The Present in Sales Comp: Total Rewards

For a sales leader, building and retaining a team that drives growth is priority uno. There’s no doubt that offering a competitive salary is a great way to keep you in the running for the best candidates out there. As uncomplicated as this may sound, fairly compensating your team can turn out to be a real challenge. 

Sometimes, competing against larger organizations for experienced and skilled employees may hamper your hiring process. This is especially true for smaller and newer businesses, who simply don’t have the resources. 

So what should new players do, exactly? Go for a Total Rewards strategy!

To put it simply, total rewards are a sum of all the ways you compensate your team. This may include traditional ways to compensate employees like salary and non-traditional benefits like leadership training programs. Traditional and non-traditional offerings can also include- 

Traditional Offerings-

• Access to health insurance
• Retirement plans or aid
• Life Insurance
• Paid time off 
• Stock Options 

Non-traditional Offerings-

• Variable pay incentives- bonuses among others
• Work-life balance 
• Employee discounts
• Well being programmes
• Training 

Each component in this list holds significant importance, and when combined into a comprehensive total rewards package, it has the potential to attract and access a talent pool that was previously out of reach. Incentive compensation management empowers you to go beyond solely offering salary and effectively compete for top talent.

By doing this, it accomplishes the impossible- bringing the larger players and the new players into a similar level-playing field where they then have to actually compete to essentially be the ‘employer of choice’!

To do or not to do?

If you are still hesitating to dedicate your resources to building a Total Rewards strategy, here are a few reasons that may convince you otherwise-

1. Attracting top-talent- A strategy that can broadly satisfy employee needs and appeal to a larger set of prospective applicants will mean that you have a significantly higher chance of getting the best in the business. 

2. Employee satisfaction- Employees may get disgruntled if they feel they are not being paid enough. Disappointment may translate into poor performance and a lull in the workplace. A Total Rewards strategy implemented after consultation from your employees is the best way to counter this!

3. Employee Retention- While base pay is an important factor when an employee considers leaving their job, it is still not the only factor. Non-traditional factors may stop your employees from leaving even when they are offered lucrative packages elsewhere. 

4. A better work culture- Total Rewards lead to organizations competing for not just salary but benefits that make the workplace better for employees. In this way, it fosters healthier work spaces. 

The plan in action!

The otherwise daunting process of implementing a Total Rewards strategy can be broken down into these four simple steps- 

1. Assessment- 

The starting point should be to assess your current benefits and analyze their effectiveness in helping the company achieve the set goals. The assessment may include surveying your employees regarding- 

• Their pay, benefits and opportunities for growth and development 
• Your current policies and practices and if they are satisfied

Your assessment report should be able to answer these questions- 

• Who should be eligible for the rewards?
• What kinds of behaviors or values are to be rewarded?
• What type of rewards will work best?
• How will the company pay for this?

2. Design-

You have the assessment report! Now what? The senior management team and HR will work in collaboration to decide what the plan will look like. They will refer to the assessment report and finalize the structure of the plan. The HR team will also determine additional benefits like-

• Flexible work schedule
• Additional time off
• Training 

3. Execution- 

At this stage-

• The plan will be communicated to the team
• Training for managers will commence
• Relevant materials will be given to the employees to understand the plan

4. Evaluation-

The effectiveness of the new plan must be measured and the results communicated to company decision-makers. Based on this, modifications can be proposed to the strategy for the future. 

No matter what your Total Rewards plan looks like, you can automate your sales comp process with Kennect’s solution.

Book a demo today to know more!

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