On the Spot Employee Recognition

On the spot recognition for non-sales employees has been all the rage within HR over the last few years.  But it’s not a new recognition concept.  It has been used by the sales profession for decades! They used to call them spiffs, and they were often done with cash.  They were prevalent in the retail world for selling all kinds of hard goods.

Of all the elaborate schemes to reward and recognize superior employee performance, this might be the easiest and most effective way to do it. All you have to do is be aware of exceptional performance and on the spot say something and/or give the employee something in thanks of that performance.

As it can be difficult to use cash in this type of program, the award most often used in these on the spot programs are gift cards.   They are easy to source, you can have them at your fingertips with instant online awards available, and you don’t have to purchase the cards upfront or carry an expensive inventory of cards that just sit in a drawer waiting for you to use them. 

All employees thrive on recognition from any level of management.  Many companies even allow peers to do the recognizing.  The more you do it, the more you’re apt to see their performance continue to rise.  And when you reward them with something they can take home and immediately include the family in the recognition you have another winner.  Recognition when it comes from peers, department supervisors or executives that is taken home to the family is a powerful combination.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Simplify Sales Recognition!

The best approach to sales recognition is almost always the simplest one.  The award industry offers a vast array of awards and recognition systems from which to choose and for whatever reason sales management rarely starts their investigation of how to recognize sales people using the KISS principle.  They often choose the most complex way of handling an issue that should fundamentally be very easy and straightforward.  And in the process they commit large budget dollars to the administration of these systems, essentially taking those dollars away from getting to where they will do the most good….the salespeople themselves. 

When you think about it, recognizing sales performance should be a simple (and happy) thing to do.  But for some reason everyone wants to complicate it.

Over the years, the reward companies have dreamed up elaborate schemes to sell their awards, often priced substantially over retail.  But are these elaborate systems what you really need?  We’ve seen countless numbers of them that have feature after costly feature that are rarely used.  One of these features is a training program to teach your management how to recognize employees.  Frankly it’s a shame that has to be done.  Every sales manager should have at least the ability to thank someone for doing a good job. 

To begin, throw out the complicated stuff and just tell your managers to simply recognize salespeople for doing a good job whenever and wherever possible.  Measure the managers to make sure it gets done, and give them a budget to do it.

If you think you need to give a tangible award for sales performance there are a lot to choose from.  Having managed salespeople for years, our feeling is to let them choose the award they want. 

If you want a good one with terrific flexibility and value, we’d be happy to send you samples of two high value, low cost and easiest to implement systems in the industry.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

Are Incentives for Team Selling a Recipe for Disaster?

Well the cop out answer is no and yes.  They certainly can be if they are not well planned in the first place.  And more importantly if you don’t account for the metrics of the different departments involved, how they are measured for performance and how they are compensated, you could be headed for a calamity.

Here’s a simple example:

A sales force is challenged to sell more of their base product, let’s say a sophisticated and expensive software system.  The VP Sales offers an incentive to the sales force for incremental sales especially to new customers.  However to make the sale, the sales force must bring in service technicians because the system requires expensive implementations.  In addition engineering needs to be involved to make sure it is a proper fit and includes the proper features to do the job.  In this example lets’ assume that the sales force is responsible for managing the team.

As tradeoffs between product features and other services can exist, the sales force opts to defer features that they feel (right or wrong) can be managed by the service team, or re engineered by IT.  Sales also rely on service and engineering to ensure proposals are realistic and on budget.  Teamwork is essential.

But it may never happen.  What if the sales team is incented on gross revenue and the service team is compensated on profit margin?  And then add to the complexity that engineering earns a bonus based on project accuracy and timeliness and that bonus can grow based on overall department profitability.

In team selling, much friction can arise and has the potential to cause a loss in sales and customers, lower customer satisfaction scores and can even effect employee retention and morale.

Before you plan and implement a sales incentive activity you need to gather the department heads involved and hash out all these contingencies.  Look at the metrics across all the functioning teams and make sure your teams are incented to work together.  When all the puzzle pieces fit, you will have less likelihood of program that can fail or do great harm and ultimately be very successful.

For more information on Ultimate Choice Inc.’s products or services contact us at Ultimatechoiceinfo@cox.net

The Most Effective Methods to Control Absences

Employers use a variety of methods to control absences, all with varying results.  Commerce Clearing House does an annual survey of human resource executives on the subject of what method they feel is clients on which method they used and how effective it was for their organization.  The survey used a 5 point scale with 5 being very or most effective.  Following are the results of this survey:

Control Method Used	Effectiveness	Percent Use
Paid Leave Bank	3.5	67%
Vacation Buy Back	3.5	58%
Disciplinary Action	3.4	90%
Bonus (cash or non-cash)	3.3	57%
Verification of Illness	3.2	76%
Yearly review	3.0	79%
No fault	3.0	63%
Personal recognition	2.6	66%

It should be noted that the morale of the organization was also taken into consideration.  Overall, organizations with Good/Very Good morale rated their absence control policies and work-life programs more effective (3.7), than did their counterparts with Poor/Fair morale (2.4).

These methods are almost always used in combination with of other methods. The key for your company would be to choose a program that meets your specific needs