planners to keep the data in mind when selecting venues. "Especially if the hotel and activity choices are equal, [taxes] can be a tie-breaker."
 What's Next
"I think engagement is going to really grow," Beauchine says, predicting that as firms merge and hunker down to wait out the bad economy, the smart ones will focus on engaging employees. "It is intuitive, and it is proven [that having engaged employees] moves to the bottom line."
She points to a 2007 study by professor Alex Edmans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management, which found that companies with engaged employees—those on Fortune's Best Places to Work list—saw annual returns of 14 percent, while the average was just 6 percent.
Carlson Marketing has just produced a white paper on the topic, "At the Heart of Engagement," where it lays out a Positive Engagement Model that seeks to define and help measure a company's culture of engagement. It has six categories: Innovation, Mastery, Achievement, Appreciation, Connection and Wellness. Each is broken into three subcategories, and surveys can measure each. Done regularly, this can paint a picture of the success a company is having at engaging its employees—and the areas it needs to work on.
Needless to say, they use it internally. "At Carlson, we measure monthly," Beauchine says. One key is drilling down far enough. "You can't measure engagement by division," she says. "You must measure all areas. It can boil down to individual managers."
Beauchine’s Own Engagement
Much of Beauchine's work involves guiding clients on basic issues like how to sell more or keep employees happy. So it's probably not surprising that this theme spills into her personal life.
Along with collecting fine and limited edition fountain pens, Beauchine is interested in seeing-eye dogs, a focus that began after a fund-raiser for schools that train dogs as service animals for the blind and give them to people who cannot afford the sizable expense. An animal lover who grew up surrounded by animals—dogs, cats, horses, goats and lambs, among others—she began by adopting a "failed" guide dog, a black lab she has named Eri—"smart" in Japanese.
"I found out not all dogs make it through the training program," Beauchine says, noting that between 30 and 40 percent graduate. "[Their job] requires so much focus, they can't sniff another dog on the street." That is the toughest and final stage of the year-long training, and the one Eri flunked.
Recently, Beauchine stepped up her involvement, sponsoring Aiko, a female golden retriever who went to a blind diesel mechanic, through the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind in Smithtown, N.Y. The organization has its hands full with its VetDogs (www.vet dogs.org) project, Beauchine says. The program provides free guide dogs to disabled U.S. veterans, and is getting new clients from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Send comments to ljakobson@incentivemag.com.
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