Tips For Avoiding Issues With Your Sales Incentive Program
Utilizing a sales incentive program can be a great way of helping to spur additional productivity from your employees. However, there are many business owners that will make critical mistakes when they are creating these programs. To avoid mistakes that could compromise the effectiveness of your sales reward program, you should keep several important considerations in mind.
Avoid Having Rewards That Seem Underwhelming For The Work Involved
When deciding on rewards, business owners will often make the mistake of making rewards that are seemingly underwhelming to the employees. This can lead to individuals not particularly caring about the incentives, which can lead to the entire program failing. While you may have concerns about spending large amounts on employee rewards, it is important to consider the additional sales and revenue that they generated in response to the sales program.
Provide Recognition To Employees That Succeed In The Program
While the primary reward for succeeding in the rewards program should be the primary driver of employee participation, it is also advisable to give generous recognition to those that succeed in the program. This can help to boost morale and participation by reminding employees that they can succeed in the program as well. At the conclusion of the program, you should hold a meeting where recognition is given to those that succeeded in the program. This should include small trophies, certificates or other memorabilia. Furthermore, you may want to have a wall where the names of the top finishers in these programs are written to further increase the prestige of the program.
Keep The Reward Structure Simple
It is important to keep the structure of the incentives program as simple as possible. Otherwise, you may find that your employees are misinformed about the reward that they should receive. This can lead to them feeling slighted or cheated when they fail to get the item that they were expecting. By keeping the rules of the program simple, employees will be able to easily understand what they should expect. You can further reduce the risk of these misconceptions by providing a chart that tracks each employee's performance in the rewards program.
Have An Independent Employee Or Manager Track The Results
A robust incentives program can dramatically drive the competition between your workers. However, this can lead to suspicion and cheating. This is particularly likely in instances where the sales team members are reporting their totals to a manager or shift leader that is also eligible for the contest. You can eliminate this potential conflict by having the employees report their sales to a member of the staff that is independent and ineligible for the contest.
For more information, contact your local sales incentive programs experts.