Chad Gillard and Matt Johnson know something about unique work incentives.
While some may scoff at millennials’ optimistic striving for work that balances well with other life experiences, like travel, these two Minneapolis business consultants see an opportunity for employers who want to keep their worker happy and retain them longer.
Gillard and Johnson started Work Around to give employees a chance to see the world while working remotely, similar to study abroad programs for students. Participants set up shop for the length of the trip at a co-working space and use their free time to experience a new city and culture. They believe the rationale for other incentives programs extends to travel: Letting workers take trips abroad would help keep them happy, refreshed, and creative, which in turn will make them better contributors to their employers.
In addition to Work Around, Gillard and Johnson work together at GoKart Labs, a business consulting firm in Minneapolis that helps startups and Fortune 500 companies. Gillard is a business analyst who also founded Midwest Pantry, a food business consulting company. Johnson is GoKart’s vice president of strategy.
They’re not the only entrepreneurs exploring business ideas while holding down days jobs, but few others can say they’re doing it while taking advantage of an employer’s incentive program. Not only does GoKart offer employees a chance to flex their entrepreneurial muscles by pitching ideas and getting valuable feedback. The company is ready to put money toward the best ideas that come along, said Scott Jagodzinski, GoKart’s managing director of ventures.
“Every company has health benefits … not many have a venture stage gate program where if you make it through you get GoKart to invest in your business,” Jagodzinski said. The idea is to encourage new ideas and real-life learning experiences by bringing GoKart employees’ “side gig” ideas into the light. “In most companies, it’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We’ve chosen to sort of embrace it. Bring it forward… you probably have a better chance of success if you bring it out in the open.”
GoKart holds pitch meetings twice per year, when employees can bring their ideas. Ideas progress from that initial stage if they meet criteria put together and judged by Jagodzinski and the ventures group. If the idea passes, the pitch earns passage to the next stage, including about $10,000 and 12 weeks to demonstrate their idea has legs.
Stage three offers another cash infusion of about $80,000 and 12 more weeks to find out if there is a market for the idea.
“If there’s not, that’s not a failure in our mind,” Jagodzinski said. “Not all businesses are meant to be there or survive.”
If the market exists and the idea passes stage three, it becomes a full-fledged startup, released into the world as a separate entity, competing for capital and space to grow and thrive. No employee-led ventures have made it to the fourth stage yet, Jagodzinski said. The program is still young – less than two years old — and four businesses are in stage two.
Work Around is one of them.
Gillard will lead his first work-abroad group to Northern Ireland in October for a two-week trip that includes places to stay, work, and eat, as well as planned tours and other experiences. Work Around has two more trips on the calendar, including one to Uruguay in the first quarter of 2019 and another to Ireland next summer.
This first trip offers the Work Around founders a chance to see if the idea is worthwhile.
“If they still believe in it, they’ll pitch us for stage gate three,” Jagodzinski said. “I’m sure they’ll learn a lot from this trip.”
