Archive for the “Employee Engagement” Category

It sounds so simple. Determine goals, establish rewards, measure performance, and recognize achievement. These four steps seem almost too basic to merit a blog posting. In reality, however, many organizations forget the basics. WorldatWork’s Sales Compensation Practices 2008 report, a survey of over 400 compensation and human resources managers, tells the story. 

According to the study, 76% of companies change their sales compensation plans every year. This wasn’t a surprise to me. Additionally:

• 58% of these organizations communicate these changes directly to front line sales managers.
• 14% communicate directly to the salesforce.
• 13% take a decentralized approach.
• 7% do nothing.

The fact that 42% of companies don’t communicate these changes directly to front line sales managers was a shock to me.

I share the following thoughts, not as a change management practitioner, but as a former salesperson and sales manager.

• Salespeople are reward-driven. Granted, so are lots of other people, but salespeople live and breathe for their rewards. Do not keep the potential for rewards a secret.
• If a salesperson thinks you want dohickeys pushed and widgets are a second priority, you will get it. If you changed your mind, tell their managers that compensation is now tied to widgets and not dohickeys. Don’t let there be any confusion about priorities.
• Everybody’s most important point of contact is their manager, but in sales, the point is magnified many times over because of their “remote” nature. Show the manager respect and it trickles on to the salesperson. Leave the manager out of the communication loop, morale will suffer.

I’m a little biased, but many managerial rules of thumb are magnified in sales. Salespeople are willing to achieve great things for your company, but need management basics executed particularly well. Your revenue stream and customers deserve nothing less. Leaving managers out of the communication loop makes no sense.

A lot has been written about Web 2.0 applications and their ability to build employee engagement. I agree – but my eyes are wide-open regarding publicly viewable sites. There are some less-than-noble people who are exploiting Facebook for their own purposes. Let me explain.

My daughter was recently accepted to a college on an early decision basis. One of her first moves was to search Facebook for her new class / school group. Interestingly, there were two. As it turns out, one group was formed by some new students. The other group was formed as part of a viral marketing campaign by a company interested in targeting college students. Not only had this company formed a group at my daughter’s school, they had formed a group for over 200 schools.

If you would like to see how Web 2.0 really works, this post shows how the company behind the viral marketing campaign effort was “busted.” A group of students and administrators worked together to identify, investigate and expose the program in a matter of hours. It is a fascinating read. It took the Journal of Higher Education quite a few days to catch on.

A few thoughts:

• Think twice before you start to bend the internet’s rules. You will get caught and you will be embarrassed.
• Know that somebody will be targeting your employees. A Facebook group for General Electric Finance is filled with recruiters looking for candidates and “students” looking for information about “business models.”

“Managing the message” is incredibly hard in a Web 2.0 world, but ignoring what is happening out there is not smart. Somebody in your organization needs to be responsible for watching what is happening and acting appropriately.