Sales managers have relied on strong employee morale to boost employee productivity for years, but now there’s hard data to back up their efforts. In 2014, researchers published a study in the “The Journal of Labour Economics” that demonstrated a conclusive link between employee happiness and workplace productivity. This was the first study to prove this connection, but it solidified what the best managers have always known: high sales team morale will always bring in more business.
With that in mind, sales managers always need to find new ways to motivate their teams and increase sales productivity. Here are three ways employers can boost employee morale to create a more productive workplace:
1. Use software to communicate clearly about compensation
Open communication about how commissions will be awarded is particularly important in the sales force. It tells employees where they should focus their time, and makes it feel fair when commissions are paid out. The key to open communication around these topics is clear and precise tracking of employee’s time and their sales performance.
Inadequate tracking or the sense that sales are going unrecorded or unrecognized can quickly sap employees of their will to sell. Employees who know that ever positive act will be logged are more likely to remain positive when they have trouble making a sale. Weak or inaccurate logging of sales will damage employee morale and communicates a lack of investment from managers.
“Clear incentive plans are critical to team morale.”
2. Encourage a team atmosphere
Managers must walk a fine line when they offer incentives for a sales team. If rewards are too individualistic, some employees may feel slighted and might perform poorly as a result. If compensation is entirely team focused, the highest-performing team members might feel as though their accomplishments are not being recognized, according to Inc Magazine. Using effective compensation management software, a manager can distribute bonuses fairly.
That’s critical to encouraging a team atmosphere, because it establishes clear metrics for salespeople to hit. Visibility surrounding those metrics and the compensation provided when certain members of the team succeed should increase overall team morale as individuals compete to receive fair compensation that is acknowledged by their peers.
3. Pay employees what they are worth
A sales team is crucial to revenue generation, but upper management can become resentful of compensation costs paid to the sales force. Incentive plans and performance bonuses are important motivators for salespeople, and a decrease in the available compensation can be disastrous for sales team morale, according to LifeHealthPro.
Sales managers need to provide employees with reliable incentive plans. Any change to an employee’s compensation might diminish the employees’ trust in direct managers and the company as a whole. Consistency in a compensation plan is crucial to high employee morale and creates the feeling that a company will be successful far into the future. Iconixx’s cloud-based compensation management software application makes it easy to coordinate compensation for your sales team.
