Incentive as a Component of Salesman Compensation Structure

“Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life”(Levitt and Dubner 12). Levitt and Dubner once mentioned in their book “Freakonomics”. According to Oxford dictionary, incentives are something tends to incite to action or greater effort, as a reward offered for increased productivity (“incentives”). In business field, incentives are something given by bosses to encourage their employees to endeavour in bringing benefits to their business. For a simple example, the employee who hits the monthly or year sales target will get cash or prizes as incentives. Apparently, these incentives are something that motivates employees maintains their great performance and also to motivate other employee, whoever wants to get the incentives, work harder.

As a manager the three motivational methods that should be used would be to provide monetary incentives, employee recognition, and training incentives. Monetary incentives are one method that can be used by a leader or a manager in his or her workplace, these incentives is to reward an employee for his or her outrageous work-related performance. These incentives may include such as profit-sharing within the company, stock options, performance bonuses, and scheduled bonuses. These different types of monetary incentives can increase the motivation of its workers and can lead to more productive, less absenteeism, and may improve one’s quality of service. Monetary incentives when awarded to one employee may also be a morale booster can also encourage other workers to improve his or her work performance, and maintain a healthy, friendly, positive work environment. A healthy workplace is a product of a successful and productive work environment. Working in this kind of economy, monetary incentives is the excellent method to use. However, these incentives may persuade others and may not to some; the result will be the same, increased quality work

Managers in many cases are presented with sales incentives in a retail environment. These incentives may range from free products, to cash prizes, to trips, bonuses, etc.

So this a very good news that in the new incentive plan there is a management by objective , it will permit to salespersons team to be more efficient , and they will

1. When it is difficult to determine the effect of a salesperson’s effort son sales rather than pay any incentive through commission it is better to use a bonus with salary as part of the compensation package

Compensating the organizations sales staff through the use properly designed performance pay will lead to profitable sales for the organization. Once again linking compensation to performance will benefit the organization in its ability to pay. It is important to design the compensation of the sales staff in a manner that encompasses all of the organizations goals as communicating with production staff will be a key component of the High Involvement Strategy, and it is important for the organization to demonstrate a commitment to the sales team that the relationship is not just purely financial. Therefore direct compensation for them should consist of a minimum base salary upon which their commissions are added.

All of this information would need to be used to determine what actions need to be taken. For example, if people are happy with their pay, they may not need to be offered more monetary incentives. Perhaps, they are simply looking for a clearly defined career path or praise for their efforts. It would be nonsensical to offer them more money, if recognition would solve some of the problems.

To foster competitiveness and deliver better results, there is a program called STACK where employees are ranked based on the work done and their incentive is decided based on it. Better the rank, better the incentives.

Put careful thought into the design, goals and timing of any incentive plan - big or small. Use these 10 tips to shape your organization's incentives for billers:

In each of the following six paragraphs there is a description of one of six features of an effective total rewards program that will motivate a sales force to produce the highest number of clients.

Pay and Rewards – pay and rewards attract, motivate and retain staff. The employment contract which lists rewards, whether it be pay, bonus or benefits, can remove animosity amongst employees and employers. However, recent research reveals that employees are no longer motivated by a financial reward alone, but

A reward is a high extrinsic motivator. The reward can be monetary, gift certificate, day off with pay, a two hour lunch, or working for two hours on anything but work. All entice performance and competition in the workplace. A gold star, being the teacher’s helper for a day, no daily

3)Financial incentives are designed to provide direct motivation – do this and you will get that while at the same time can spell doom. For Example giving a Psychiatrist a higher payment for

Keeping employees motivated in addition to creating incentives and/or additional ways for employees to receive more compensation will create better performance overall within an organization. Contrary if company B gives their employees incentives to perform, without any motivational tactics they probably will not have as many top performances as company A, in addition the company may only seek short term rewards verses have long term success. Lack of motivation for employees within an organization, can cause long term damage for the company’s success. Different things motivate everyone; therefore there should be a system in place to keep employees motivated for the long term success of the company. In the MBM textbook under the concept of incentives, compensation, and motivation, there are a couple of different views of how it should be applied within an organization. We will discuss The Social Role of Profit, Personal Profit and Losses, and the way Market-Based Management view how incentives, compensation, and motivation should be applied and the things that effectively drive employees’ actions while at work.

An incentive pay program can reward employees who continue to produce superior work or encourage employees who already produce good work to best. Sometimes, use an incentive system when employees are lack of enthusiasm of getting down to work and improving things. If everyone in the same job classification gets the same pay, there is no real incentive to do an outstanding job (French, 1990). Various incentive plans used to motivate all employees such as production staff, sales staff, administrative staff and managerial and professional staff on an individual basis. To be improved employee work performance, the incentive pay programs need to be fairly matched with the employees’ expectation. Properly designed and maintained incentive pay program has the potential to increase employees’ productivity and work performance.