Pay for the team win
Funding the pool only when the store and department hit forecast keeps everyone pulling in the same direction.
Case study · Part 3 · Incentives
When the store wins, everyone wins.
Part 3 of my Lowe's story. With stores staffed to demand and goals coming from the forecast, the last step was giving people a real share of the result.
The story · Lowe's
A cut of the profits.
First we put the right people on the floor (Part 1). Then we looked at what they sold and set goals from the forecast (Part 2). That work eventually expanded into employee bonuses.
The rule was simple. If your store and departmental forecasts hit their goals, you got cut in on the profits.
Payouts weren't a given. It's seasonal: some months paid well, others weren't close. The goal was driving the right behavior, not a guaranteed check. When it did pay, it was typically around $800–1,200 for the month.
Sustained, not one month. Success for the company and for employees came from the right behavior sustained over time, not any single month. That's why Part 2 looks at 12-month performance.
The Sales Specialist Incentive program. I project-managed this automated tool, which set hourly sales goals for key associates. It contributed an additional $1B in sales and distributed ~$95M in incentives annually.
Levers for leadership. It was designed first to reward associates, but it also gave leadership the ability to pull levers. If marketing is spending money on a credit campaign, we want specialists motivated and aligned with that same behavior, so the plan can lean into credit for that stretch.
The demo below is not that program and uses no Lowe's data. It's the same fictional example store from Part 2, built to show how a forecast-funded bonus pool works and how its design changes behavior.
Interactive · Example data
Fund the pool.
Move the attainment sliders and watch departments unlock their pool. Then switch the plan design and see how the payout curve changes. It opens on a month just under forecast, so nothing pays yet. Push the sliders up, or try the illustrative Slow winter and Spring peak months. Every number is an example you can change.
1Example data
Attainment and the pool
Each department funds a monthly pool from its gross profit, but only once the store and that department reach the threshold. All payouts shown are per month; this step shows each specialist's pool share.
2
What does it take?
How much more each department needs to sell this month to unlock its pool, or reach the next tier.
3
Design tradeoffs
Monthly pool for one department as attainment moves from 80% to 120%, under each design.
Cliff Tiered Now
4Example data
Leadership levers
Leaders weight the behaviors that matter right now, like a credit campaign marketing is already paying for. Each specialist earns a small monthly kicker on top of their pool share for each weighted metric.
Example assumptions
How it works: department forecast = store forecast × department mix (the same example store as Part 2). Store attainment is the sales-weighted average of the departments. A funded pool = department sales × margin × pool %, times the tier multiplier. With the cliff, the store and department must both reach 100%. With tiers, the store must reach the first tier, and each department's multiplier steps up at each tier. Payouts split across the department's specialists by scheduled hours, or by hours × their individual attainment. Leadership levers add a kicker per metric: the kicker at goal × the leader's weight × how far the specialist is from goal (0 at 80% of goal, 1× at goal, capped at 1.5× at 110%). The demo holds each specialist's recent performance fixed, so it shows how pay shifts, not how behavior would respond. All values are fictional examples.
Beyond the store
Why this matters.
An incentive is a message about what matters. The design decides whether people hear it.
Make the target visible
"$12k more this month" is something a team can rally around. A percentage on a report is not.
Design changes behavior
A cliff motivates the teams close to goal and can discourage the ones far from it. Tiers keep more people in the game.
Fair splits
Splitting by hours rewards showing up; adding attainment rewards selling. Most plans need a little of both.
Aligned with the business
Levers let leadership point the plan at what the business is investing in this quarter, so a marketing campaign and the sales floor push the same way.
Built on the forecast
Incentives only feel fair when the goals behind them do. That's why this came after staffing and sales performance, not before.
Example data only: the store, departments, specialists, and all assumptions are fictional and editable. The $1B and ~$95M figures are from my résumé, for the real program. Built by me with AI. Updated Oct 2026.
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